The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-21 00:00:00

'AIN.

r spontaneous adoption. We will go further. Even
when they could be put into execution with the
full extension with which they are invested in the
mind of the principal Secretary of State of her Bri-
tannic Majesty, they would have no prospect what-
ever of attaining the result which he has in vieN7:
that of pacifying the country. If Lord Russell
follows attentively the productions of the press de-
voted to the Polish rebellion, he must be aware that
the insurgents demand neither an amnesty, nor an
autonomy, nor a representation either more or less
complete. The absolute independence of the
Kingdom even would be for them only a means
for arriving at thz final object of their aspira-
tions. This object is dominion over provinces
where the immense majority are Russians by race
or by religion ; in a word, it is Poland extended to
the two seas, which would inevitably bring about a
claim to the Polish provinces belonging to other
neighbouring Powers. We desire to pronounce no
judgment upon these aspirations. It suffices for us
to prove that they exist, and that the Polish insur-
gents do not conceal them. The final result in
which they would arrive cannot be doubtful. It
would be a general conflagration, which the ele-
ments of disorder scattered through all countries
would be brought to complicate, and which seek for
an opportunity to subvert Europe. We have too
much confidence in the Principal Secretary of
State of her Britannic Majesty to allow that he
can approve an object as irreconcileable with
the peace and with the equilibrium of Europe,
with which are bound up the interests of Great
Britain, as they are with the maintenance of
the treaties of 1815, the only basis and the only
starting point of the overtures which he has just
made to us. Lord Russell quotes a passage related
by Lord Castlereagh of a conversation which that
statesman had with the Emperor Alexander I. in
1815, and which mentions the project formed by
this Sovereign to combine the Duchy of Warsaw
" with the Polish provinces anciently dismembered
into a kingdom under the sovereignty of Russia,
with an administration in accordance with the
wishes of the people." This idea was a passing in-
clination of the Emperor Alexander L, and one
which that Sovereign did not accomplish when he
was enabled to consider more maturely the interests
of his kingdom. At all events, this question must
be excluded even in an exchange of ideas made
within the limits of 1815. The only stipulation of
these treaties which can have made it appear doubt-
ful that the Emperor of Russia possessed the king-
dom of Poland by the same title as that by which
he holds his other possessions, the only one which
might have made his rights dependent upon any
condition whatever, and which explains the possi-
bility of an exchange of ideas with foreign Courts
upon the subject of his relations with that portion
of his dominions, is the vague phrase of Article 1,
which says " that the Emperor of Russia reserves
it to himself to give to this State, enjoying a dis-
tinct administration, such an internal extension as
he shall deem advisable ;" and that article which
says " that the Poles, the respective subjects of the
high contracting parties, shall obtain representation
and national institutions, regulated in conformity
with the mode of the political existence which each
of the Governments to which they belong shall
deem it expedient and proper to bestow on them:'
But the history of this period is not so remote that
the remembrance can be lost of the position which
Russia held at the termination of the European
crisis which was brought to an end by the Treaty
of Vienna. From that time we should not be far
from the truth if we affirmed that the Ist article of
the treaty of Vienna was prepared by, and directly
emanated from his Majesty the Emperor Alexander
I. The conversation with Lord Castlereagh cited
by Lord Russell is an additional evidence of this
fact.

After saying this the Principal Secretary of State
of her Britannic Majesty will dispense us from
giving an answer to the proposed arrangement for
a suspension of hostilities. It would not resist a
serious txamination of the conditions necessary for
carrying this into effect. If it were to be defined
between whom it was to be negotiated, of what
nature the statue, quo was to be which it would
guarantee, and who was to watch over its execution,
it would readily be perceived that the provisions of
public law could not be applied to a situation which
would be a flagrant violation of such law. His
Majesty the Emperor owes to his faithful army,
which struggles for the maintenance of order, to
the peaceable majority of the Poles who suffer from
these deplorable agitations, and to Russia on whom
they impose painful sacrifices, to take energetic
measures to terminate them. Desirable as it may
be speedily to place a term to the effusion of blood,
this object can only be attained by the insurgents
throwing down their arms and surrendering them-
selves to the clemency of the Emperor. Every other
arrangement would be incompatible with the dig-
nity of our august master, and with the sentiments
of the Russian nation. It would, besides, have a
result diametrically opposed to the one recommended
by Lord Russell. As to the idea of a conference of
the eight Powers who signed the Treaty of Vienna,
which should discuss the six points adopted as
bases, it presents to us serious inconveniences, with-
out our being able to see in it any advantage. It
the measures in question are sufficient for the paci-
fication of the country, a conference would be with-
out object. If the measures were to be submitted to
ulterior deliberation, there would result a direct
interference of foreign Powers in the most intimate
details of the Administration, an interference that
no great Power could admit, and which certainly
England would not accept in her own affairs. Such
an interference would be neither in the spirit nor in
the letter of the treaties of Vienna, on the base of
which we have invited the Powers to a friendly
exchange of ideas. It would result in removing
still further the end which they propose to them-
selves by depriving the Government of its prestige
and its authority, and by further increasing the
pretensions and illusions of the Polish agitators.
The course which was followed in 1815 appears to
us to indicate clearly enough the nature of the deli-
berations which may take place upon questions bear-
ing, on the one side, on the general interest, and on
the other upon administrative details of the exclu-
sive dominion of the neighbouring Sovereign States.
At that epoch a distinction was practically esta-
blished between these two classes of interests; the
first have been the object of separate negotiations
on the part of the Courts of Russia, Austria, and
Prussia, between which the traditions of history, a
permanent contact, and an immediate neighbourhood
created a strict solidarity. All the arrangements
destined to regulate the interior administration and
the mutual relations of the Polish territories placed,
since the Congress of Vienna, under their respective
dominions, have been laid down in treaties con-
cluded directly between these three Courts on April
21 (May 3) 1815. They have been successively com-
pleted by a series of special conventions whenever
circumstances have required it. The general prin-
ciples mentioned in these treaties, and which could
interest Europe, have atone been inserted in the
act of the Congress of Vienna, signed on May 27
(June 9), by all the Powers invited to concur in it.
At present it is not a question of these general
i prncip , • les but the administrative details and ulterior
arrangements would furnish useful matter for dis-
cussion by the three Courts, in order to place the
respective position of their Polish possessions, to
which the stipulations of the treaties of 1815 extend,
in harmony with present necessities and the progress
of time. The Imperial Cabinet declares itself from
the present time ready to enter into a similar under-
wending with the Cabinets of Vienna and Berlin.
precededestined any
In any case the reestablishment of order is an
indispensable condition, which
measures m
serious application of the uet
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the instigators of the Polish insurrecti• •on found
on or expect from an
active intervention in
aid of their
exaggerated
aspirations.
Clear and
categorical language on the part of those Powers
would contribute to dissipate these illusions, and to
thwart these calculations, which tend to prolong
the disorder and -
excitement of public opinion.
They would thus bring nearer the moment which
we invoke—that in which the tranquillisation of
passions and the return of material order will per-
mit our august master to labour for the moral paci-
fication of the country by putting into execution
the measures which his Majesty maintains both in
the germs already laid down, and in the develop-
ment of them which he ass allowed to be foreseen.
Your Excellency will have the goodness to read and
give a copy of this despatch to the princip.l Sec-
retary of State of her Britannic Majesty.—Re-
ceive, G ORTSCHAKOM