The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-02 00:00:00

THE POLISH INSURRECTION,

(Front the Special Correspondent of the Times,)

WARSAW, NOV. 16.

It is rather remarkable that the nomination of
Count Berg to the Lieutenancy of the kingdom of
Poland appears in. the same number of the Journal
de St. Petersbourej as the rescript from the Emperor
to the Grand D v.,ke Constantine, from which it may
or may not be. 'inferred that the retirement of his
Imperial Hirshness is only temporary, and that after
the suppref,sion of the insurrection he will return to

Polanday.& introduce a humane system of Govern-
ment. The following is the passage in the rescript
which he s attracted the most attention, and which
to the ordinary reader, would leave no doubt as to
the Grand Duke's ultimate return :
" BWE when, with the help of God, the revolt is mastered ;
when, rendered accessible to the voice of duty and legality,
my subjectii of the kingdom liberate themselves from the
violence e's.ercised upon them by the declared fosterers of
treason, and have recourse to my clemency; when the re-
establish meat of order permits you to resume the work you
had coy imenced ; when circumstances render possible the
application of institutions which it is one of my most lively
and sincere desires to see in action, I have the agreeable
hope that you will then take part in the execution of my
view' 8," tic.

O
ae would naturally conclude from this that the
Em'peror's brother must be playing the part of " the
absent Duke," while General Berg fulfils that of
Angelo, his severe deputy. It is said, however, on
the other hand, that the Grand Duke has had
enQugh of Poland, and that, even if he wished to
ccoae back, the circumstances under which alone his
return would be thought desirable are not likely to
present themselves. The project of an address to
the Emperor has been attributed to the Poles for
some time past by the correspondents of the Russian
newspapers. It has even been suggested to Poles
who he.ve had pardons or commutations of punish-
meat to solicit for their friends that the best thing
to em in the first instance would be to append their
aig natures to an address of repentance and submis-
si on.
But, though there is much to deplore, there is
nothing to apologise for. It was a duty the Poles
owed to their country, and not to the Russian Go-
vernment, to abstain from an appeal to arms. They
are not likely to go down on their knees and beg
for mercy, nor is it likely that mercy will be shown
to them. Every insurgent chief who falls into the
hands of the Russians is shot, every ordinary in-
surgent draughted into the Russian army, every
suspectr2d member of the National Government sent
to the east of Russia, every convicted member shot
or heinged_ Nevertheless, if an address is really
-warted signatures of some kind might no doubt be
priacured. I see that the peasants of the various
d',stricts in the Government of Augustowo continue
-to present their compliments to Mouravieff, and to
implore him to obtain for them the glorious privi-
leges of the newly-liberated Russian serfs. The
peasants of the kingdom in general might be made
to put their marks to a loyal petition of the same
kind, and as the voice of the majority is now the
most important thing in Russia, next to Divine
right, the views and sentiments of the educated
classes on the subject would, of course, be declared
unworthy of notice.
There is a well known mode, too, of forcing in-
habitants of towns to sign addresses. An exorbitant
tax is announced, and when the taxpayers venture
to remonstrate they are told to put their remon-
strances in writing and accompany them with be-
fitting expressions of loyalty. Thus the Jews of
Wilna were suddenly ordered by Mouravieff to pay
Tip 20 per cent. of their incomes. " How could
they get off? The tax was enormous—twice as
much as was required of the landed proprietors." It
was explained to the Jews that to get the tax re-
duced they must petition, and the result was the
presentation of an address of loyalty from the
Hebrews of Wilna.

That the Polish nobility, however, or the inhabi-
tants of Warsaw, or any of the men of the insurrec-
tion will have recourse to the Imperial clemency is
not to be thought of. Putting all other considera-
tions on one side, it would not be safe to do so, and
the first man who made the experiment would feel it
necessary at the same time to make his will.

However, with or without an address, if the
Grand Duke were really to return, he would not find
his position here very tenable in the midst of men
-who have been at war, not with his father's Govern-
ment, but with the system of government intro-
duced by himself. H would have nothing to offer
that was nut offered unavailingly belorc ; and. any
conviction he may have entertained as to the possi-
bility of reconciling the principal men in Poland to
the Government of Russia must now have been
eoniiderably weakened.

