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the progress of Turkey, on the road to escape from their domination, they have invaded that Empire, "in the name of persecuted Christianity."

And let it not be believed, on the faith of the assertions of the partitioning powers, that Poland has been Russianized in this Province, and Germanized in that other, because Modlin is officially called Novogeorghiefsk, or Gdansk as officially Danzig, or that the Polish provinces have lost their national spirit with their national names. Once remove the foreign influence, and the Poles, become more Polish since the partition, will soon forget the Russian geography, as we may venture to say, of their country. Even the Germans and Russians, there established, will Polandize, and demand to change their names. We have seen more than one such example, and amongst the persecuted patriots of Poland, are numbered many bearing names of German origin. Besides, the German nation has nothing to lose by fraternization. Does it not possess sufficient territory of its own, a numerous population, immense physical, intellectual, and moral resources, without seeking to introduce into its bosom a foreign element, which, instead of revigorating, can only hasten its decomposition?

The Russian people itself, disengaged from all heterogeneous elements, which have principally for effect to retain it in barbarism and slavery, by rendering it odious to all nations, will find a positive gain in returning to its own national unity, rather than in maintaining all the costly apparatus of factitious strength. Laborious and industrious, the Russian peasant will be no longer torn from his family and his hearth, to perish in the desert and in the snow, in combating for the ambition of his sovereign. The Russian merchant, skilled in business, will occupy himself in commercial pursuits; the nobles will be enabled to enjoy their fortunes in peace, without being despoiled of them by pseudo gratuitous and patriotic gifts, to their individual injury, to that of their creditors, and, moreover, will be free to collect, by travel in countries more advanced than their own, the fruits of experience and progress, which they may, at their return, diffuse around them for the general benefit.

Europe will be amply compensated for the expenses of war, by a solid peace, and the vast territory of Poland will open to the commerce of England, France, and Germany, a new market for their manufactures, a market now only encumbered with the

coarse products of Russia. To gain the country to us, it would suffice to favour the importation of its corn, the staple products of its soil, product indispensable to humanity, and the privation of which is too often felt amongst us. The protective policy and final restrictions of Russia have tied up the Polish provinces by a customs' system, (as formidable as her fortresses), by which almost every thing is prohibited. Poland would open to us a market of 30,000,000 of men. Again, our exuberant population, instead of seeking its fortune in America, to swell there the roll of our antagonists, could establish itself in the immense and fertile plains of Poland, which extend from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Kotschoubey, (metamorphosed into Odessa in 1792), situated on the seacoast of an ancient Polish province, would then become a Polish port, open to the English, where France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Algeria, and Egypt would send their ships. The German emigrants, instead of being useless, and sometimes hostile to us, would serve our cause, and strengthen still more the bulwark opposed to Russia. We should find our language and our brethren in a land, which has hitherto been less known to us than Brazil or Thibet, and our name and our power would be hailed there with blessings. We witness with transport the approach of the "good time coming," for Poland must be re-established in its integrity, and in all its ancient power. The security of England, and the independence of the European nations, demand it. It is with the armed population of Poland, torn from the plough, and driven to death in the gorges of the Caucasus and in the plains of Persia, that the Czar, the ignotus haeres of the throne of the Piasts and the Jagellons, menaces our Indian possessions, seeking, by possessing himself of Khiva and of Afghanistan, to clear the way to the banks of the Ganges and the plains of Indostan. Let us not be so childish as to think that, because we have destroyed Bomarsund and ruined Sebastopol, we can go quietly to sleep. The ambitious projects of Russia, fettered for a time in the Black Sea, will turn to Persia, which she equally covets, and strike out a path by Trebizond to Constantinople. That which she cannot do in Europe, she will try to do, with better chance of success, in Asia, where she intrigues incessantly in the dark.

Let us not rely upon a politic, time-serving course, which has led us astray, to our discredit, for fully a century. Do you

