The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-23 00:00:00

Prince Czartoryski and the Poles.

The following speech was addressed by Prince
Czartoryski at the meeting in London, on the 21st
inst., of the Committee of the National League for
the Independence of Poland :
Gentlemen,—Being in England for a few days I consi-
dered it my duty, as well as a great pleasure, to attend this
meeting of the Committee of the National League for thet
Independence of Poland, in order to tender to you and to
your president, for so many years past the devoted
.ed.
talented friend and champion of my country, my own grtitof
ful acknowledgments, and the grateful acknowledgments
the National Government, for the warm and ustehfuelineagutereeet.
displayed in our cause by the establishment del bfor my
While I deeply thank you, I do not hesitate to
deserve and
country, and with honest pride to say that
undervalue it,
are entitled to, your best services. Our cause,rVewever courts
or cabinets or diplomatists may trifle with or
of order and
is emphatically your own cause—the institutions and
civilisation, of all that is previous;
• arras for the vindica-
tion of the West. Poland is
rights which God and
tion of her inalienable rights--
her history, and, I may add, Those rights re. 1
herotnilseer=s to Europe and to
Christendom, have conferred uhlo
a a and religious equality
present individual liberty,
to all classes of the po-
before the law, justice renderedrehgions and persuasions, free-
pulation, to Poles of
all
ueet for the rights of property,
other nations, respect for
dom of commerce, re:Pwith
and, in our relation
which we claim for ourselves. Such
the same rights as those which
the National Government has
are the principles of
wepresentative ; and I need not remind
proclaimed itself the r
followed its conduct, and still less
any one who has closely how strictly it has acted in accord-
once
tle
yourselves,
with its gen
professions.
, ohms. By so acting, though anonymous,
it has become
strong' and gained prompt and universal
.
ressmg the aspirations of the country, and
obedience,
because dience, "i;T:presents the idea of right and justice that
it is
so notwithstanding his brutal power, strives in
the oppressor,
vain to destroy 1-t These, gentlemen, are facts which it is
"
difficult to reconcile with the statements of our enemies and
supporters--few, I am thankful to say—
in England,
cthaleliirngon
doubt the identification of the policy of the
National Government with the principles to which alone it
its owes existence, and which it has loudly and repeatedly
proclaimed to the world, Having neither right nor truth on
their side, they have recourse to perfidious insinuations, and
especially to such as are most capable of deluding popular
opinion in England. The assertion that our struggle for in-
dependence is net without an Ultramontane colour, is evi-
dently a manoeuvre of this kind. It is easy to perceive the
object of such an insinuation. Our enemies know well that
nothing is so dear to the English people—and as I think
most rightly so—as religious freedom. England's noblest
eons have shed their blood fer this precious good. To
blacken the Polish cause from this point of view, and to
represent our struggle for national, political, and religious
freedom as a war of religion, seemed to them a cleverly de-
vised stratagem. Fortunately their accusations have fallen
dead against the sound judgment of public opinion. The
English people Las as yet received no complaint of perse •
cution by the National Government from any Pole who
does not profess the Catholic religion. On the other hand,
it still remembers the recent cruel imprisonment of the
spiritual and temporal representatives of the Protestant and
Israelite communities in Warsaw by the Muscovite autho-
rities. The English people has never heard of proselytism
by the Poles, but knows well that 5,000,003 of Poles were
forced by the Czir Nicholas, by means of every species
tortures of body and mind, to enter the so-called orthodox
very
people Church. Finally, it knows that
freedom,tb
people who in England dare to speak of religiousimposes
at home strictly maintain a barbarous decree; n
Greco-Rus-
sian severe penalties on those who abandon the
religions to bring
sian faith, and force parents of different .
Gentlemen, let
up their children in the orthodox Churc in which it
us no longer waste time on these accusations,oveour disgust—the
is difficult to say which most r
them
audacity with which
groundlessness of the assertion
it is made. Let us rather hope that these brief remarks,and
a reference to undeniable ts
will suffice to undeceive
ts of our enemies in good
those who accepted the ottahtfe statement of the truth in this
faith. Let us hope that
ted as affording a true measure a the
generalmatt e matter willaec u
rbae a ccy:Pat
the accusations of our enemies, Should