The Sun.
London, England, 1863-03-14 00:00:00

ing according to time and locality, may be described
as not very enthusiastic upon the whole. There has

been too much sair+, both by Government and pro-
prietors, of tiaE:r right to the soil, to keep the people

in their old feelings st) veneration and make them

hurry to the camp at the call of the nobles. On the
o'her hand, with th moral fruits of independence
all to come, they are hardly advanced enough in
point of dignity and self-respect to realise the idea
of patriotism and the duties it imposes. On the
border line between two phases of existence their
former pliancy has been undermined, while their
action, as independent individuals is yet influenced
by motives of the grossest kind. The Provisional
Government seems thoroughly to have understood
the transition state of the rustic class. C:utious

in every measure, no part of the public business

has been treated with greater discretion than
the relation of the insurgent bands to the pea•

santry. While provender and victuals are taken
indiscriminately from landed proprictors, and
paid for with draughts upon the I'rovi

clonal Governrnen:-, the Elightekt service ren-
dered by the peasants if possible, rewarded

with the usual coinage of the coufitry. With the

exception of the south-west, where rebellion is para-
mount, the peasantry have been neither forced nor
invited to make common cause with an indepen-
dence the benighted clowns find it. so difficult to
understand. Everywhere else the Provisional Go-

vernment hardly deems it practical to confuse the
popular mind by requiring them to fight for the
country, when they have got, or at any rate are on
the point of getting, the soil. It is but natural
that, in spite of this prudential reserve, many a
peasant should be driven to the camp by his hatred
to the Muscovites ; yet, the business being headed
by the nobility, his former tyrants, the agricultural
notion of liberty, as a rule, is as yet in a state
where the greater satisfaction is derived from
thwarting the landlord rather than the Government.
In some districts, especially in Kalisz and on the
outskirts of the principal scenes of war, the peasantry
have even abandoned their neutral attitude, and for
love and money gone over to the Russians. Consi-
dering, however, the magnitude of the sums ex-
pended and the number of Russian agents employed
on agrarian mutiny, the success of the Czar has
been comparatively limited in this particular direc-

tion. Now and then the inhabitants of a village,
following the obliging request of a Cossack troop,
have lent a helping hand in disembowelling a noble-
man's mansion ; or, instigated by the head-money
of the Russian commanders, they have not only
given up a number of insurgents, but arrested and
handed over for condign punishment as many
people in non-rustic cloth as could be laid hold of
conveniently. Their loyalty getting a little too ex-
pensive in this wise, the payment of the bribe has
been, however, refused in many instances; and, the
insurgent hanging every accomplice in such prac-
tices, the villagers, it appears, are now tolerably up
to the requirements of the time, and, bon gre mal gre,
have relapsed into their former neutrality. In
Plock, and all over the north of the kingdom, they
have furnished no appreciable quantum to the in-
surrection ; but in Lithuania, where the national
character is more pliant than in the old provinces,
the co-operation of the rustics seems to have been as
general and even more voluntary than in Radom
and the roving ground of Gen. Langiewicz.
If in the progress of the movement more cordial
patriotism should be evinced by the million, the na-
tion will be indebted for the service to the restless
activity of the priests. I have many reasons for be-
longing to the number of those who believe that the
greater part of the clergy have taken the oath to the
Provisional Government. That they have not begun
preaching the holy war against the infidel must be
probably ascribed to the directions of the secret
authority they recognise. Underhand, however,
and in the confessional, their earnest admonitions
are being brought to bear on all classes of the king-
dom. Religions enemies of the orthodox faith,
which has been forced upon too many of their Ca-
tholic brethren, and rabid nationalists, as the only
depositaries of culture in the land, they have a secu-
lar as well as a transcendent reason to look upon
the Russian Government as the scourge of the Poles.
The Russiauised archbishop at the head of the Po-
lish Church, so far from preventing mischief, only
serves to loosen the ties of discipline among the
lower clergy. Apart from the Jews, who wash their
hands in innocence and try to keep aside in the tar
moil, the role of the bulking and manufacturing
community may be alluded to in a few words. The
manufacturers are all Germans, and the traders are
Jews. If they don't fight in rank end file, itis they
who have the satisfaction of supplying to a consi-
derable extent the sinews of war. Above all other
classes they are regularly assessed and taxed—or,
should they prefer it, murdered—by the Provi-
sional Government. With this distribution of parts
the play has been duly opened, and, victorious or
the reverse, promises to prove a grand success in the
revolutionary line.

The following account of the position of the in-
surgent forces, under the command of General
Langiewicz, was received in Paris by a letter from
Cracow, dated Sunday last. The corps commanded
by Langiewicz occupies all the ground situated be-
tween Slonniki and Pzochontebe as far as Olknsk.
The General has established his head-quarters at
the village of Goszeza. The entire line between
Svytze and Igolonia has been abandoned by' the
Russian troops, who, in consequence of the repulse
they experienced at Paskowa-Skala and at Skala,
have retreated to Olkusk and Miechow. General
Schachewskoi, who was beaten on the 4th at
Paskowa-Skala, fell back in great haste on Strze-
mieszya, whence his troops were conveyed by rail to
Czenetarhowa. The Russians feared an attack on
Radowsk or Czenstarhowa. For that reason they
are concentrating all their forces at the latter place,
having abandoned their attack on the corps of
Langiewicz. The Russian column under the cow-
man of Prince Schachowskoi, is completely worn
out with fatigue, arid is further quite demoralised.
The soldiers refuse to march, saying they have not
tasted any warm food for five days. They have,
moreover, lost all respect for their officers. Further
details have also been received of the sanguinary
action at Powitze. The Polish corps commanded
by Milentzki was posted near the town of Kszimir,
between the lake of Powitze, which crosses the
Prussian frontier, and the town of Konin. The
latter place was garrisoned by 3,000 Russians. The
corps of Milentzki, which was reinforced on the 2d
of March by 300 Poles, well armed and equipped,
who came from the Grand Duchy of Posen, dis-
persed 300 Russian soldiers stationed at Minichow.
The garrison of Kouin having been apprised by the
Prussian authorities of what was going forward,
suddenly attacked the corps of Milentzki on two
sides, while the Prussian troops cut off its retreat
to the frontier. The battle was desperate and
sanguinary, and the losses were great on each
side. Private letters estimate the loss of the Poles
at 120 mee, and the loss of the Russians at a
much greater number. But as the latter were
more numerous they drove the insurgents into
Pruesia. The retreat of the insurgents was followed
by a skirmish between them and the Prussian sol-
diers. The corps of Milentzki suffered severely on
this occasion. A number of young men of the first
families found there a glorious
death. A great
number, however, were able to join other insurgent
corps. The insurgent chief in the government of
Plock is rapidly organising his forces in the neigh-
bourhood of Sulava. The corps commanded by
Nieczrji, which consists of about 1,500 men, is
established in the southern part of the government
of Lublin, and is operating successfully against the
Russian troops, who vainly attempted several times
to surroune and destroy them. According to an
official report received from the several insurgent
chiefs, the insurrection is becoming general without
being concentrated on any one point.. In conse-
quence of this system the Russian Generals despair
of putting an end to the insurrection as quickly as
they expected. The Invalid e .Russe publishes a
despatch dated Wilna, the Ist of March, which
states that General de Nostitz sent four columns in
pursuit of the bands commanded by Ratchinskr.
These bands were passing rapidly from one place
to another. One of these columns, commanded by
Captain Kinnoff, overtook the band of Ratohinski
in the small town of Roski, on the road from Pinsk
to Nieswiej, between the districts of Sloutzk and