The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-16 00:00:00

Czachowski, shot himself when escape from

the Rus3ians bad becime impossible, which did nft

prevent a Krsiar. cfiiear from claiming a e merit
of having administered to him:liis dean-wound.
According to the Ruuian newipaper3 Chmelinski
waa concerned in tha attempt made the life of
the Grand Duke Constantine immediately after his

arrival in Wrarsaw. The party least guilty is that
*hanieful affair was the half-witted fanatic who

--------- _
actually find the shot, but, according to Polish
accounts, it was not Chmelinski, the chief of in-
surgent; but some relation of his who prompted
the act of which the well calculated political effect

was to render impossible the work of conciliation
undertaken by the Russian Government (at least
a couple of years after the proper time), and to
leave the extreme party—the party bent upon in-
surrection at all hazards—face to face with Russian
repression. Chmelinski, like so many of the Poles
who have served in the Russian army, was among
the extremest of the " extremes ;" and when he first
appeared in the field his harsh and overbearing
conduct to the Polish proprietors of his district was
much complained of,--a fact, by the way, well
worth the consideration of those Russians who
speak of the Polish insurrection as an aristocratic
movement. But when Chmelinski had won a few
fights and had proved himself one of the most
skilful as well as one of the most daring of the
Polish Chiefs, no one said anything more about his
exactions, nor about the roughness and violence of
a man who in common with all the revolutionary i
party was convinced that nothing but a general
rising would suffice to drive the Russians out of
Poland ; who had no faith in a partial insurrection
kept up in order to give foreign Governments an
opportunity of interfering in a struggle for which
they have no taste ; and who thought no sacrifice
too great to enforce from the landowners who, what-
ever else they gave, did not, like himself and his
comrades, give their blood.
Patriotism is the one cardinal virtue in Poland,
and the man who fights for his country may do or
leave undone whatever he pleases without incurring
the smallest reproach. On the other hand, if a
Pole shows himself devoid of patriotism, it is a Sid
against the Spirit, for which there is no atonement.
Neither he nor even his children can be forgiven,
unless, indeed, the latter give some striking, un-
questionable proofs of not having inherited the
paternal stain. Now " Bossak," or Colonel
Hauke (to give him his real name, already well
known to the Russians), inherited from his
father the title of Count, but not the reputa-
tion of a Polish patriot. General Henke was one
of the five officers who, during the outbreak of
the 29th of November, 1830, which was the prelude
to the general rising, endeavoured to prevent the
troops from joining the insurgents, and were, in
consequence, torn from their horses and massacred.
This incident does not by any means prove that the
officers in question did not love their country.
They perhaps wished to save it from the ruin which
they may have foreseen awaited it if it engaged in
a struggle with the whole force of the Russian Em-
pire. But however that may be, the Emperor
Nicholas settled their reputation for them by erect-
ing a monument to their memory in the principal
square of Warsaw, and inscribing their names upon
it as faithful servants of the Russian Crown. He
erected a similar monument at Tsarskoe Selo to a
horse—the one that carried him safely through the
affair with the St. Petersburg insurgents in 1825;
bat the officers whose infidelity to their country, or
at least to their countrymen, is commemorated on
the gigantic tea-urn that stands in the Saxon
Square, are looked upon by the inhabitants of War-
saw and by all the Poles as something much lower
than the Emperor's horse: _ _

As for the present Count Hanke, the " Bossak"
of the Cracow Palatinate, he seems personally to
have had nothing to complain of from the Russians.
The Emperor Nicholas took charge of his education,
and his path was made pleasant in the Russian army.
It was not, however, the path of peace, and his
friends say that by the wounds he received in the
Caucasus he may be considered to have paid off his
debt to the Russian Imperial family (with which,
by the way, he is also connected by the marriage of
one of his nearest relations to a member of the
Hesse Darmstadt family). Ho will be accused all
the same of ingratitude, and he certainly cannot be
grateful in the Rochefoucauld sense of the word,
for he has henceforth no favours to expect, and
already the Russian newspapers are publishing the
most malicious and at the same time stupid calum-
nies against him, and are representing a highly-
educated and accomplished gentleman who has left
fortune, position, and every worldly advantage for
the sake of his country, and perhaps also for the
honour of his own family, as a brigand and cut-throat
of the vilest description.
To " Bossak" and "Kruk" (whose real name is
still not generally known, but who, it may be men-
tioned, was also an officer in the Russian service)
the duty of keeping up the insurrection in the king-
dom during the winter seems chiefly to have been
assigned. " Bossak," though he is always moving

about, still has his headquarters in the Palatinate
of Cracow. " Kruk" has the general direction of
several bands in the Lublin country, bat, by the last
reliable accounts that have reached me (cot very

recently), had not yet entered himself. "Kruk,"
it may be remembered, gained a few months ago the
best regular battle that the Poles had fought since
Jezioranski's victory at Kobylanka last May, and
one of the very few that have been fought in the
whole course of the insurrection. It was he who
sent some 200 prisoners with a letter expressing a
vain hope that the 11'193illIS would profit by the
example set them, and at last behave with some
mercy to the Poles who fell into their hands. This
has, of course, not prevented the Russians from
sending all their Polish captives to Siberia, with
the exception of those who are thought distinguished
enough to be shot or hanged.
After his victory (which would have attracted a
little more attention if the Poles had not been in the
habit of representing all their defeats as victo-
ries) "Kruk" had overpowering forces brought
against him; and ultimately he was obliged to re-
tire to Galicia, where he began to organise new
bands, the proprietors of Lublin having got up a
special subscription of a million Polish florins
(.-C25,00G) to enable him to equip them in a suitable
manner.
Of the four leaders who a month ago would have
been named as the main supporters of the Polish in-
surrection, in the kingdom and in Lithuania, two
only remain. Besides " Kruk " there are several
miaor chiefs in the province of Lublin, and " Bos-
sak " is said to have good lieutenants in his Cracow
detachment. Ther© are smaller bands, too, in other
parts of the country ; but " Bossak " and " Kruk"
are regarded—or were (for life is remarkably uncer-
tain among the Polish insurgents)—as the chief on
whom fell the special and difficult duty of keeping
up the insurrection during the winter months.
The Russians say once more that the insurrection
is at an end. It might be better for the Poles were
such really the case, for it is difficult to understand
what they can gain—easy to see that they must lose
—by prolonging the unequal struggle. The object
of the Poles is, of course, to keep the Polish sore
open, in the hope that Western doctors will feel
compelled to attend to it should they find it still
unclosed in the spring. That this sore irritates the
whole European body is undeniable ; but it is
equally certain that it has proved terribly enfeebling
to Poland. It is evident that the Russians are now
more anxious than ever to make short work of the
spring as of something not under any circumstances
zo be tolerated. Unless, however, they can cut it,
burn it, or feeze it out during the next two months
there will be thousands of volunteers ready to take
up arms again in the spring—supposing always that
the arms are to be had. The losses of Poland in
men have, after all, been nothing compared to its
losses in money and in property of all kinds, and if
material resources were not wanting its personal
resources would be almoat inexhaustible.

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