The Press. — London, England, 1855-04-07 00:00:00

324 Another portion of the Schlavo-Finns possessed themselves of the north-west shores of the Baltic, and, by the cruelty of their Pagan rites, roused the indignation and hostility of the Christians. St. Adel bert, in 1010, had attempted their conversion, but, as the pirates and freebooters found no profitable coun terbalance, no immediate gain to be got by abandon ing the libertinaga of trade and the freedom of plunder, they straightway sacrificed the saint to the integrity of their commercial system. The Teutonic knights, on their return from the crusades, vowed to revenge the murder, and after a succession of wars, replete with savage barbarities—committed, however, with a good intent, and sanctified by Latin prayer— the Pagans were finally subdued, Christianity estab lished, the country pillaged, and the inhabitants but chered. Tho seventies of the knights had nearly destroyed the Schlavo-Finnish population, and the provinces were repeopled by German colonists. These established their capital at Konigsberg, and the Duchy of East Prussia, in addition to Livonia and Esthonia, became vested in the knights of the Teutonic order. The position of Poland proper was inland. The rich pastures and fruitful corn tracts belonging to it were the granaries that supplied neighbouring na tions with the staff of life. Yet the Poles were not the carriers of their own wealth. They had no sea coa,t, and therefore lacked the means of export. I Hedwige, Queen of Poland, to great personal attrac tion united high intelligence and a firm determination of purpose. She was her own Foreign Minister, and withal juvenile. 11l disposed towards the ascetism of the Teutonic knights, conscious of the value of their ports on the Baltic, and well informed that the holy bachelors were not indisposed to join the Hungarians in an invasion of her country, the Queen sought a conference with her neighbour, Jagellon, the Pagan Duke of Lithuania, to discuss certain protocoled points of international policy. The conference took place. At these diplomatic meetings a restricted number of agents is accelerative of the business, and when there may be a sexual difference in the repre sentatives of power, the asperities of jarring interests are straightway mollified by the more righteous promptings of a pure benevolence. The regret may be permitted that more modern conferences lead not to solutions equally suave. The truths of Chris tianity, always seductive from their intrinsic worth and virtue, acquire still greater value when the mi nister of conversion is endowed with that gift which the transcendent historian of the decline and fall of the Roman empire affirms to be contemned only by those to whom it has been denied. The Pagan duke became familiarised with the tenets of the Christian dispensation, practised them in his espousal of Queen Hedwige, and ascended the throne of Poland as the first Jagellon, under the title of Ladislaus V., A.D. 1382. The dukedom of Lithuania was annexed to the country. It must, however, be remarked that the dukedom was hereditary, and the Crown of Poland elective. Concurring in the political views of the Queen, the monarch immediately waged war on the Teutonic knights. The strife was long and doubtful, for the servants of the Cross were sensibly alive to the value of worldly property, and it was not until their defeat, in the victory of Tannenburg, A.D. 1410, that the Teutonic territories were made tributary to Poland. Under Casimir IV. the war recommenced, with the same success for the Jagellon king. Ho effectually subjected the knights, made them vassals of the Crown, and took possession of the ports of the Baltic, which had been the real ob ject of contention. The terms of conquest were ra tified by the peace of Thorn, in 1447. The Teutonic order had ever been valorous de fenders of the Latin against the Greek Church, and a similarity of creed constituted the sole link betwixt the Jagellon kings and their discontented vassals. Albert of Brandenburg had been nominated grand master of the order. He was prudent, cunning, slow to adopt any course that was not certain to yield sub stantial benefit, and was above the common prejudice of a strict regard to barren agreements. A just phi losophy taught him that Teutonic discipline was not lees inoperative of virtue than it was irksome and absurd, and after one more despairing effort fot inde pendence, the prince, with a majority of the knights, submitted to Poland, formally secularised, abjured the Roman Catholic religion, and embraced Protes tantism, A.D. 1525. Each knight, more effectually to sunder the vow of celibacy, took unto himself a gentle partner, and the few who were overscrupulous, or were too aged to win the favour of the Polish damsels, proverbial for their beauty, retired to Mergestheim, in Wirtemberg. For the voluntary renunciation of the privileges and establishments of the order, Sigis mund I. created Albert of Brandenburg Duke of Prussia, and the title was to be hereditary in the Hohenzollern family, upon the condition of vassalage to the Polish Crown. Si?ismund 