Republican government of 1848-Poland will rest indifferent to the actual struggle, instructed by the past, and wishing to be spared, in the moment of defeat, a second infliction of the too-celebrated declaration of a Minister of Louis Philippe, "L'Ordre règne à Warsovie!"

:

Besides, even if she wished it, she is not in a position to make an effectual struggle upon the slightest manifestation of agitation in Europe, all arms, even those used merely for field sports, are taken from the Poles, with the penalty of death attached to their possession. And at this moment, is it not absolutely forbidden, under pain of three years imprisonment in a state fortress, to enrol in the duchy of Posen for the service of England the Poles, ever ready to rush to arms in the sacred cause of liberty? The consciousness of the injustice of their domination in Poland causes the spoliators of that country to take every possible measure of precaution to bind in irons and destroy an energetic nationality.

They commenced from the moment of their first usurpation, to abolish the churches and the Catholic religion, replacing the latter by their own, whose tenets may be summed up in adoration of the Czar. Again, the national laws, liberties, and privileges, the education of youth, and the Polish language, have experienced their persecuting hatred, despite of the solemn promise made by Catherine the Second, in her own name, and in that of her successors, to respect and protect them, a promise inscribed in the treaties of the period, and renewed by oath at the commencement of every succeeding reign. Behold how Russia, so captiously punctilious in the interpretation of the duties of others, fulfils her own obligations. She depopulates a country. She commenced by transporting to the Caucasus thousands of families of that class known in England as "small gentry," permitting the liberty of remaining beside their hearths only to such as consented to abandon the catholic religion for the schism of the Czar. Of ten levies of troops made in the empire, six or eight fall upon the Polish provinces. The rate of enlistment is, in Russia five, in Poland, ten in every thousand. They send these men for the greater part to Finland, to the Ourals, or to the Caucasus, where they serve during a period of twenty-four years, remote from their country, without religious succour, commanded to follow the religion of the popes (chaplains) of the Russian regiments, and forbidden to speak their native language. These men

never revisit their families, they are actually proscribed en masse, and their children are dispersed in the different Russian provinces, where they are perverted and reared up as Muscovites. The provinces of Poland are so many camps for the armies of the Czar, there arrayed in position as the advance guard against Europe, amounting in number to more than three hundred thousand men, cantoned between the Dnieper and the Oder.

Be it clear, then, that Poland will not declare for the western powers, till it be invaded by the French, English, and Turkish armies. She is a ward, kept in durance by the iron hand of a guardian, spoliator of her fortune, and of a barbarous step-mother. To possess her, you must carry her off by force, and she will then give herself to you heart and soul, and prove her gratitude all her life. In the meantime Russia, to gain Poland, or delude her, will make her fallacious promises, will cause her to speak and act for Russia's behoof, and to her own proper detriment, and you will run the risk of seeing her in the enemies' ranks, in spite of her, and as it were under protest, instead of being ranged on your side of the quarrel. She is not to be despised, and if, with the limited. resources of a district of four millions of inhabitants, we have seen eighty thousand in 1830 resist for nearly a year all the forces of Russia, and although hemmed in by two powerful enemies, conquer in pitched battles forces superior to them in number and equipment, and this without an able leader, without foreign aid, what may we not expect from the entire nation restored to its ancient boundaries, and counting thirty millions of men ?

Every year, in all the provinces submitted to Russia, the Czars confiscate hundreds of churches and convents for Catholics of both sexes, for the purpose of utilising them for the advancement of their own culte, by filling them with monks. and nuns of the schismatic sect. The Catholic seminaries are closed, and the vocation to the ecclesiastical state is so beset with difficulties, that it is almost impossible for a Pole to receive holy orders. Among the bishops hardly a tenth of their number has been constituted according to ancient rites. The connexion with the Holy See has been severed, and in that "Kingdom of Poland" established in 1815, the late Emperor Nicholas constituted the majorats with the lands confiscated from the Poles, the possession of which demands

as a first condition that the proprietor shall be of the Russian religion, and shall also build a church for the celebration of the Russian rite, in a country where none profess it except the foreign army of occupation. Russia, with a view to possess herself of the Ottoman Empire, blows loud the trumpet of an affected tolerance, while she seeks to exact religious privileges from the Turks, and imposes her hypocritical protection on the christian Greeks. But go and see in Poland the practical application in the case of Catholics of this same tolerance, and you will speedily be able to measure the extent of its sincerity. Is it not obvious that there exists in the hands of the Emperor of Russia a terrible instrument for the derangement of the plans of his enemies, and to assure to himself a powerful barrier against them, an instrument to which we cannot doubt that he would have recourse in despair of success by other means it is to re-establish in his own interest against England and France, that same Poland, of which he bears the title of king. Having three brothers, Alexander could, if need were, name one of them King of Poland, or bestow the crown by investiture, as we have seen the heirs of the Empire of Germany, and the son of Napoleon the First, receive the title of King of the Romans, or King of Rome. In re-establishing the rights of the Roman Catholic religion, he would succeed in gaining over the inhabitants. Thus the powerful weapon of which we ought to make good use would be turned against us, and the power of the Czar would be advanced still further in the neighbourhood of the west. The Russians will know that Silesia was an integral part of the old kingdom of Poland, and that many Polish monarchs were simultaneously sovereigns of Bohemia and Hungary. The necessary force would not be wanting to make available these rights, and the Czar of Muscovy would then appear as Emperor of the Sclaves. The Russians, tenaciously obstinate in their plans of aggrandizement, are possessed of a sufficiently sound judgment to turn to account the chance you leave open to them. If they are convinced that their conduct has alienated a great portion of the population of their empire, they will readily reform it, and the same hands that traced the ukases of persecution will efface them in presence of self-interest. If the Poles are not able to free themselves from that hateful triple yoke, which transforms into enemies, and foreigners to each other a homogeneous race, a nation of brothers,

