justice of which might well have been felt intolerable by a proud and self-respecting people. In January of this year, the Russian Government revived by an ukase the system of conscription, which, having been in former times practised in Poland, had been abolished by the Emperor Nicholas, and under which, instead of allowing a free drawing of lots, the Government assumed the right of arbitrarily selecting any young men it chose from the population of the cities, and compelling them to serve in the Russian army. Lord Napier, our ambassador at St. Petersburg, described it as "a design to make a clean sweep of the revolutionary youth of Poland; to shut up the most energetic and dangerous spirits in the restraints of the Russian army; it was simply a plan to kidnap the opposition, and carry it off to Siberia or the Caucasus." At midnight on the 14th of January, police agents and soldiers commenced the work in Warsaw, surrounding the residences of those whom the Government had marked for forcible conscription, and compelling them to leave their homes in order to enter the military service.* 2,500 men were thus carried off in the course of the night. So outrageous an act goaded the wretched people into open resistance. The flame of insurrection burst out simultaneously in various parts of the Grand Duchy of Poland. The operations of the bands that appeared in arms were directed, so far as possible, by a mysterious authority known as the "Central Committee," whose proclamations were circulated everywhere, whose orders were seldom disobeyed, but the composition and locality of which were involved in the deepest obscurity. Betaking themselves to the forests, which cover so large a portion of the surface of Poland, the insurgents commenced a guerrilla warfare against the Russian troops, cutting off small detachments, intercepting supplies, and even occasionally defeating considerable bodies of men. The most noted leader among them, in the early portion of the movement, was Langiewicz, formerly a follower of Garibaldi; his name flew through Europe, and the friends of Poland were prepared to see in him a Sobieski or a Kosciusko. Suddenly, however, actuated by motives of which we do not remember to have seen an adequate explanation, Langiewicz abandoned his comrades, and, going to Cracow, gave himself up to the Austrian authorities. All through the year the insurrection raged, and was watched with keen interest by the Governments of all the great Powers. England and France were openly, and, so far as words went, strenuously, sympathetic with the movement; Austria simply looked on; Prussia alone, whose policy was guided by the vast conceptions and large forecast of the Count von Bismarck, heartily joined Russia in the work of repression, concluded a secret treaty with her for this purpose, assisted her defeated soldiers with food and arms, and gave up Poles who crossed her frontier to the Russian authorities. How this policy was afterwards requited by a friendly neutrality on the part of Russia, at times when Prussia was engaged in struggles imperilling her very existence, and "Annual Register" for 1863. which, but for such neutrality, could not but have involved her in disaster, we shall understand in the sequel. The misfortunes of Poland led to one of those diplomatic and didactic interventions of which England about this time was so liberal, and of which the issue was so invariably and so notoriously unfortunate. Earl Russell wrote (March 2nd, 1863) in a somewhat curt style of remonstrance to our minister at St. Petersburg, Lord Napier, setting forth the view of the British Government concerning the rights of the Poles under the Treaty of Vienna, maintaining the right of England, as a party to that treaty, to interfere, with a view to the sincere execution and fulfilment of its stipulations, declaring that since the time of the Emperor Alexander I. Russia had broken faith with Poland in withholding the free institutions which had been promised, and concluding with the demand that a general amnesty should be proclaimed, and the just political reforms required by the Poles conceded. Prince Gortschakoff, "acting in a spirit of conciliation," declined to send a written reply to Earl Russell's dispatch, but expressed to Lord Napier, in conversation, his views upon its principal clauses. The substance of what he said was as follows:-Referring to the text of the Treaty of Vienna, he denied that the pledges which Russia had then given to Poland had been in any way broken. The treaty bound Russia, Prussia, and Austria, the three partitioners or co-parceners of crushed Poland, to confer upon the Poles representation and national institutions; but in the same clause of the treaty it was stated that such institutions should be "regulated by the form of political existence which their respective Governments shall judge it to be useful and convenient to grant to them." Now there were different forms of representative polity, different moulds, varying with the genius and circumstances of particular nations, which national institutions might assume. It did not follow, because one type of representative government succeeded in England, that the same type would be applicable or beneficial to a country the antecedents and circumstances of which were widely different. The Emperor Alexander I. had, it was true, in the excess of his sanguine benevolence, attempted to carry out the treaty by