The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-02 00:00:00

THE POLISH INSURRECTIO N,

(From the Specid Correspondent of the Times.)
NEAR CRACOW, AUG. 24.
A German newspaper informs its readers that
Mieroslawski is in Podolia, at the head of 10,000
men. If Mieroslawski were in the Russian service
this would be impossible enough, but under actual
circumstances the possibility of such a thing is not
worth discussing.
It is said, however, that Mieroslawski is really
about to make his appearance again in Poland. This
is not mere gossip, for I know several offs tiers who
served in his first detachment, and have remained
in the insurrection ever since, who are anxiously
expecting his arrival, and are convinced that before
long the whole military direction of affairs will be
placed in his hands. As I have before had occasion
to remark, the supporters of Mieroslawski are by no
means numerous, but the moment of despair seems
7J
to be approaching for the unhappy Poles, a d they
may soon have to choose between adopting despe-
rate measures, such as Mieroslawski is supposed to
be peculiarly fitted for, and laying down the:nr arms.

It will be nothing new to see insurrection against a

foreign Power degenerate into domestic revolution,
and a change of this character may be expected in
Poland as soon as it is clearly understood that noth-
ing is to be hoped from foreign intervention.. It is a

mistake to suppose that at the present momeri t there
are two active parties in Poland. On the one hand there
is every small clique of men who believe in Mie roslaw-
ski, and who avow that their number is very limited,
and on the other, the great body of what tt-e Poles
call " the nation," by which must be understood the
nation minus the inert dead mass of the peasantry,
intent only on cultivating its fields in peace, or, in
other words, about one third of the entire popula-
tion. I have met many insurgents who approved
the Mieroslawski mode of action, but were never-
theless bitterly hostile to him persona?ly, for the
sufficient reason that it is he and he alone evho led
Europe to believe that the Poles were still tor-
mented by their ancient sin at a time when the only
sinner in the way of factiousness was Mieruslawski
himself. It seems strange that the advent of
Mieroslaweki to power should be possible when,with
very few exceptions, all the thinking and acting
portion of the nation is opposed to him. But if there
is to be no intervention by force of arms, what are
the insurgents to do ? They have no thought of
giving in. They ought to continue the war as it has
been carried on hitherto—keeping up a slow fire
which consumes the forces of Poland without burn-
ing up those of Russia; or, ought they to aim at a
general conflagration, of which the effect has not
yet been tried, and which, though it would cer-
tainly destroy a good many of the most highly
placed men in Poland, might ultimately clear the
country of foreign invaders ? Such a policy as this
latter has a touch of madness in it, but the distin-
guishing quality of the Polish insurrection from the
beginning has not been wisdom ; and the best and
bravest of the insurgents say with truth that if they
had stopped to calculate chances instead of listening
simply to the dictates of their own courage, they
could not, unarmed, undisciplined, and half frozen in
the woods, as they were, have commenced the insur-
rection at all, If a people is diiven to madness, we
must look for madness in its actions, and perhaps,
considering all things, the most wonderful thing in the
Polish insurrection up to the present time has been the
moderation with which it has been conducted. The
members of what is called " the cosmopolite revolu-
tion," who are supposed to love revolution for its
own sake, and to take the same pleasure in revers-
ing the existing order of society that amateur ear-
deners take in turning up the soil, have been
solemnly and repeatedly warned off. A certain num-
ber of these resolutionists have, no doubt, penetrated
into Poland, and it is, of course, impossible, at the
last moment, for the Polish committees to say to a
brave Italian or Frenchman who comes to offer them
his s Nord, " You are a Democrat, a Socialist, and,
moreover, an enemy to the Pope ; and we will,
therefore, have nothing to do with you." But
foreigners, and especially foreign revolutionists,
have, as a rule, been discouraged from coming to
Poland; and, judging from the thousands of insur-
gents that I have myself seen during the last five
months, bound from Galicia to the Kingdom or to
Volhynia, I can say positively that very few
foreigners of any kind have come.
However, up to the present time the insurrection,
begun in sheer despair, has been systematically and
cautiously maintained, in the hope that the
Western Powers would either intervene forcibly
on behalf of Poland, or intervene diplomatically,
and by doing so involve themselves in a war with
Russia, if not precisely on Poland's behalf at least
on Poland's account. Although no one here has
any ground for supposing that Prince Gortscha-
koff will make concessions to the Poles before the
insurrection is suppressed, and although no one can
say what coarse the Western Powers will take in
case their demands should not be acceded to,
yet it is easy to see that the Poles are already
preparing for the worst, and are considering
what course they must take as soon as it shall
appear certain that they are to be abandoned to
themselves and to the Russians. Between now
and the first days of September we shall hear
of several expeditions entering the kingdom, and
perhaps of one very important one entering the
Ruthenian provinces. These, however, like most
previous expeditions that have left Galicia since the
defeat of Langiewicz, will be really little more than
armed manifestations destined to prove once more
to Europe before it decides to leave Poland to its
fate, that the Polish insurrection is still alive and
as vigorous as ever. Then if the six points (or any
greater or smaller number) be effered to Poland,
the first act of the drama—or rather the second, if
the first may be said to have terminated with the
fall of Langiewiez—will bo at an end, and the
third, with the catastrophe, about to begin.
The men of extreme measures say that the true
insurrection has not yet commenced, and that we
have hitherto only witnessed the introduction. The
"true insurrection is to be simply a reign of terror.
Mieroelawski's avowed partisans, as well as these
men of extreme measures who, though they hate
Mieroslawski for his factiousness, might approve of
his rule if he were once called to power—all the
extreme party, in short, say openly that terrorism
will Boon be their only hope, and that as it saved
France from foreign invasion so it may save Poland
from foreign domination, " Poland," they say,
c
ever be made to live again through eoreige
aid, nor can it hope to regain its independence ex-
cept througb an
effort made by the whole popula-
tion. Bat the aristocracy (that is to say, certain
members of riot, families among the mess of large
and small leaded
proprietors who constitute in
Poland what, to thb
confusion of Englishmen, is
called " the nobility") would rather give money
than fight, and would ten
times rather fight and
sacrifice their lives than cede
to their peasants the
land for which those
peasants
have hitherto per-
formed task-work or paid rent.” yet, until every
trace of task-work is abolished, and until the
peasant becomes a proprietor in Russian Poland,
be is already in Galicia and in Posen, he will
always be the enemy of the nubility, and will
always refuse to fight for the independence of his
native lend. Ii the peasantry, in a purely agricul-
turallike Poland, refuse to take
country Part in a
movement on behalf of national independeß
ee, then
by any possibility succeed.
no such movement can
Therefore, conclude the men of extreme measures,
"the support of the peasantry neast+. and at all
InezArde, he obtaieed, end if lie rice proprietor:,
stand in the way of such an r'``"'
cat
MUST look upon
them as ObstileleB to be removed, and treat them as

if they were Russians."
The reply one naturally makes to stic!► an argu-
ment us this is, in the first place, that the peasant
question is at an end, having now been solved pre-
cisely in accordance with the views of the cr.frcnie
party. As liagnareile, in one of Molicre's inter-
:Ludes, having to choose between receiving 12 blows
and pa:pug 12 pieces of money, chooses the blows,
but when h© bas received 10 finds that he can stand
I hem no longer decides to pay the money—so the
Polish proprietary, after supporting the attacks of
the se-called " Democratic" party and the ill will of
the peasants for 32 years, rather than make the
mcession prepoeed to them in the, Diet of 1831,
now, at the last moment, declare themselves ready
reaSD.nt'S right to
to make it. The q-,ireti;;:. of the