they will find their lot ameliorated by restricting the number of their tyrants to one, by being united in a single family, and by the consolation that they have been avenged in the expulsion of their two other enemies, Prussia and Austria, repent ing at their leisure their share in the ruin of Poland. If the Poles cannot avenge the massacres of Praga, and of Warsaw, and the exile of their countrymen to Siberia, they will at least have avenged the victims of Galicia, of Cracow, of Leopol, and of Posen, and the tortured of Spielberg and Spandau. It is with this view that the Sclave populations lend an ear to Russia, that they may the better shake off the yoke of their German masters. In such a case, the position of Europe would be without remedy, and the Sclaves, to the number of one hundred millions, although under a yoke possessing but little attraction for them, established in the centre of Europe, would be its absolute masters. It is then for Great Britain to seize with alacrity this weapon which lies at her feet, and within easy reach, before it be too late, and not to shut her eyes to its uses, infinitely more available then all Lancaster's mortars or minié rifles. Poland, with the immense and imposing extent of her natural territory, and with thirty millions of inhabitants, can well afford to keep on foot an army of five hundred thousand combatants of the bravest. She furnishes them, even as it is, and at this very hour, to fight beneath foreign and hostile flags. Do you wish to have them against you, or with you? Would it not be the wiser part to restore, by a common accord, to her former self, and to the strength capable of efficient resistance, (thus wresting from ambition its cherished apple of discord) that unfortunate Poland for whose spoils envious neighbours dispute with each other for ages back, which they tear to pieces at the whim of every scheming congress, which has endured some fifteen dismemberments, and as many foreign masters at different epochs ? This course could but in a trifling degree weaken conterminous states, and we should be possessed of a powerful instrument to guarantee the peace of Europe; whilst we should see destroyed that fatal collusion which unites and affects to indemnify the partitioning powers, and forces them to shut their eyes to their best interest, that of their separate and individual preservation. It is then, the duty not merely of the British Parliament, but likewise of all the diplomatists and statesmen of Europe, to start the question of the re-constitution of Poland,

reflecting that the destiny of the future is in their hands, and that posterity will be at once impartial and severe in its judg ments. The propitious moment is at hand-is now; snatch it then-it will never return! Let it be declared without loss of time that you have resolved the liberation of Poland, and its independence to the utmost limit of its ancient boundaries, viz., from the Oder to the Dnieper, from the Black Sea, and the Carpathian Mountains, to the Baltic; and then, gratified in her desire of an independent existence, and capable of opposing a formidable resistance to the common enemy of repose and of humanity, she will be able to rely on her strength, and to combat for your cause, without being for ever at the mercy of her neighbours. Give to Poland, so constituted, an English or French prince, for sovereign, invested temporarily with dictatorial power, for this form of government will be for a time necessary, in presence of autocratic Russia. But hasten, we repeat, be quick, or soon it will be no longer time. The Russian does not lose his, and speedily you may find no more Poles, transformed by fallacious promises which cost nothing, and by a cautious and Machiavelian policy. Put aside the policy of these soi-disant great statesmen who following in the suite of the d'Aiguillons, the Vergennes, the Talleyrands, the Pitts and the Castlereaghs, have brought Europe to this pass. Strike a great blow, and declare to the face of the world the independence of Poland, and that you will not lay down your arms till you have assured it. Do not reckon on a peace patched up with Russia. You ought to know what treaties in her hands are worth; look them through, and you will see whether she has respected even one of them, when her interest has prompted her to infringe it.

We cannot believe that because of the fall of Sebastopol, where the allied armies sustained such terrible losses, or of some doubtful combats, or of the destruction of Bomarsund, which they have not been able to retain, or because of our naval promenades in the Baltic and the Black Sea, Russia will haul down her flag, and withdraw her projects of conquest in Turkey. And, even if she affect to yield, it will be only through the policy of reculer pour mieux sauter. In twenty years, in ten years, perhaps in five years hence, she will be seen to attempt anew the realization of her unchanging system of politics, and profit of a time more propitious to fall upon Constantinople, and extend her chances of universal dominion.