granting to Poland institutions modelled in a considerable degree after the English type. But how had the imperial goodness been repaid by the ungrateful Poles? They had burst out in open insurrection in 1830, and having been then subdued by Russia by main force, had in strictness lost all right of appealing to the stipulations in their favour contained in the Treaty of Vienna. Upon this point, however, the prince did not desire to insist, but he maintained that the institutions which Poland had enjoyed for many years were national in the fullest sense; the directing minister (Marquis Wielopolski) was a Pole, and entertained national sentiments of the most decided character; the council of administration was composed of Poles; and with regard to representation, there was a council of state, "embodying some representative elements" (what a beautiful vagueness in this delicate phrase!), in which general laws for the welfare of the kingdom were elaborated. The truth was, that while the 35 peasantry, and the larger and zounder portion of the effected for Poland by going to war? Russia could not nobility, were sincerely and loyally attached to the Russian Government, there was a considerable population in the towns, and also a minority of the nobles, who were corrupted by the poison of revolutionary passions, and nourished the guilty desire of separating Poland from Russia's paternal sway; these revolutionists had been plotting an insurrection; and it was with the humane view of disconcerting their schemes, and averting the bloodshed and suffering which a rising in arms would have entailed on the country, that the Government had resorted to the late conscription, in order to disperse and render harmless the ringleaders of sedition. With regard to an amnesty, the Poles must first lay down their arms, and then they would experience in the fullest measure the effects of that clemency which animated the paternal heart of the Emperor. Earl Russell, in reply, urged with considerable force, that representative and national institutions, during the existence of which 2,000 young men had been seized arbitrarily in the night, and condemned to serve as soldiers in the Russian army, in defiance of justice and positive law, could not well be regarded by the people which enjoyed them as satisfactory or sufficient. But, in fact, there was a radical and fundamental difference of view between the two Governments, and no exchange of diplomatic notes could bring them much nearer to each other. Wherefore it was significantly asked by the Russian ambassador, Baron Brunow, whether the communication Her Majesty's Government was about to make at St. Petersburg was of a pacific nature. Earl Russell replied that the British Government had no intentions that were otherwise than pacific; yet vaguely intimated that this might not always be the case; the state of things might change; " and if the horrors of the insurrectionary war were continued and aggravated, “ dangers and complications might arise not at present in contemplation." 66 be attacked by land on a grand scale unless with the consent and co-operation of Prussia or Austria, which on the present occasion there was no chance of obtaining. By sea she was, indeed, more or less vulnerable, both in the Baltic and the Black Sea. But in the Baltic, the experience of the Crimean War was not encouraging, for the damage inflicted by the English fleets had been out of all proportion to the immense expense incurred; and in the Black Sea, since Sebastopol had been dismantled, it could scarcely be said that there was anything worth attacking, or the attack on which could much affect the progress of the struggle in Poland. At any rate, as a war undertaken for Poland must be mainly naval, and France had not a particularly strong navy, it would be absurd to undertake it unless in alliance with England. It was thus that the Emperor probably reasoned; and with regard to the latter point-the assistance of England— -we shall presently see that there was no serious thought at any time of rendering it, unless in the form of those edifying moral lectures upon the duties of government which Earl Russell so liberally and perseveringly dispensed, and which foreign countries treated with such unaccountable disregard. Moved, however, it would seem, by the representations which reached him from almost every civilised nation, the Emperor of Russia did, in April, proclaim an amnesty, by which he held out the offer of a "free pardon to all those of our subjects in the kingdom implicated in the late troubles, who have not incurred the responsibility of other crimes and misdemeanours committed on service in the ranks of the army, and who may, before the 1st [13th] May, lay down their arms and return to their allegiance." But the Central Committee (which now called itself the Provisional Government) called upon all true Poles to reject the "pretended amnesty," seeing that "it was not with the intention of obtaining more or less liberal institutions that we took up arms, but to get rid of the detested yoke of a foreign Government, and to reconquer our ancient and complete independence." Language such as this was, of course, taken advantage of by the Russian Government, and adduced, in its communications with foreign Governments, as evidence that what the insurgents wanted was not reform, but revolution. But Earl Russell had by this time formulated, in concert with Austria and with the knowledge of France, the plan for the regeneration of Poland which he had been long meditating, and was now prepared to propose for the acceptance of the Russian Government. The plan, as unfolded in his despatch of the 17th June, comprised the following six points or articles : 1. A complete and general amnesty. 