of his opinions might be concerned, and the Parisian would be transformed into a Tobolskian, whilst his country would be occupied by Cossacks of the Seine, or of the Loire, and the language of Germany would be spoken in the mines of Siberia. Let then our petty rivalries amongst ourselves hide their diminished heads in presence of the overwhelming moral and national evil which advances towards us, and let us unite every human force to prevent its progress.

Short-sighted politicians, patient to cowardice, think them selves privileged to cry "victory!" when they have been enabled to assure to their country a peace destined to last for some twenty or thirty years, with a view, one is authorized to imagine, to prepare for hostilities renewed after the period shall have elapsed. This would do very well as far as regards the duration of individual life; but nations do not count their existence by years, but by centuries, and it is incumbent upon us to bequeathe to our great-grandchildren what we have inherited from our forefathers. Away, then, with this selfish system of politics which regards everything from a merely individual point of view, and guages human destinies with the paltry measure of a contemptible individuality. With such a policy, we can do nothing but let Europe slide down the fatal declivity which leads to barbarism and slavery, to a general ruin, from which England alone may escape for some brief time, thanks to her insular position, but to which she, too, must finally succumb in the long run, once she loses her supremacy, with her Indian empire. Let, then, the voice of reason and of prudence be heard by men of all parties, and let them not resemble poor ants who disquiet themselves about a straw, without seeing the formidable enemy of their race who is close to their insect-city. If each one of us does not yield up his temporary interest, we shall all pass beneath the yoke. Division is our weakness, the strength of unity is against us, grasped in a single hand, impelled by a single will, and in one direction only. Divisum imperium dilabitur; vis unita fortior. It is the interest of wise and generous England to extend to an ancient nation, glorious and chivalrous, but cruelly oppressed, the same christian hand which she offers to the Mussulmans. Do the indolent Turks, and the fanatical and faithless Greeks, who way-lay the soldiers of the west in the streets of Athens, possess a better right to our protection, than the brave and loyal Poles? The statesmen of western Europe know well

that it is not merely to assure a material well-being to individuals that they should restrict their exertions, but that they should pnt forth their strength to fulfil the providential mission of great nations, to secure universal justice and the maintenance of respect for the rights of humanity.

It is not by granting precarious alms to unhappy refugees that we are to pay what is due to the glory of England; these poor outcasts avail themselves of your charity only with a view to preserve an existence which they burn to sacrifice on the altar of their country. Let Great Britain cast her sword into the scale against injustice, and show herself worthy of her name, of her position, and of the homage of the universe. In England, and in the United States of America, public opinion is certainly in favour of the re-establishment of Poland within its ancient limits, and government with us follows public opinion. One might say that Providence has permitted the fall of so many governments in France, to afflict and punish them for their abandonment, in the instance of Poland, of the sacred cause of humanity. Is not France, by position, and character, and destiny, the armed force of Providence, the soldier of God? The greater her culpability, then, for her neglect in the past. But, now the throne of that country is occupied by a prince of firmness of purpose, and of indisputable courage, who is proud to follow in the foot prints of his great relative, and who will accomplish, with the co-operation of England, the scheme which Napoleon the First had commenced by the creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, but which the disastrous issue of the campaign of 1812 left uncompleted. With such an ally, Great Britain may defy the world, and what may we not expect from two such powers, when they shall anticipate the realization of the ardent wishes cherished by all nations?

it possible that England and France, and the other civilized nations of Europe will suffer, while humanity proclaims everywhere the sacred rights of liberty, and of equality before the law, and of freedom of conscience, that a horde of barbarians shall advance into the centre of Europe before the face of an appalled and stupified universe, to trample under foot the laws of eternal justice, and exhibit their uselessness? shall it be proclaimed just and lawful in the nineteenth century, that men may be persecuted because of their religious belief, and that it shall be criminal not to acknowledge for their spiritual chief the Czar of Muscovy? Because, forsooth, the Poles

have not at heart the worship of the Czar, or of the sovereign of Prussia, or of the ruler of Austria, though all the while they may be men of honour and probity, good fathers, good sons, good husbands, and worthy citizens, they are to be deemed unworthy of the light of heaven, and exiled in the citadel of Alexander, or in the wilds of Siberia, or spirited away from society into the cells of state prisons in Russia, Austria, and Prussia! But in Russia itself there are a number of sccts which obstinately refuse to acknowledge the monarch as their religious chief, and find themselves a prey to the same vexations as the Lutheran Protestants, and members of other christian communities: They are called Roskolniki, Starovertzi, &c., &c. This machiavelian persecution is tenacious of its purpose, and insinuates itself into the bosom of families, commanding by positive ordinance that, in the case of mixed marriages, where one of the contracting parties shall be of the government religion, the children, of both sexes indiscriminately, shall be baptized according to the rights of the Czarish faith. It advances to its end, without rest or stay, by the most secret ways, and under pretexts the most puerile and absurd.

