The Press. — London, England, 1855-04-14 00:00:00

APRIL 14, 1855. POLAND. ( Continued from our last.) The old duchy of Novorogod, founded by Rurik, and conquered by the Mongol Tartars in the thirteenth century, was restored by Ivan Basiiowitz in 1533, and the Tartars were expelled. The race of Bunk became extinct in 1598. His immediate descendants were Dukes of Kiov, A.D. 878, Grand Dukes of Wla dimir, A.D. 1157, Grand Dukes of Moscow, A.D. 1328, and Czars of Moscovy, ♦.D. 1533. In 1813 the house of Romanoff succeeded to the throne in the person of Michael Fedorowitz, and his descendant, Peter 1., elevated the Schlavo-Russian dominions into an empire. The dukedom of East Prussia had been converted into an hereditary fief, tributary to Poland in the Hohenzollern family, and these princes were made electors of Brandenburg by the Emperor Sigismund, in 1411. Frederick, called the Great Elector, wrested the vassalage of the dukedom from Poland, and his son, Frederick William, crowned himself and consort King and Queen of Prussia, manually and with the consent of the Emperor, in 1701. Sweden, under Margaret of Denmark, the Semi ramis of the North, had been united with Norway to Denmark, and formed into a Scandinavian kingdom by the union of Calmar, A.D. 1397. Christian IL, or the Wicked, by a series of excessive cruelties, disaf• fected the Swedish nobles, and Gustavus Vasa, the son of one of the murdered chieftains, at the head of a successful insurrection of nobles, severed the Danish yoke, and was called upon by the popular voice to place himself on the vacant throne. Gustavus Adol phus and Christina Vasa added to the fame and power of the country, and Charles XlL—madman and conqueror—by big eccentric yet splendid career won the sympathies of the chivalrous and the con damnation of the wise. By war, by intrigue, by plunder, and by inheritance, the greedy house of. Hapsburg had moulded together a formidable empire. Rodolph, Count of Hapsburg, seized Austria from Bohemia in ]273, and usurped the dukedom. Mary, the daughter and heiress of Lewis the Great of Hungary, married Sigismund, King of Bohemia and Emperor of Germany, and Albert of Hapsburg and Austria, by allying himself with their daughter and heiress, succeeded to the thrones of Bohemia, Hungary, and Germany, A.D. 1437. The Holy Roman Empire, destroyed by Na poleon, reached the summit of its power under Charles V. At the death of Charles VI., Emperor of Germany, his daughter, Maria Theresa,after a severe conflict with Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria, be came sovereign of the Austrian and Germanic domi nions, A.D. 1740. The last of the Palmologi had fallen nobly in the defence of his Eastern empire, and the sword of Mahomet 11. won him a place amongst the sove reigns of Europe. Fanaticism, fatalism, intolerance, and ignorance induced the descendants of Mahomet to attempt at different times the subjugation of Chris tianity. The battle of Western Tours was variously repeated in Eastern Europe, and more than once the safety of the Continent depended upon the success of Polish valour. _ . _ If the early histories of a rising nation demand an agreeable care in the task of collection and re cord, less pleasing, albeit more facile, is it to recount the rapid decline of fortune, fame, and station. For the labour of the historian the fabulous myth of Sisyphus is not without its moral. After the extinc tion of the Jagellon kings—the era of Polish aris tocracy, honour, and independence—the democratic party—the multitude, the paupers and the corrupt — elected for king Henry Duke of Anjou, brother to Charles IX. of France. This was an open and avowed sale, paid for in Italian and Medicean gold, and effected by the Jesuits. But, after one short year of incompetent government, wherein the Prince " besought for peace yet, unprepared, drifted to wards war," the brawling many waxed afraid of the consequences of their corruption, and the Magnates, upon the retirement of Henry and his accession to the throne of France, elected Stephen Bathory, Duke of Transylvania. He proved to be a wise and resolute monarch, defended the country bravely against the Russians, and, having thoroughly sub dued the Ukraine Copecks, formed and established them into a national militia. Sigismund 111. of Sweden owed his elevation to the Jesuits. He con tested for the crown against Maximilian of Austria; and it was during the process of this election that the democratic party gave evidence of being swayed by every motive opposed to disinterested allegiance and patriotic duty. For forty-five years Poland was racked by Jesuit malice and Jesuit dominion. During the misgovernment of this king, Russia, availing ber- self of the hatred towards the Jesuits, corrupted a numerous party of nobles and secured them to her interests. She bad also to revenge herself against that secret body of ecclesiastical conspirators for the attempt to appropriate the throne of Russia by placing thereon Demetrius, a Jesuit and impostor, and afterwards Ladislaus, in opposition to the legiti mate head of the house of Romanoff. At each royal election in Poland the democratic party encroached THE PRESS. upon the rights and