11., one of the most accomplished and upright princes of his time, enacted laws of religious toleration by which the Arians and Socinians, persecuted everywhere else, were protected against their ultramontano enemies. By the confederation of 1573 the rights of conscience THE PRESS. were fully recognised, and the liberty of opinion was assured upon a rational and firm basis. Livonia was added to the kingdom, and, together with the Duchy of Lithuania, essentially incorporated with the king dom by the Diet of Lablin, A.D. 1560. With this last and best of the Jagellon kings ended the glory and independence of Poland. At his death, in 1573, the kingdom consisted of Poland proper, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Duchy of Prussia, and Livonia. The population of Poland was divided into nobles and peasants, the franchised and unenfranchised, and a severer judgment has classed them as master and slave. In this serfdom may be traced the distinctive mark and the burning shame of Schlave and Hun. The Dietines, or Lesser Diets, were composed of the nobles of a province, convened by the castellan of the district. These met on horseback, and elected three of their body to represent them at the chief Diet, one of whom was officially delegated to be the spokesman. The senators, in number 139, were nominated by the king from amongst the magnates, bishops, and counts palatine of the kingdom. The privileges and honour were conferred for life, and the senator was not re movable by legislative interference unless he were guilty of an overt act of high treason. King, senators, and representatives in conclave constituted the Diet; and the peculiar feature of this Parliament consisted in one dissentient vote, the " liberum veto," having the effect of annulling any proposed measure. Una nimous decisions were the law of the Constitution. The King, like the senators, was elected for life, but, during the reigns of the Piast and Jagellon dynasties, the crown virtually had become hereditary, more es pecially after the earlier annexation of Lithuania. Upon the death of Sigismund an interregnum of two years occurred; and it was during this fatal epoch that the more democratic party sought ostensibly to reform the Constitution, by extending the Republican basis, and by contracting the privileges of the nobles and t hel prerogatives of the Crown. Hitherto the Diet had elected the monarch ; and the practical working of this sage custom had been to throw the elective power into the hands of the magnates, who saw the prudence and the policy of preserving the sovereignty in a particular family or dynasty. Wars of succession were thus avoided, the executive was made powerful, and the national force, both of opinion and of arms, was collected into a patriotic heroism that bound the united kingdom together in one mass of constitu tional integrity. But the fiat of democracy had gone forth—the measure of reform was carried by turbu lent acclamation, and from that day the conflict of parties, the ruin of power, the wreck of means, the loss of honour, and the base pride of a baser corrup tion, heaped up the measure of injury and infamy, until the destiny of Poland was accomplished. That end and that accomplishment were brought about by a constitutional change, unwise, unnecessary, and ill digested. It was decided by a democratic majority that the election of the king should proceed directly from the whole body of nobles, superior and inferior, to be convened in the plain of Warsaw, whither they were to repair in military caparison and on horseback. Now, as many of the inferior nobles—the majority carried their fortunes on their back—were often mounted on horses to which they had no legal title, and wore swords for which no equivalent in value had been given, it was inevitable that the crown, henceforward, would be sold by public auction to the neighbouring potentates for the benefit of these pauper electors. And who were the neighbouring potentates ? Is MAEL. (To be continued.) A GENERAL ORDER has been issued respecting the promotion of officers who are taken prisoners of war. During the Peninsular war the rank of officers who were taken prisoners was held in abeyance. Promo• Lions took place in their regiments, and they were in variably passed over. Henceforth the accidents of service will not be held to disentitle officers to regi mental advancement. THE following entry appeared in one of the recent returns made by the Vienna police agents to their superiors :—" Lord John Russell has walked arm-in arm on the glacis with Prince Gortschakoff." THE REGISTRAR-GENERAL reports the births of 2,099 children and the deaths of 1,004 persons in the week that ended last Saturday, which was the last week of the quarter. At this period the registration usually shows an increase, arising from cases which occurred in previous weeks, but were not registered at the time of their occurrence. The deaths that be long properly to a former date are cases on which coroners have held inquests, and chiefly consist of deaths from external causes, such as fractures, wounds, burns, suffocation, &c.