2. National representation in a form resembling that which had been granted by Alexander I. 3. A distinct national administration, carried on by Poles, and possessing the confidence of the country. 4. Full and entire liberty of conscience, involving the repeal of the restrictions imposed on Catholic worship. 5. The Polish language to be recognised in the kingdom as the official language, and used as such in the courts of law and in the schools. Referring to this critical moment of the negotiations, the Times, in its "Summary for the year 1863," after stating that Prince Gortschakoff about this time showed 6. The establishment of a regular and legal system of signs of yielding, proceeds, "It had transpired, however, recruiting. in the course of the discussion, that England would neither follow the lead of France, nor allow herself under any circumstances to be drawn into a war in defence of Poland. The Russian Government consequently assumed a defiant tone," &c., &c. The propositions of the three Powers were quietly ignored; Russia proceeded in her task of restoring order by the methods familiar to despotic Governments, and the fate of Poland was sealed. All these reforms were just and desirable per se; but to propose them was tantamount to an interference in the internal politics of a foreign state which an ordinary statesman, in whom philanthropy did not outrun common sense, would have thought it idle to attempt, unless he intended to enforce his interference at the point of the sword. Prince Gortschakoff, had he thought it worth while, might have proposed to the British Government points such as these (we merely mention them as illus- Certainly there was no obligation arising out of previous trations, without expressing any opinion of their desir- treaties or relations, which could make it incumbent on ability)-1. The establishment of religious equality in Great Britain to go to war on behalf of Poland: it may Ireland. 2. The repeal of the law which excludes even be said that the national sentiment would have conCatholics from the office of Lord Lieutenant. 3. The demned, and rightly condemned, any Government which atreform of the Irish judicial system, by the admission tempted to commit it to an armed intervention, keen as was of Catholics to the highest judicial post, from which the sympathy, and just the indignation, with which the they were then excluded.* One can fancy the struggles of the one side, and the tyranny of the other, were look of stupefaction and disgust with which such a regarded by Englishmen. But then it was due to the honour dispatch would have been perused in Downing Street, and dignity of the nation that the line within which its inand with what promptitude, diplomatic civility barely terference would be limited should be clearly traced from veiling contempt, the Russian Government would have the first; there ought to have been no possibility of been invited to mind its own business. Nor could it be mistake. Had Earl Russell distinctly intimated all expected that Prince Gortschakoff, on his side, would along that under no possible circumstances would England return an answer substantially different, although the take up arms, the Polish insurgents would have known simultaneous pressure which France and even Austria that they had nothing but good wishes to expect from us, were bringing to bear upon the Russian Government and other Powers would have appreciated the diplomatic caused the rejection of the six points to be conveyed in efforts of the Foreign Minister at their exact value. It language studiously measured and urbane. "The Princi- was cruel to talk to Baron Brunow about the possibility pal Secretary of State of Her Britannic Majesty," said that "the state of things might change," and to intimate Prince Gortschakoff, writing in July, "will dispense us that if the struggle went on, " dangers and complications from giving an answer to the proposed arrangement for might arise not at present in contemplation," because a suspension of hostilities. It would not resist a serious such language, vague as it was, tended to induce the examination of the conditions necessary for carrying it belief that, under certain circumstances, England might into effect." Turning the tables on the remonstrating take up arms. Lord Russell, doubtless, knew just as Powers, he said that the speedy re-establishment of order well then as subsequently that England never would go depended greatly "upon the resolution of the great to war for Poland; but perhaps he thought that Powers not to lend themselves to calculations on which thing would turn up;" he was playing, if it be not the instigators of the Polish insurrection found their irreverent to say so, a kind of diplomatic game of "brag," expectation of an active intervention in favour of their and reckoned on the Russian Government's being frightexaggerated aspirations." ened by bold words into a concession of what was demanded. England was thus made to appear before the nations as playing a somewhat unworthy part; and, unfortunately, as we shall presently see in the case of Schleswig-Holstein, this was not the last opportunity given to Lord Russell of exercising the peculiar species of intervention of which he was a master. The end of the diplomatic comedy was not far off. The Emperor Napoleon, observing that the views of the three Powers-England, France, and Austria-as expressed in their communications to their representatives at St. Petersburg, were not precisely in accord, proposed to the other two Courts to take, in the form of a convention or protocol, an engagement to pursue in concert a regulation of Polish affairs, by diplomatic methods, or otherwise, if necessary.