The Samoan Convention declared the Samoan Islands to be neutral territory. The citizens and subjects of the signatory powers will enjoy equal rights and the independence of the islands is recognized with Malietou as king: Jan., 1890. Footnote 23: The whole history of the French in the East is indissolubly bound up with the history of their efforts to destroy our Eastern supremacy. Mauritius was occupied to enable French cruisers to prey on our East Indiamen. Louis XIV. volunteered armed aid to Annam in order to cut off Calcutta from Canton. A French occupation of Tonkin is a serious matter. French cruisers supplied with coal from the mines of Tonkin would lie in the fairway of our China trade, Burmah and Calcutta would be effectually blockaded, and our outlying Oriental possessions grievously threatened (C. B. Norman’s “Tonkin and France in the Far East”). Footnote 24: The inhabitants of the eastern region refuse to recognize the Chinese authority. China cannot control the people of Formosa at all. There is a proverb, “Every three years an outbreak, every five a rebellion.” Footnote 25: In 1873 a Japanese vessel was wrecked on the eastern coast of Formosa and the crew massacred by the savages. The Japanese Government sent an expedition which was perfectly successful. Eighteen of the tribes in Formosa were defeated and subjugated. Footnote 26: The Russian frontier has been advanced toward Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Vienna, and Paris— about 700 miles Towards Constantinople about 500 miles Towards Stockholm about 630 miles Towards Teheran about 1000 miles Towards Peshawar about 1300 miles Footnote 27: E. Schuyler’s “Peter the Great,” vol. ii. p. 592. Footnote 28: “The separation of the Church of England from that of Rome, formally accomplished under Henry VIII., was a political and legal rather than a religious reformation. The doctrinal changes followed under Edward VI. and Elizabeth” (Taswell-Langmead’s “English Constitutional History,” p. 399). Footnote 29: “In the sixteenth century all Europe was aghast at the designs of Philip II. of Spain. He had the great mines of the New World, or at least levied a heavy tax on their produce. He seemed to be possessed of inexhaustible riches. He was baffled, beaten, made bankrupt by the Dutch, in whose country there was not an ounce of natural gold or silver, who got all their money by trade, were rapidly becoming the richest nation of Europe when Philip had ruined Spain and brought down the Genoese traders, on his declaring himself bankrupt” (J. E. Thorold Rogers’s, “The Economic Interpretation of History,” p. 95). Footnote 30: