An excursion of Charles II into the Highlands in 1650, with the object of escaping from the Scottish Presbyterians, of whose loyalty he was somewhat doubtful, and also of raising a force in the Highlands to support him, in which he was entirely unsuccessful. States-General (France). An assembly of the three estates of the realm, nobles, clergy and commoners, first summoned in 1302 by Philip the Fair. States-General (Netherlands). The general congress of the estates of the various provinces forming the Netherlands. Its chief business was financial, as through it alone could the Sovereign legally obtain supplies. States’ Rights. A political doctrine in the United States, which maintains that the Federal State is not a sovereign state, but that its acts require ratification by the individual States forming the Union, who are thus at liberty to disregard its enactments if they consider them unconstitutional. Thus South Carolina, in 1832, “nullified” an Act of Congress relating to import duties, and the doctrine was held in 1860 to justify the secession of the Southern States. Status quo ante. A term used to express the return after a war to the position occupied by the belligerents before the war broke out. Statutes. _See_ Apparel, Apprentices, Carlisle, Donis, Drogheda, Fines, Hæretico, Kilkenny, Labourers, Liveries, Mercatoribus, Præmunire, Provisors, Quia Emptores, Rhudlann, Stabbing, Stamford, Staples, Submission, Tallagio, Treason, Uses, Wales, Westminster, Wills, Winchester. Steelboys. An Irish agrarian society, formed in 1772 in Down and Antrim, chiefly on the estates of the Marquis of Donegal, where there had been wholesale evictions. Very serious outrages were perpetrated, and it was found necessary to try prisoners in Dublin. Steelyard, Merchants of the. A guild of German merchants established in England in the fourteenth century. They were formed into a guild in order that they might be kept under Government supervision. Stellaland. A republic in South Africa, formed by a party of Boer adventurers who had supported Massouw, a Battapin chief, against Mankoroane, in 1882. Two years later it was annexed by Great Britain, and incorporated in British Bechuanaland. Stockenström Treaties. A series of treaties made by Sir Andries Stockenström with the Gaika and Fingo chiefs in 1836, after the sixth Kaffir war, by which the boundaries were fixed between British territory and the Kaffir country. Stockholm, Treaty of, 1719. A treaty between Great Britain and Sweden, by which Sweden surrendered the Duchies of Bremen and Verden to George I, in return for a payment of one million rix-dollars. Stockholm, Treaty of, 1812.