The Sun.
London, England, 1863-05-06 00:00:00

RUSSIA AND POLAND.

The following is a translation of the Russian re,
ply to the English Note on the state of Poland :
" St. Petersburg, April 14, 1863.
_ _

"M le Baron,—On the morning of the sth (17th)
of April Lord Napier delivered to me a copy, here.
with enclosed, of a despatch from her Britannic
Majesty's Principal Secretary of State relative to
the present situation of the kingdom of Poland.
" The first part of this document is devoted to a
retrospecive examination of the question of right.
The second expresses the wish that peace may be
restored to the kingdom of Poland, and established
on a lasting basis. I will reply to these two points
of Lord Russell's despatch.
" As regards the question of right her Britannic
Majesty's Principal Secretary of State reproduces
the arguments already recorded in his despatch of
the 2d March. I can, therefore, refer to the obser-
vations which I then made to the Ambassador of
England.

"The Government of her Britannic Majesty takes
a position on ground where the Imperial Cabinet
will never hesitate to meet it—that of treaties.
"Nevertheless, it is here a question less of the text
than of the interpretation of tree ties. We have the
right not to admit without reservation every inter-
pretation which it might be wished to give them.
" Lord Russell says in his despatch that, by Art.
1 of the General Act signed at Vienna, the 28th of
May (9th of June), 1816, 'the Duchy of Warsaw
was erected into a kingdom of Poland, to be insepa-
rably attached to the Emperor of Russia under cer-
tain conditions.'

" Now, this is what the Act of Congress of Vienna
stipulates in respect to those conditions :
" Poles,subjects of Russia,Austria, and Prussia respec-
tively, shall enjoy representation and shall obtain national
institutions to be determined in conformity with the politi-
cal existence which each of the Governments to which they
belong shall consider it useful and expedient to grant to
them.'

" The Emperor Alexander I. developed these prin-
ciples in accordance with his personal views. He
granted to Poland the Constitution of the 12th (24th)
of December, 1815. It was a spontaneous act of his
sovereign will, and it did not constitute an irre-
vocable engagement towards foreign Powers, inas-
much as the Act of the Constitution, posterior to the
Treaty of Vienna, was not even communicated to
them.

" Lord Russell contests the principle according to
which the revolt of Poland in 1830, having resulted
in the declaration of the forfeiture of the sovereign
dynasty, should be held to annul the bases of politi-
cal existence granted in virtue of the Act of Vienna.
" Although history has more than once confirmed
this conclusion of natural right, theory may afford
matter for controversy. We think it may be laid
down that if the revolt does not invalidate the na-
tional engagements, it any rate annuls the sponta-
neous development of them which had been gene-
rously added, and which have led to fatal results to
Poland and to Russia.
" But the Principal Secretary of State of her
Britannic Majesty gives to the argument a promi-
nent place in his despatch, while I had only inci-
dentally put it forward in the course of my conver-
sation with Lord Napier.
gg The English Ambassador alludes to it in the
following terms in the despatch which he had the
goodness to communicate to me
prone Gortschakoff also said to me that, desiring to
treat this question in a spirit of conciliation and humanity,
he had abstained from employing an argument which lay at
his disposal—that of the right of conquest.
Moreover, everything has been said on both