Do you wish to subject humanity to so ignoble a system as this, and to tear from hearts of men the rights and duties which constitute the base of all societies? Do you wish in furtherance of a despot's will, to tear asunder the most sensitive fibres of the human heart, the love of country, of one's family, the relations of father, of wife, and of son, the bonds of faith the most intricately woven, and the most sacred? We declare with a professed conviction, that it is not a derisory and ephemeral peace which should be made with Muscovite despotism, but a crusade of civilization, of justice, of the rights of the human race, against barbarism, against systematic oppression, and for the complete re-construction of Poland. We should be grateful to Providence that the enemy himself, the Emperor Nicholas, has furnished us with so happy an opportunity for waging a war so just. The year

1853 will be the most memorable of which there is record in the annals of Czarism; it was then that commenced the definitive decadence of a monster state, and the restoration of nationalities which it vainly sought utterly to devour.

The calumniators of the Poles, interested in their spoilation, and the leaders of the peace-at-all-price diplomacy, the former to justify the infamous partition, the latter to shut their eyes

to the difficulties of a re-construction of Europe, have cried out against the Poles as turbulent revolutionists. Not so! If the Poles arise, it is to vindicate their imprescriptable national rights, their place in the free light of heaven. It is to defend themselves, as it is the right of every man to do, from extermination en masse, such as is unheard of in the history of civilized nations. It is not the Poles who are revolutionary in Poland, but the Russians, the Prussians, and the Austrians. It is not the instrument employed to extract three bullets from the body of a soldier that should be called revolutionary, but the bullets themselves. It is not the emetic employed to expel a poison which ought to be considered revolutionary, but the poisonous substance which has produced the fever, and endangered the sufferer's life. If some Poles have taken part in revolutions which, in appearance, seemed foreign to their country's particular and restricted interests, it is to be observed that it was always against that country's enemies. If they have served under foreign flags, it was with a view to merit, at the price of their blood, the succour of France, and of the other nations of Europe, and to return, by means of that succour, to their hearths devastated by the orders of the sovereigns of Russia, Prussia and Austria. Go, blame, if you will, the man who throws himself into the water to escape the bite of three venemous reptiles. It is time to put an end to these hypocritical accusations, and to this odious abuse of words of which oppressors, interested in calumniating their victims, are quick to avail themselves. The Poles were treated as revolutionists, rebels, and jacobins, when they were defending their territory (invaded by Russia, Prussia, and Austria) and evinced their willingness to curb the excess of popular privileges, and to strengthen the monarchy, by rendering it hereditary through the constitution of May 1791. They are treated as revolutionists because they claim back, in return for their blood, their country usurped by strangers. Give them something to preserve, and they will be conservatives. How is it possible for them to be conservative, when they possess nothing except the wrongs which foreign oppression has inflicted? What are they to be conservative of? Of the abolition of their nationality, forsooth, of the prevention of the religion of their fathers, of the extirpation of their language, of the name of Russians with which they are honored in one place, of Prussians in another, of Austrians elsewhere? Those amongst them who still enjoy some fortune, some place,

some position, do not wish for such possessions at the price of their nationality, of their faith, of their convictions, of their honor; and we are of opinion, further, that they deserve praise, and not blame; should these men, too, be conservative of the degradation with which the invader has covered them? What is there, on the contrary, more noble than this devotion to calamity, this fidelity to misfortune, this exclusive culte of honor and of ancient traditions, this solidarity of the present with preceding ages? Behold a genuine nationality! What true Englishman would refuse to do as much under similar cirsumstances? His forefathers would rise from the grave to reproach him with his cowardice, and to renounce him in his burlesque disguise, from which they could not see what possible good could arise to their degenerate descendant. Death would be preferable to such a state of things as this.

Nineteen centuries ago the injustice of a savage and fanatical horde, and the weakness of a Roman prefect, condemned the Just to the ignominious punishment of the cross; notwithstanding, posterity has erected altars to the pretended criminal, and the effigy of his gibbet is become the symbol of redemption. And there are yet to be found men who wish that an entire nation should be proscribed and suffer martyrdom, without complaint, without enlisting general pity, before the face of the scribes and pharisees of modern times. But the justice of God will take its course. To doubt it is to doubt the divine existence.

As for you, gallant and worthy Poles, whom we cannot but love and esteem, since we have counted many of your countrymen amongst our intimate friends; whose virtues have taught us to appreciate your nation, as for you, brave people, we say to you, hope, hope on! It is impossible that Europe can continue to sacrifice you longer, you and her own tranquillity, to an inordinate and unbridled ambition, which unceasingly troubles the peace of the world, and menaces Christian CIVILIZATION. She will yet establish in Poland, re-constituted within its ancient limits, a wise and stable hereditary government, such as your fathers endeavoured to introduce by the memorable constitution of the 3rd May, 1791, when the Russians," in the name of liberty, and vindication of the principle of election," such was their lying plea--invaded what was left of your territory, to maintain ancient abuses but too favourable to their ambition; precisely as in our day, fearing