curtailed the privileges of the Crown, and in the reign of Casimir, the Jesuit, a dissentient noble, by his single act in the exercise of the " liberum veto," arrested a war with Sweden that otherwise was decided upon. Nevertheless, the war subsequently took place, and Charles Augustus of Sweden made himself, for a short time, master of Poland. During the reign of Michael Wisnowiecki the Turks made a formidable invasion, and only re tired upon completing a special agreement for a yearly tribute to the Sultan of 20,000 crowns. The royal power had now become phantasmal, a violent schism of parties prevailed, and the Magnates could offer no barrier to the arbitrary jurisdiction of the minor and more indigent nobles. A fresh invasion of the Turks gave being to the last hero• King of Poland, John Sobieski. He had already signalised himself as a great general at the battle of Choozim, in 1673, and he now gave fresh proofs of military genius, and added prominent lustre to his name, by de feating the Turks beneath the walls of Vienna, under disadvantages before which a less resolute soldier would have quailed. From the effects of this victory the Ottoman empire never recovered. History and Christendom, for once devoid of party favour and religious injustice, freely and with one consent have given the Polish hero his just rank beside Charles Martel. And let him in all honour, glory, and virtue be called the last King of Poland. It were a charity to drop a veil over the history of the succeeding monarchs. . _ The battle-field of Northern Europe was occupied by two women and a bluff soldier. They were more or less brave and merciless,clever and unscrupulous, powerful and faithless, handsome and unchaste. Frederick 11., Catherine of Russia, and Maria Theresa encompassed their victim. Let the last page of Polish history be rapidly passed over : its unhappy details have moved the compassion of the sternest historians, and inspired the elegiac strains of the poets of all educated nations. From self debasement the Poles had become incapable of good government, and the wars consequent on the royal elections were grievous to Europe. The project of spoliation originated with Frederick of Prussia. He was the sharpest of a sharp family whose present representatives inherit the desires without the abili ties of the race. He determined to reacquire Dantzic and the ancient ports of the Baltic formerly possessed by the Teutonic knights; Catherine was not less interested in retaking Red Russia, the prin cipality of Kiew, with White and Black Russia that had at one time belonged to the old Russian Grand Duchies; whilst Maria Theresa claimed Silesia as an ancient heirloom of Bohemia. Were these claims held to be just, and to constitute a precedent, Europe would be made subject to a wholesale and territorial disorganisation. Sobieski had been succeeded by Leizinski, the latter by Frederick Augustus of Saxony, whose son was elected after him, and, lastly, a Russian army enthroned the unhappy Stanislaus Poniatowski, i.n. 1764. Catherine found means to foment religious discord betwixt Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Socinian; and, although belonging to and being the head of the Greek Church, the Jesuits consented to become instruments of oppression and corruption in the service, not only of the Empress of Russia, but also of that of the arch-infidel King of Prussia. A civil and religious war commenced that consumed the energies of the people and utterly de stroyed the country. The Turk had not been unob servant of passing events, and did not remain idle. By the treaty of Pruth betwixt Russia and the Porte the integrity of Poland had been solemnly guaran teed in an especial clause. The proviso of that treaty is still in existence. But the stipulation and the aid were vain. On the sth August, 1772, the treaty of the first partition of Poland was signed at St. Petersburg. Austria obtained Galicia and Lodo miria; Russia the provinces between the Dwina, the Dneiper, and the Drutch ; and Frederick appropriated Polish Prussia and the district of Netze. But a remnant of patriot Magnates, headed by the powerful family of Czartoryski, intent on saving the nation, proposed and carried important reforms in the Diet. The "liberum veto " was repealed, the crown made hereditary in the royal house of Saxony, and serfdom was for ever abolished. This was sufficient cause for a fresh invasion by Russia. Frederick of Prus sia, in all Jahn and honour, had engaged to support Poland. As usual, he played the part congenial to the Hohenzollern nature, and in this second parti tion he received, as the reward of his perfidy, the port of Dantzic, with the coast which he had so long coveted ; Russia possessed herself of 85,000 square miles of territory. Another and the dying struggle of the brave people was inspirited by Kosciusko ; but the battle of Maccejowiche, in which the hero, covered with wounds, was taken prisoner, completed the sad fate of Poland, and the last partition betwixt Catharine. Maria Theresa, and Frederick effectually blotted out the country from the map of nations. The delusive hopes raised by Napoleon—the mockery of a restoration at the Congress of Vienna, with its anomalous constitution—the brutal enormi- ties of the Viee-Roy and Grand Duke Constantine... 