call politic the conduct of Prussia, which, after having excited the Poles in 1790 to a desperate resistance against the Russians then preparing to invade Poland, after having signed an alliance with Poland against Russia, introduced her own troops into the Polish provinces, the last fragments of the Kingdom, to partition the country with Russia, and to occupy Warsaw herself? Was not this the height of perfidy? Do such acquisitions confer a right? Do they not constitute a forcible theft? Should not such examples, issuing from the bosom of regular governments, upset all popular notions of what is just, lawful, or moral? It is to England that belongs the honour of remedying the evil a rising from this bonleversement of all confidence, the fruitful and natural course of so many revolutions. When crowned kings thrust good faith aside, to follow the interests of self, what are we to expect from their peoples? The sovereign who appropriates to himself the property of his neighbours may expect a similar conduct from his subjects, as well as the reclamation of his usurped acquisitions. It is the balance of accounts, give to Caesar the things belonging to Caesar. Nations, like Caesar, have also their rights; Salus populi ultima ratio. Are Englishmen so degenerated that they refuse to protect openly, and before all the world, the cause of humanity, trampled under the feet of perfidy and of despotism? And yet it is easy to see that the good intentions of England are paralysed by ill founded fears of the insufficiency of its resources, and the enormous expenditure which this gigantic struggle necessitates. It cannot be denied that the present war is rather more serious than that which we waged against the Chinese empire, and that the fortifications of Cronstadt and Sebastopol have been found more formidable than those of Shangai and Canton. We know, too, that the Russians of our time, numbering in their ranks, Poles, Swedes, and Germans, have made immense progress in the art of war, and are somewhat more efficient than their ancestors the Tartars; certainly, we are not ignorant that the Russian army is better equipped than the Chinese, and that those same Muscovites, who close their frontiers against every liberal and commercial import, never tire in following the track of European improvements in military science. Let us not say, with an orator of a neighbouring country, that English blood belongs exclusively to England, and French blood to France. Is not humanity obliged, by a solidarity of interest, to sustain its

general interests against all dangers, as inuch as each individual belongs to his country? Quid hodie mihi, cras tibi. Does not this egotistical phrase tend to leave the weak at the mercy of the strong, in rending the bonds of Christian fraternity? Let us not then lose our courage, or abandon ourselves to a fatal lethargy. Above all, let it not be recounted in the annals of history, that, since France has not repaid the devotion of Poland, exhibited on the battle fields of Europe, Africa, and America, England also, strong in a government based on liberty and justice, has been faithless to her providential mission, in contributing her aid to rivet the fetters, and to retain under an insupportable yoke, a chivalrous people, worthy of the sympathies of humanity.

Again, is it not evident that the complete restoration of Poland is amongst the decrees of Providence? If the nation did not succed in its insurrection of 1830, it is because Providence allotted to her the sufferings of defeat and disappointment only to render her resurrection in the future more glorious after her martyrdom. In scattering thousands of men of all classes far from their country amongst strange peoples and far lands, has not the Divine Ruler disposed their return enriched with the fruits of travel, and illumined by the lights of civilization which Russia has sought to extinguish on their native soil. The justice of Heaven is patient, because it is eternal, and the passing sufferings of humanity are the steps of an enduring progress.

But, before the destiny of Europe be decided on, would it uot be right well from prudential motives, as from a sense of equity, to call to her counsels some Poles acquainted with the moral and physical state of their country, and devoted to its interests? Why should not the Polish nation, unjustly blotted from out the map of Europe, and which has the greatest interest in continuing within bounds the now unmeasured ambition of Russia, be represented in a general congress, where its enlightenment, its strength, and its devotedness, might cast their due weight into the scale of deliberations? Let us adopt the measures indispensable for establishing on a solid and just basis that peace which the universal world may reasonably expect from a full statement of right, and a general display of strength. There exists no means, adequate to circumscribe the Russian empire, other than the complete re-constitution of Poland in its ancient possessions. The Russian people itself,

tired out with the role of the modern Attilas and Tamerlanes which the Czars affect at its expense, will only be too happy to find a tranquil occupation in an honest industry employed for its advancement at home, and the advantage of its peaceable neighbours. It will cease to be the scourge of God of those latter times, and Europe will not be in the necessity of keeping up immense armaments by land and sea, at an enor mous cost of treasure, to watch the Baltic and Black Sea. Then, and then only, will be re-established the true balance of power, for the tranquillity and prosperity of the human race, and a final peace, thus solidly secured, and the freedom of trade which will be its result, will more than compensate the expenses of a just, honorable, and providential war.

ART. VII. THE WAR AND THE FUTURE.

1. Speech of Lord Palmerston, at Romsey. Reported in "The Times," October 6th, 1855.

2. Speech of Sir Archibald Alison, at Glasgow. Reported in "The Times," October 13th, 1855.

3. Letter of Richard Cobden, Esq., M.P. Addressed to Edward Baines, Esq., Editor of "The Leeds Mercury." 4. "The Times." Monday, November 5th, 1855.

The first act of the tremendous war-tragedy in the East is over! The varied scenes of fearfulness that crowded on each other during the past eleven months have been appropriately wound up in one grand concluding climax of terror and destruction. Mad and desperate assault-as desperate and as fierce resistance-murderous checks and most murderous advances, the last furious and convulsive agony of the sanguinary siege, and then the melting away of the foe-the half-astonished, half-exhausted pause of the victors-then lurid cloud after lurid cloud and thunder after thunder from wide-wasting explosions of forts and magazines,-Heaven's artillery meanwhile commingling in the horrid din-and when the burly has sunk and the vision at length has cleared, and men's minds have resumed their powers, the gallant and

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