I beg further to inform your Lordship that martial law has again been proclaimed throughout the Kingdom of Poland.

Earl Russell.

I have, &c.

EDWD. STANTON.

(Inclosure 1.)-Extract from the Official "Gazette" of January (Translation.) 26, 1863.

On the night of the 22nd January, bands of rebels attacked the scattered detachments of troops dispersed in various places in the Kingdom of Poland; these bands were armed with firelocks, revolvers, knives, scythes, &c.

In Plock the attack was made at night, and was repulsed: the troops lost two men, taking about 50 armed rebels; the latter succeeded in carrying away their dead and wounded, favoured by the darkness of the night.

In Plonsk an armed band attacked at midnight the 3rd company of the regiment of Mourom: the attack was repulsed, 20 soldiers were wounded, the assailants lost 3 killed, 4 wounded, 44 prisoners, and about 200 stand of arms.

In the village of Jedlno, near Radom, the 4th company of the 2nd battalion of sappers was attacked at 2 A.M.; the rebels entered the houses where the soldiers slept, and by surprise and intimidation took possession of their arms and ammunition: from information obtained in the village, and from two prisoners, it appears that the rebels numbered 140.

At 1 P.M. in the small town of Bodzentyn, in the neighbourhood of the ancient convent of St. Croix, on the church bell ringing, a number of rebels attacked the troops in their sleep; the soldiers mounting guard or on duty belonging to the 2nd rifle company of the Smolensk regiment, and one officer, were either killed or severely wounded the company assembled and proceeded in the direction of Kielce; the rebels also had some casualties, but their number is unknown. Two carts with arms were captured from them.

Major Rüdiger, commanding the 1st battalion of the Mohileff regiment of infantry, received about midnight the intelligence of the approach of armed bands near Szydlowietz. About 2 A.M. he ordered the assembly: the rebels having commenced firing, and the night being very dark, and it being difficult to manoeuvre in the narrow streets, he retired about half a verst on the road to Radom : at 7 A. M. the troops reoccupied the town, the rebels moving away on the high road towards Kielce in the direction of the forest; in the skirmish two soldiers were killed, 9 wounded, of whom two are since dead, and 8 are missing; 40 prisoners were taken with their arms, but the dead and wounded were carried away.

From the Government of Lublin the following information has been received :—

On the morning of the 23rd January, at 4 A.M., the rebels attacked the artillery park at Lubartow, but were repulsed by the 9th company of the Vologda regiment. 20 prisoners were taken. The officer commanding the company, an officer of gendarmes, and several soldiers, were wounded.

Movable Park No. 2 was attacked at Koden, and the Commander of the park taken prisoner; two companies of infantry were

sent to their assistance.

In the village of Buhowo 20 armed rebels were taken, but were liberated by a fresh band of insurgents. A detachment of lancers has been sent in that direction.

In the town of Radzyn, at midnight, bands of rebels attacked the troops in their quarters, who lost 5 killed and 7 wounded; among the latter, Major-General Kannabich, commanding the brigade, and Lieutenant-Colonel Meibaum, commanding a battery. The rebels were repulsed.

At the village of Stok, at 31 versts from Siedlce, an armed band attacked the 10th company of the Kostroma regiment; the commander of the company and a large portion of the men were at that time on guard at Siedlce. The troops defended themselves, and 3 having been shut up in a house were, after a desperate defence, burnt with the house. Troops having come to their rescue, the rebels abandoned the village, and fled on country carts that were awaiting them. The loss of the troops was 7 killed, 5 wounded, and 55 prisoners; 3 carts with scythes and other arms were also taken.

At Lukow the rebels, having a force of 300 foot and 50 horse, attacked, at 2 A.M., two companies (Nos. 5 and 8) of the Kostroma regiment. The sentries were killed; and the rebels having opened fire on the troops, these two companies were drawn up in front of the wall opposite to the monastery. A company was sent to Lukow from the neighbouring village of Mroczek.

In the town of Biala, Major-General Mamaieff, commanding the 2nd Brigade of Horse Artillery, having obtained early information of the approach of armed bands, assembled his troops. The rebels having heard of this, fled; 11 prisoners were taken, of whom 9 were armed.

In the Government of Warsaw an armed band proceeded to attack a company of the Vitebsk Regiment near Radomsk. The officer commanding the company has sent 7 armed prisoners, who were seized by the peasants in that neighbourhood.

Two non-commissioned officers of the 1st battalion of sappers, and 28 privates, marching on the 23rd instant near Groiec, were attacked by an armed band; 3 privates were severely wounded, the two non-commissioned officers slightly, and one man is missing. After the first shots had been fired the band ran away, leaving

behind them a cart with two horses, a saddle-horse, and 3 rifles, a fourth having been found on the highway; the men sitting in the cart effected their escape.

(Inclosure 2.)-Extract from the Official "Gazette" of January (Translation.) 27, 1863.

THE following particulars are collected from various military reports lately received:

General Siemeka has effected a reconnaissance in the forests of Plonsk with 3 columns. No armed bands have been met with in that locality. Single insurgents have been met with and taken, mostly inhabitants of Warsaw; they were exhausted, hungry, and ragged, mostly very young men, and had abandoned their companions for the purpose of returning to Warsaw; some of them even declared it to be their intention to report themselves to the authorities after their return and plead guilty. 18 men were taken in this forest.

