t the House of Brandenburg had some ancient pretensions to
Silesia, and had in the previous century been compelled, by hard usage
on the part of the Court of Vienna, to waive those pretensions. It is
certain that, whoever might originally have been in the right, Prussia
had submitted. Prince after prince of the House of Brandenburg had
acquiesced in the existing arrangement. Nay, the Court of Berlin had
recently been allied with that of Vienna, and had guaranteed the
integrity of the Austrian states. Is it not perfectly clear that, if
antiquated claims are to be set up against recent treaties and long
possession, the world can never be at peace for a day? The laws of all
nations have wisely established a time of limitation, after which
titles, however illegitimate in their origin, cannot be questioned. It
is felt by everybody, that to eject a person from his estate on the
ground of some injustice committed in the time of the Tudors would
produce all the evils which result from arbitrary confiscation, and
would make all property insecure. It concerns the commonwealth--so runs
the legal maxim--that there be an end of litigation. And surely this
maxim is at least equally applicable to the great commonwealth of
states; for in that commonwealth litigation means the devastation of
provinces, the suspension of trade and industry, sieges like those of
Badajoz and St. Sebastian, pitched fields like those of Eylau and
Borodino. We hold that the transfer of Norway from Denmark to Sweden was
an unjustifiable proceeding; but would the King of Denmark be therefore
justified in landing, without any new provocation, in Norway, and
commencing military operations there? The King of Holland thinks, no
doubt, that he was unjustly deprived of the Belgian provinces. Grant
that it were so. Would he, therefore, be justified in marching with an
army on Brussels? The case against Frederic was still stronger, inasmuch
as the injustice of which he complained had been committed more than a
century before. Nor must it be forgotten that he owed the highest
personal obligations to the House of Austria. It may be doubted whether
his life had not been preserved by the intercession of the prince whose
daughter he was about to plunder.

To do the King justice, he pretended to no more virtue than he had. In
manifestoes he might, for form's sake, insert some idle stories about
his antiquated claim on Silesia; but in his conversations and Memoirs he
took a v