len, and nearly two thousand villages, hamlets,
castles, and cities been destroyed.

Peace was negotiated and concluded on September 22, 1499, in the city of
Basel. The Emperor acknowledged the ancient rights and the conquests
of the Confederates, and granted to them, moreover, the ordinary
jurisdiction over Thurgau, which, with the criminal jurisdiction and
other sovereign rights, had, until then, belonged to the city of
Constance. Thenceforward the emperors thought no more of dissolving the
Confederacy, or of incorporating it with the German empire. In the
fields of Frastenz, of Malserhaide, and Dornach were laid the first
foundation-stones of Swiss independence of foreign power.

The confederated cantons thankfully acknowledged what Basel and
Schaffhausen had constantly done in these heroic days for the whole
Confederacy, and that warlike Appenzell had never been backward at the
call of glory and liberty. Therefore Basel, June 9, 1501, and flourishing
Schaffhausen, August 9, 1501, were received into the perpetual Swiss
bond, and finally, 1513, Appenzell, already united in perpetual alliance
with most of the cantons, was acknowledged as coequal with all the
Confederates.

Thus, in the two hundred fifth year after the deed of William Tell, the
Confederacy of the Thirteen Cantons was completed. But Valais and Grisons
were considered as cantons allied to the Confederacy, as were St. Gallen,
Muhlhausen, Rothweil in Swabia, and other cities--all free places,
subject to no prince--united with the Swiss by a defensive alliance.

At that period, the thirteen cantons of the Swiss Confederacy were not
yet, as now, equal in virtue of the bond, nor bound together directly by
one and the same covenant. They were properly united only with the three
cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, as with a common centre, but
among themselves by special treaties. Each canton was attentive to its
own interests and glory, seldom to those of the others or to the welfare
of the whole Confederacy. Fear of the ambition and power of neighboring
lords and princes had drawn them together more and more. So long as this
fear lasted, their union was strong.

As the governments were independent of each other so far as their
covenants allowed, and of foreign princes also, they called themselves
free Swiss. But within the country districts there was little freedom for
the people. Only in the shepherd cantons--Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden,
also Zug, G