—a class which, in the present return, numbers 139. In the thirteenth week of the years 1845-54 the average number of deaths was 1,243, which with a correction for in crease of population becomes 1,307. It appears therefore that about 200 persons died last week above the usual number, in consequence apparently of the coldness of the season. SATURDAY, fort ft gorrtspoiOtntt. FRANKFORT, April 4. A TRUCE or a peace—a hasty and deceitful cessation of hostilities, temporary and insincere—or a firm and binding treaty, with real security and guarantees, that shall become penal upon a faithless forfeiture of word? There may be, probably, either the one or the other. The game of king militant is costly. When, therefore, the people perceive that the game has been played with marvellous folly, and to their disadvantage, they will disburse the loss grudgingly, and insist upon a fresh game to have their revenge. Whatever may have been the motive for the rapid visit of M. Drouyn de Lhuys to London, whether to relax the austerity or to correct the vacillation of the Austrian conference, certain it is that the precision of the terms to be demanded were peremptorily fixed. Lord John Russell left Paris with a tolerable understanding of his duties, and of the purport of his Vienna mission ; his perception became less clear at Brussels, was not bettered at Berlin, and when ho arrived at Vienna he was prepared to fraternise with Lord Westmoreland. It must be remembered that Lord Westmoreland framed the celebrated Vienna note, which would have bound England to a Russian policy had it not been for the good sense and acute• ness of Turkey. The secrecy of the diplomatic debates has been moderately well preserved, but no inspiration was necessary to know it was not to Lord John Russell or to Lord Westmoreland that was owing the ob • - stacle which required fresh instructions to overcome. The plastic material which had received its last im pression at Brussels would have been sufficiently ductile for the emergency, had it not been for the single reptesentative of France, who did not hold to the being authorised to compromise principle. and, it way be truly said, to compound dishonour. When M. Drouyn de Lhuys quitted London, war or peace had been decided on—in other words, the terms of the latter were finally shaped which would continue or dispel the former, without further circumlocution. No additional instructions, from France at least, are necessary. The relative positions of France and England have ceased to be the same as at the commencement of hostilities. The one has receded in power and in fluence, whilst the other has advanced. England entered into the Russian war with the advantage of ancient reputation, stable government, and an army of renown. France was fresh from three revolu tions—viz. the Constitution, the Republic, and the Em. pire ; her administration was novel, her sovereign in a certain degree insecure, disrelished by the continental powers, and personally abused by the Ministers of Lord Aberdeen ; but he had a " volonte de fer," au imperishable name, and a grand army. What is the present state of the two nations Y In one short year England has by herself tarnished her ancient fame — all but impeached the Aberdeen Ministry—her Go vernment is null and void—and her army destroyed, not by the enemy, but by her own miserable and ad ministrativelimbecility. In that satne year the throne of France has been consolidated, her Imperial Go vernment is more than respected, the grand army has been trebled, and the Emperor has been told by M. Guizot that in power he rivals Russia, and that Europe is waiting his will. Thus spoke at the Casino one of the representatives at the Diet. If the English question is understood at Frank fort, the German one is not comprehended in Lon don, and certainly not by Lord John Russell. The constitution of Magna Charta is not at present held in estimation, seeing its disastrous incapacity in mo ments of sudden peril—" ca marche mal." The On ental dispute settled, the accidental embarrassment lingers with its vicious intricacies. M. de Bismarck ShOnhansen, foiled in his attempt at ascendancy, vents his displeasure with undiplomatic virulence against England. He boasts of Prussian control over the German principalities ; and herein he does not vainly exalt his master, although shining by a reflected light ; neither is he wrong in his assertion that the house of Saze is prepared to aide with Northern Germany. And these, with Russia in the background, are ready to receive a French emperor at the head of the armies of France. It was against this threat, diplomatically denied and confidentially expressed, that Austria protested; and it has had the effect of inducing Bavaria to withdraw from a close communion with the old empire. Let the affairs of Turkey bo arranged, there yet will remain 300,000 Austrians on the eastern side of Germany, and 400,000 French on the Rhineland, or, in round num bers, there will be nearly a million of soldiers divided in several armies, with the most complete and profuse materiel, hanging on the frontiers of Germany. J. E. L. 1