On the other hand, there would be some negative
advantages attached to his position should he return
after the total suppression of the insurrection and
the abandonment of all hope of foreign interven.
tion. The revolutionary party which directed the
attack on the Grand Duke's person, and which
begun the present insurrection and kept it up
until, encouraged by promises of foreign aid, the
yho'.ecountry joined in it—this party will no longer,
na•able to show its head, and there would no longer
1311:' any possibility of hesitating between positive
"eats, however slight, offe,red by Russia and the
vague, unmeaning. sympathy of foreigners. The
the 7_tntiootary" party, as it loves to style itself—
.witir ;t1:: :which will hear of no compromise either
their govlterussians or with those who can tolerate
the fie,d tan:eat—must have lost large numbers in
that when the
01l as by exile ; and it is not unlikely
me.a who --tn- moment of recrimination arrives the
known, by"th'cleir force on a rising, and who made
ivillattemp
chieflyk is to murder the Grand
ww, gala Wielopolski, that what they
Daeand
fearedtli e
jicidcation of the country by
an improved system
eimageuvernment, will be looked
upon by the richer
with more aversion than
ever. If, however, they aar
much blamed, those
who blame them may be are
by joining them; and if an,,,:nded that they ended
stress on this fact, he mayll':_ve!,gner
inlaysays too much
Classes of Poles to
it was possib.e for any class
tred
side actively, or even passively, -
against their own countrymen? Foreigners
the Russians
wassotto eager' in ap-
all, may be asked why they Were u_r°lgners, above
planding an insurrection which
„ecea:nblyjnsti-
ffiable because it had no chance of
based only on that sort of right Which the ut
was
lamb pos.
sesses to attack the wolf.
Here, again, the Poles themselves were
eniPable
for it was from Polish sources that came the stories
eirculatedlover Europe of risings having occurred
in provinces which had not been in any way di,.
turbed, and of the military importance of a move.
meat which, as far as regards numbers in the field,
was never very great. It was from Poland the news
came that Langiewicz had a well-equipped army of
10,000 men, whereas the truth was (a 8 I mentioned
long ago) that he had never more than 3,500, many
of whom were very badly armed. If we had known
from the first how strong the Russians were and
how weak the Poles, the insurrection would have
met with the sympathy of pity but not
of encouragement, and we should have ad-
mired the heroism of the Polish leaders without
Counselling them to persevere as they have done
until now nearly every one of those who went
into the field at the beginning of the in-
surrection is in his grave. If we had seen from the
beginning, that the Poles were sure to get the worst
of it
.We .. enouta,instead of cheering them on, have
entreated
would
publish
for
their own sake, to desist. But
they
dto t puolish their stereotyped phrase—
familiar,The
,insurrection
eoureadcrs of the Opinione Nationale,—
would have it thialt ist the whole
day by day; " they
whole of ancient Poland was
flying to arms ~
from
the Baltic to Bessarabia ;"
they would speak of the
e nwt r.
tyh
say
every fresh detach-
went into the kingdom,
about its exit ; they would
novute ;
y•n g anything
ecuirtallow that the in-
surrection had, above all, a
spthat it Was kept up by desperate effortsivo eharecter, and
of ultimately obtaining support from
abroad.
n the hope
In
fine, lenowing that the powerf.el are more likely
to
be assisted than the weak, they c3ntinuall
fied their strength, and deceived their Infong.ni-
el
backers as to their capability of beating therßugn
sians, and were again deceived as to the chances of
being helped in the event, more or less expected, of
after all, too strong for them.
the Russians proving,
A fine tragi-comedy has been played on both sides,

the end of which is that Poland is ruined, and that

now, when the snow is beginning to fall, the French
army is as far from Cracow as ever, and a it w code
_ .

of instructions in force throughout the kti gdom, by
which proprietors, mayors of villages, at d chiefs of

peasant communes, are required to g ye information

at the nearest military post of the arrival of insur-
gents on their estates, without summary judgment
by court-martial as the alternative in case of neglect.
Charges and counter-charges of deception will, no
doubt, be made plentifully before long; but in the
meanwhile there has existed, on both sides, a de-
cided willingness to be deceived. People were so
glad to hear that the Poles, the representatives of
liberty, were beating the Russians, the representa-
tives of despotism, that they would not stop to in-
quire whether such really was the case; and the Poles
themselves looked upon every one as their enemy who
ventured to deny the astounding triumphs claimed
for their detachments, even when these detachments
were beaten instead of victorious. The approved
friend of Poland is the MU who will have the igno-
rance or the effrontery to talk of 20,000,000 Poles
ready to fight for independence; and these are the
" friends" who have misled the Poles as to the pro-
bability of their being assisted by foreigners.
It is said that positive promises were made by
France ; and it is certain that the Poles obeyed all
instructions received from the Emigration in Paris
with the most implicit confidence; and that first the
taking of Puebla, then the election of a Sovereign
to the Mexican throne, were mentioned as occur-
rences after which the intervention of a French
army might be regarded as certain. I fancy, how-
ever, it would be very difficult to prove that an/
direct promises were made on the part of the French
Government ; though persons supposed to be in the
confidence of the Emperor may have communicated
their own suppositions and hopes on the subject to
their correspondents in Poland; and thus ex-
pressions of sympathy
to be translated into
pledmgaeys 20
fatassliasetta,n have
to
Hcoomwe.
ever this may have been, the Poles had made up
their minds that the Emperor Napoleon must aid
them, and being once possessed with that conviction
they interpreted everything that took place in
France with reference to the Polish question in a
sense favourable to their desires. In England it
was imagined that M. Billault's speech did not hold
out to the Poles any great hope of French inter-
vention. The Poles, however, were ingenious
enough to discover in it a secret intention to come
to their rescue at the proper moment; and as with
M. Billault's speech so it may have been with the
promises ,alleged to have been made by persons in
the confidence of the Emperor.