† The meaning of these words plainly was, that if diplomatic methods failed, the three Powers would not shrink from the arbitrament of war, in order to compel Russia to do justice to Poland. "Our proposition," the statement quoted from drily continues, "was not accepted." * Two of these "grievances" have been since removed. † French Official Statement: "Annual Register" for 1863, p. 222. 66 some. The task of repressing the insurrection in Poland was now committed to General Mouravieff, known for the siege and capture of Kars. He is charged with having authorised the perpetration by the soldiery of acts of barbarous cruelty in Lithuania; but it is fair to say that the Russians charged the insurgents with the commission of frightful excesses; and in the absence of precise information as to the conduct of both parties, it is better to suspend our judgment. In Russia itself, a feeling of indignation against the insurgents, amounting to hatred, A.D. 1863.] OPPRESSION OF THE POLES. displayed itself among the population, and found expression in loyal addresses presented to the Czar by the nobility and merchants of St. Petersburg. The sternest severity was resorted to, wherever there was any opening for it, by the Russian authorities. This was notably illustrated when an attempt was made to assassinate General Berg, who had just been appointed military commander of Warsaw. The occurrence took place on the 19th September. "He was driving through the Cracow suburbs, and had just reached a large building which formed part of the Zamoyski Palace, when shots were 37 the building, but from the opposite side of the street." * Even to wear the customary mourning for the dead was forbidden, an order being issued at Warsaw, on the 27th September, prohibiting the wearing of mourning in memory of those who had fallen in the insurrection. One of the last successes gained by the insurgents was on the 3rd of the same month, when Lelewel, at the head of 700 Poles, attacked and defeated a superior Russian force. But he was soon overpowered by a combined movement of Russian columns; Lelewel himself was killed, and his followers driven over the frontier fired, and some bombs were thrown (whether from the building or not is uncertain, for the Russian and Polish accounts are at direct variance on this point), and they burst in front of his carriage, without injuring any one. The proprietor of the Zamoyski Palace (which contained, besides rich furniture, some invaluable manuscripts relative to the early history of Poland) was at the time absent, and resident in Paris. But this did not save his property from destruction. Russian troops were ordered to surround the palace, and everything which they could lay their hands upon was thrown out of the windows, and committed to the flames. Both it and the adjoining building were then confiscated, and turned into military barracks. Nothing, however, was discovered to implicate any one either in or connected with the palace; and the Poles assert that the bombs were thrown, not from into Galicia. Czuchowski, the last of the Polish leaders of any eminence, was defeated at Radom, on the 6th November, and taken prisoner in a wounded and dying condition. The insurrection was practically at an end; and to reward the loyalty or neutrality of the Polish peasantry, the Emperor relieved them, by an ukase published in the February of the following year, of the burden of the prescriptive feudal rights of the nobles, to which their tenure had hitherto been subject. Pacific modes of obtaining redress were not invariably preferred by Earl Russell. When an act of vigour could be performed which did not risk involving the country in war, he was ready to perform it. Thus he justified the conduct of the English envoy at Rio Janeiro, Mr. Christie "Annual Register," 1863. who had instructed (January 2nd, 1863) the British naval commander on the station to seize several Brazilian merchant vessels, in reprisal for the pillage of the Prince of Wales, an English merchant ship. This ship was wrecked in the province of Rio Grande in 1861; the natives pillaged the wreck, and were said to have assassinated some of the crew. Much angry correspondence ensued; the Brazilian Government dismissed two of its officials for want of promptitude in the matter, and prosecuted to conviction eleven other offenders; but the British Government still considered that more vigorous measures should have been taken, in order to prevent such outrages for the future, not less than to punish the actual offenders. A claim for compensation on account of the pillage of the cargo was advanced by the British Government; this claim seems to have been regarded in Brazil as excessive, and a similar view was certainly taken by several speakers, when the matter was debated in the House of Commons. Mr. Christie was then instructed