The depositions of these and other prisoners concur in showing that these bands consist of men who were enticed to leave Warsaw

by persons unknown to them, who persuaded them that all males from 16 to 30 were to be made recruits, desiring them to proceed in the direction either of Blonie or of Serock.

At these places they found commanders whose names are not known to them, as they called each other by their initials. By these they were conducted into the forests, and told that they were to assist in the formation of a national army; good food, pay, and arms being promised them, none of which were found them. Their rations consisted of bread and raki, and it was only by threats of capital punishment that they were induced to follow their leaders.

From this it may be gathered that the majority of stragglers are the victims of the Red party, whom in this as in so many other instances it has deluded by misrepresentations into serving as a nucleus for a supposed insurrection. The peasants steadily refuse to take a part in the movement, and such landowners as give the insurgents any assistance in the shape of food or money, or conceal any of them, do so under the terrorism of the Revolutionary party. The movement consists exclusively of small landed proprietors, the lower class of officials, and of upper farm servants.

The defeat of the insurgents at Plock and Plonsk has had the result to dishearten and demoralize them. No large band has since been discovered in these localities or in the neighbourhood of Modlin; on the contrary, the men taken in the large forests situated near those places are all of them deserters from different bands which have disappeared.

No. 20.-Lord Napier to Earl Russell.-(Received February 16.) (Extract.) St. Petersburgh, February 7, 1863.

THE official journal of the 4th instant contained the inclosed article, which embodies an authoritative apology for the policy of the Russian Government in the matter of the recruitment in Poland.

The Russian Government admit that the method of recruitment by arbitrary selection is an "abnormal" measure, that it can scarcely be reconciled with the notions of strict legality; but the Government contend that this measure is forced upon authority in selfdefence, that it is the consequence of that permanent revolutionary agitation of which Poland is the instrument and scene, not the primary cause of the revolt which has broken out in that country.

If we lock to the extent and organization of the present revolutionary movement in Poland, it seems highly probable that it has been long premeditated. It does not appear to be the work merely of men driven to desperation by the prospect of seizure, or of those actually torn by the military violence of the Russian Government from their homes. It has all the aspect of a systematic, well-laid scheme. It is the fruit of a wide-spread conspiracy, set in motion and armed from abroad. The military recruitment enforced by the Russian Government has been the opportunity, not the first instigation. It probably forced on the explosion prematurely, by threatening to carry off a number of persons embarked in the revolutionary cause, and it may have placed at the disposal of the revolutionary leaders a number of persons who would not have appeared in arms unless they had been threatened with the deprivation of their personal freedom.

The Russian Government avow that their authority cannot be maintained by strict legality. "Legality," they say, "is our death;" and they confess that the recruitment was to be employed as the means of dispersing, gagging, and shutting up their political adversaries.

In my humble opinion neither the previous existence of the conspiracy nor the object of breaking up the revolutionary organization can justify the measure of arbitrary recruitment. This measure seems to me to violate all the principles of justice and policy, and to be of very doubtful efficacy in a material point of view. The Government of Russia is no longer founded on the reign of mere brute force. It makes a public and incessant appeal to the sympathies of Europe, and it has nowhere greater need of this moral. support than in the administration of Poland. During the last two years several measures have been inaugurated both in the Empire and in the Polish Kingdom, which have earned for the Russian Sovereign the good will of all reasonable friends of human progress, and have inspired in the commercial and financial classes of Europe

some confidence in the solidity and morality of the Russian Government. But the exercise of arbitrary military violence in connection with the recruitment is out of all keeping with these humane and intelligent tendencies. It is an exception so flagrant and offensive to the general system that it tends to shake the public faith in the sincerity and consistency of the Government, and awakens unpleasant apprehensions of its future policy in other respects. But, indeed, the course followed by Government was peculiarly unhappy, in this, that it not only sanctioned a superannuated and reactionary measure, but it actually repealed or suspended a good law, that of 1859, for the purpose of putting in operation the barbarous enactments of an earlier period. No success in capturing political antagonists, no mere material gain, could counterbalance the loss of moral sympathy which would necessarily attend the prosecution of such a course, even if it had been pacifically and successfully carried out.

If, on the other hand, the Russian Government had carried into effect the provisions of the equitable law of military conscription promulgated in 1859, and had in so doing provoked resistance on the part of the Polish people, the Government would have had on its side the sympathies of observant and intelligent Europe; for reasoning men will admit that an army must be raised, and that Poland must contribute to it, and they would have recognized that the system applied in Poland was of a humane and more civilized character than that which was exercised in the Empire proper.

The Government have not only, in a moral point of view, committed a great error, but have positively lost an opportunity of gaining a great advantage.

The Russian Government flatters itself that they will confirm their material position by effecting the military levy, and even by provoking and suppressing the insurrection, for they have forced their enemies into the light, and will be able to strike them in greater numbers and on a wider field.

Many patriotic Poles will, no doubt, be killed or sent to the Asiatic provinces, or laid in life-long military bondage, and the material strength of the Revolutionary party may be diminished for a time; but for every patriot slain, silenced, or shut up, a hundred may perhaps be created in the new generation, which will succeed to a fresh inheritance of animosities and vengeance. Nor will the Government be able to lay hands on all its internal enemies; and, moreover, the Polish emigration and the great revolutionary contrivers lie abroad, beyond the reach of Russia, ever ready to repair the broken web of conspiracy. It may also be asked whether the Russian Government acts wisely in consenting to embody so many revolutionary elements in the ranks of its army, and we may doubt