347 the rising of the nobles in resistance—and the na tional annihilation by Nicholas—are events too recent to necessitate the pain of detail. But the question forces itself into notice, upon again hearing the de mand for restoration,—What specific Poland, and what specific Constitution, is to be restored—the Piast elective or the Jagellon Tenu hereditary sove reign ! i The ancient form of election and represen tation n a powerful Diet, or the bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill,of 1574—that titular reform, but substantial evil, which opened the flood-gates of a corrupt democracy, trading in the prostitution of political virtue, and led to inevitable and over whelming ruin' Or, again, has experience, for once, been the parent of wisdom, and are the advan tages of the last corrective measure of the enlightened Czartoryski—which reformed the Belem Bill by reversing the destructive and establishing a conserve. Live spirit—enlarged the prerogatives of the Crown and made it hereditary—reconferred the prescriptive rights of the nobles, and made them truly indepen dent—and, last not least, remitted the bonds of the slave forged by the Polish radical—are these consti tutional advantages at last made manifest and con fessed to be real ?—is it this ancient, this time honoured Constitution, old in venerable virtue and longevity of freedom, with its territorial integrity, that is now sought to be revivified ? Fiat justitia. A severe but useful lesson is contained in the downfal of the unhappy kingdom. A prodigal mea sure of popular privilege placed power in the hands of irresponsible persons, whose narrow means made them dependent upon others, and those others strangers. Corruption was to them existence. A senate of nobles not independent, because not heredi tary—exercising small control by reason of their being merely the representative of kingly favour, and not of high estate by prescriptive right—together with an elective sovereign whose tenure of office, always precarious, was often bought and oftener held under foreign nomination—without interest for the future, and devoid of influence unless supported by faction and strengthened by illicit means from without—these were among the many causes that produced democratic innovation, turbulent govern ment, foreign interference, and national extinction. Adverse factions excited by animosity are never un scrupulous in the wherewith of party exaltation ; and the nicer the balance between them the weaker be comes the executive whose integral strength is the salvation of all representative government. And what security for freedom, what chance of stability, could any nation possess amidst such a mass of peril, if to that peril be superadded, in all its guile, the deep, the blighting, the everlasting curse of Jesuit home' THa following pun, justimported from Paris, ap. pears to have been made for use at SL Petersburg " Comment vale siege de Sebastopol?" " dais it va mieux—il commence 1 se lever." AT WEIMAR, counterfeit autographs of Schiller have been made use of in a most audacious manner. The heirs of the poet are amongst the dupes. It seems that the fraud has for its principal author a bootmaker, whose crime is under investigation by the authorities. LETTERS FROM ATHENS contain deplorable accounts of the progress of brigandage in various parts of Greece. To such an extent has it proceeded that some foreign influence of a detestable character is suspected to be at work. LORD DUNDONALD has altered his intention of making known to the French Emperor his secret plans—" capable speedily, certainly, and cheaply to surmount obstacles which cur gallant, persevering, and costly armies and fleets have failed to accom plish." The announcement of an intended disclosure of his plans brought down upon his lordship nume rous unpleasant letters ; but these would not have induced him to change his purpose had he not learnt that the Emperor was not to proceed to the East, and consequently could not personally avail himself of the plan. " Feeling the greatest doubt whether they would be triumphantly carried into effect by any less expanded mind or subordinate authority, I hesitated to risk an unfavorable result." THE Government are fitting up every available ship and steamer which has been lying in various ports, so that in about six months time it will be, to a considerable extent, independent of the merchant and packet service for war transports. Already the charge for tonnage for war purposes is reduced. Large numbers of the present war transports will in a few months be restored to the merchant and packet service. THE Governor-General of India has raised the salary of Dr. O'Shaughnessy, the superintendent of electric telegraphs in India, to 3,6001. per annum. The doctor has been informed that the increase has been given, not only in acknowledgment of his valuable services, but because, had he remained at the Mint, his salary would have been higher than that which he has hitherto received as superinten• dent of electric telegraphs. wimininiismiinimmiloimalUMllllMliiNd