to propose arbitration, but accompanied with conditions which the Brazilian Government thought it inconsistent with their honour to accept. Reprisals were then authorised to be made, and were carried out as above stated. The Brazilian Government then paid the sum demanded under protest, and a rupture of diplomatic relations between the two countries ensued. Another matter which had caused ill feeling-the unwarrantable arrest of three officers belonging to a British frigate, the Forte, by a guard of Brazilian police-had been referred to the arbitration of the King of the Belgians, who pronounced his opinion (June 18th, 1863), that in the mode in which the laws of Brazil had been applied towards the English officers, there was neither premeditation of offence nor offence given to the British navy. Before we turn our eyes to America, and survey the important events of which that continent was this year the theatre, various occurrences of domestic interest require to be noticed. In February, two American ships, the George Griswold and the Achilles, laden with flour, the gift of Americans to the Lancashire fund for the relief of the distressed operatives, arrived in the Mersey. It was a gift gracefully made and happily timed, and called forth warm-hearted demonstrations of gratitude, the commander of the George Griswold being presented with an address by the Chamber of Commerce at Liverpool, expressive of thankfulness for the munificent gift. In connection with this subject of the Relief Fund, the reader may be glad to hear to what a magnitude it had grown in April of this year. Mr. Wilson Patten, one of the members for South Lancashire, stated in the House of Commons, on the 27th April, that the total sum raised up to that time amounted to £2,735,000, apportioned as follows: the Central Relief Committee, £959,000; in clothing and provisions, £108,000; subscriptions from different localities, £306,000; private charity, £200,000; Mansion House Committee, £482,000; Poor Law Board, £680,000. Of this sum, the county of Lancaster contributed £1,480,000. At the same date there was a gross balance in hand of £845,000. Towards the end of February, there was great agitation among the well-wishers and ill-wishers of the Church of England, on account of a suit brought in the Chancellor's Court at Oxford by the Rev. Dr. Pusey against Professor Jowett, charging him with having maintained heresy in certain of his published writings, particularly in the publication so well known as "Essays and Reviews." The Assessor, Mr. Mountague Bernard, after hearing the case fully argued, gave judgment. He first of all overruled the exception which the defendant had made to the jurisdiction of the Court; and then, after examining the statute under which he thought himself empowered to try the case, he decided that it was so vague in its terms as to leave him, in his opinion, a discretionary power whether to proceed to judgment or not; in the exercise of which power he declined to let the case go forward. Notice was given of appeal against this judgment, but the intention was afterwards abandoned. The merits, or rather the exact nature, of the controversy of which this suit was a symptom, we shall endeavour to appreciate in a later chapter, devoted to a review of the history of theology in England during the last twenty years. The officials whose business it was to see that the provisions of the Foreign Enlistment Act were not infringed were resolved not to be a second time caught napping, as in the case of the Alabama. There was a three-masted wooden steamer, the Alexandra, being built at Liverpool. The rumour ran that it was being fitted out for warlike purposes, and was destined for the Confederate navy. The Commissioners of Customs accordingly seized the vessel before completion. The owners disputed the legality of the seizure, and the case was tried by Chief Baron Pollock, guided by whose interpretation of the Foreign Enlistment Act the jury brought in a verdict against the Government. An appeal against the verdict. was dismissed by the superior Court. But the failure of the prosecution against the owners was a matter of little moment when set against the practical evidence afforded to America, by the seizure of the Alexandra, of the determination of the Government, so far as the means at their disposal allowed, to compel individual Britons to observe that neutrality which was the unalterable choice of the nation. In June, a civic entertainment of unusual splendour was given in the Guildhall, on the occasion of the Prince of Wales taking up his freedom. The son of a freeman, as all the world knows, is himself a freeman; and as the Prince Consort had been invested with the City franchise, the Prince of Wales came into the same privilege by inheritance; but ancient use and wont require that just as in feudal times the heir to a fief was called upon on his father's death, "relevare hereditatem," to take up the inheritance (paying a round sum on the occasion under the name of a "relief" to the superior lord), so the son of a deceased freeman should "take up his freedom" that is, apply for and receive formal admission to and registration on the list of the burgesses. A ball was selected as the occasion on which this ancient ceremony should be performed. The Prince and Princess arrived at the Guildhall soon after nine, accompanied by Prince Alfred, in his lieutenant's uniform, and several other |