It is not creditable to the Russian Government,
but the fact is that the slightest shadow of a hint
from Paris Las more effect upon the Poles than the
most solemn promises from St. Petersburg. In the
former case, to be sure, the longing for national in-
dependence is appealed to, whereas, in the latter,
the more that is done to improve the condition of
the Poles, the less chance is there that they will
throw themselves blindly into political enterprises
with the view of separating themselves from Rus-
sia. At the same time it is a fact, that the Russian
Government, by reason, in a great measure, of its
own past conduct, is unable to inspire the Poles
with the slightest confidence, though even if it
were the most sincere and truthful Government in
the world it would still find it difficult to establish
any lasting good relations with a nation which is
always looking for the help of foreigners.

The Poles can scarcely fail to derive some political
benefit from the present insurrection, ruined though
they already are by it in a material point of view.
If a new Polish kingdom, on the model of the Po-

land of 1815, be no& formed out of the present king-
dom, with or without the annexation of the city and
district of Cracow; if the Poles should be unable to
obtain even such a result as this from their labours
and sufferings; it is just possible that they may at
last look upon themselves as altogether abandoned
by the West. Once really convinced of this they
would certainly not attempt any further struggle
with a Power so immensely superior to them in re-
sources of all kinds as Russia. In that case it might
be the worse for the West of Europe, or at least for
Austria and Pru,sia ; but it would evidently be
better for the Poles to reckon with their despair, to

cease irritating thconly countryfrom whichthey could
have anything to hope, and to enter into its projects
insteaclofpetpetuallycounteracting them. Irtheking
dom of Poland is not gaged thin time, or failing that
result does not by a revulsion of feeling my to un-
derstand throw itself into the arms of Russia, instead
of waking for Russia to stifle it, then the Poles
must feel that they are destined only to be crushed,
for they will certainly not have another chance left

of preparing thems'elves even for the feeblest insur-
rection. " For some time to come," said a Russian
the other day, whose opinion on such a matter is of
importance, "we shall only be able to govern
Poland under a state of siege." " And after that ? '
he was asked. " Still the state of siege." " But at a
later period ?" "It will always be difficult to get
on without the state of siege," was the reply, and so
undoubtedly would it be if the Poles, after receiving
the most painful pod to the contrary, still per-
sisted in believing that the West of Europe was
anxious to rescue them from Russian dominion.

Hitherto the Poles have been paced in a most
painful position, being just sufficiently protected by

the Western Powers to be able to persuade them-
selves that under favourable circumstances France
and England, or France alone, would assist them
against Russia. The fact that nothing was done for.
them in 1831, and that they were scarcely thought
of during and after the Crimean war, has left no im-
pression upon:them. They are:always looking for
rescue to the West, and if the West cannot help them

by armed intervention, it might, at least, render them
an important service by formally abandoning them,
instead of protesting on their behalf, and reserving
a perpetual right to interfere, which is never exer-

cised otherwise than in words. The remark of an

ex-Minister, who speaks with authority on the sub-
ject—the remark of M. Guizot, that "every one has
made use of Poland, but no one has really assisted
her," ought never to be forgotten by the Poles.
"I will restore this noble nation to independence

if Russia does not agree to my projects ; if she does,
however, a slice more of the noble nation's 'territory
is at her service"—that is the additional Napoleonic
language on the subject of Poland ; and it is not

astonishing, since Napoleon I. purchased Russia's
consent to the formation of the little Polish France,
entitled the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, by the ces-
sion of Bialystock, and her consent to its increase
by the cession of Sarnopol, that a similar project
should be attributed now to Napoleon 111.
The annexation of Cracow and a portion of

ti
western - -
ota Galicia to a new and self-governing Polish
king
11. of and of Eastern Galicia to Russia, would
be only t
the
ve:wal by Napoleon 111. and Alexander
Napoleon 1.103, in respect to Poland pursued by
Alexander I. in 1807 and 1809.
But if all Na and Pole
on can do for Poland is to pro-
cure political
for the Kingdom, and to get
the purely Polishppotionortion
that is no more than tlon of Galicia annexed to it,
end
of
every Austrian knows
was the infallible
comparedWielo in
Whom Prince Napoleon
pcdakiithe policy introduced by
nevertheless
Judas Iscariot. the French Senate to
If the present insurrection le.a..
eyniaefaZirr
in-
tervention on behalf of Poland, tu'eto no active
future will be any Sovereign, or ez!eal Judas in
or nation, or politictahla7seulpllpbolyrtthfraot ittlZeuatb;:otadPwrihnincei,
to mislead the Poles as to the probabiiit
receiving someday
hitherto, even under the most favourable circut;
stances, has always failed them at the critical
moment. If, after all, a war should seriously be
undertaken with a view to an independent Poland,
and if this war should be seriously prosecuted and
Poland not abandoned at the first opportunity for
making a profitable peace, than the Marquis Wielo-
polski will have erred so greatly in supposing such a
war to be out of the question that his mistake will in-
deed appear almost criminal. Should it on the contrary
turn out that all the blood that has been shed in the
present insurrection has been shed in v-kin, then the
real wrong-doers will evidently be, not those who
commenced the movement in a moment of despair,
but those who long before had planned it; and
above all, those who, by encozraging it with false
hopes from abroad, led the whole country to take