The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-18 00:00:00

MEXICO.

The Moniteur publishes the following intelligence
from Mexico :
"-The despatches received from the expeditionary
corps by the last mail gives a suitable answer to
all that previous accounts had led to apprehend_
The troops sent from France and Algeria arrived
and landed at Vera Cruz after an average passage.
The sanitary state is generally good ; and the men
who from fever had remained behind Gen. Forey's
column have since almost arrived at Orizaba. At
Vera Cruz itself, the maladies are reduced to fevers

which lessen in gravity as the north winds begin to
prevail. The temperature has fallen, and as the
rains are over the march of the convoys has become
more easy, although 12 days are atilt required to
perform the distance from Vera Cruz to Orizaba.
General Forey not having received all the means
of transport necessary for the support and move-
ment of the army, was not able to commence opera-
tions, but that state of things has been modified

since the departure of his last despatches. The
Minister of War has received information direct
from New York of 1,200 mules and 250 carriages
having left that port on the November for Vera
Cruz. The brigade of General Bertier arrived on the
7th(November at Jalapa ; his advanced guard, com-
posed of 100 of the 12th Chasseurs, commanded by
Lieut.-Col. Marguerite, fell in on the 3d, at Plau
del Rio, with 200 Red Lancers, the best volunteer
cavalry in the country. The French Chasseurs
made a vigorous charge, and after a combat of a
few minutes the Mexican Lancers took to flight,
closely pursued for nearly five miles. They once

endeavoured to rally at a point where some of their
infantry were in ambush, but were again dispersed.
This success on the part of the French produced a
demoralising effect on a corps of from 3,000 to 4,000
men of the national guard assembled under the com-
mand of Diazmeron, Governor of the State of
Jalapa, in the strong positions of Cerro Gordo,
which the Mexicans had formerly defended against
the Americans. This corps dispersed completely
on the approach of the French. The above affair
cost the enemy 15 men killed and 35 wounded; 50
horses saddled were taken. and 10 killed, and the
road was covered with arms which had been aban.
doned. The French had two men killed and five
wounded; among the latter was Lieut.-Col. Mar-
guerite, slightly by a ball ; five horses were killed."
The following proclamation was addressed by
General Forey to the population of Mexico, some
days after his arrival at Orizaba :

" November 3.
" Mexicans,-0 a reading the proclamation which
I addressed to you on my arrival in your country,
you cannot have been mistaken, but must have
recognised in it the hand of the Emperor; he
alone possesses the secret of saying so much,
and such great things, in so clear and noble a
style. But now that I have seen your country suf-
ficiently to be able to tell you my own impres-
sions, allow me to briefly lay them before you
with the simple frankness of a soldier, who,
I repeat, and in spite of what dishonest writers may
say to you, has not come to make war on the Mexi-
can people, but on the Government whose melan-
choly situation is a proof of its incapacity to do good.
What, in fact, is to be seen in your towns ? Houses
in ruins, impassable streets, and stagnant water
vitiating the air. What are your roads ? Bogs
and sloughs which horses and carriages cannot pass
without danger. What is your administration ?
Orgilmised theft. Those on whom, from their func-
tions, devolves the duty of rendering justice to their
fellow-eitizeus, are 0",-in
them J.., ctimes the first to molest
.
weir persons and property. Those charged

with the collection of the taxes most frequently
give money to the public treasury only after having
filled their own pockets. Can agriculture be en-
couraged when the farmer is almost certain of being
robbed of the fruit of his labour ? Can commerce
and the arts flourish when for years past the noise
of war has been heard on all sides P Have you
then only recovered your independence, after hav-
ing shed so much blood for so noble an object only
to make such a deplorable use of it, and is there no
longer in this country, favoured by Heaven in so
many ways, any real patriots who understand that
this noble nation has been too long made use of by
some ambitious men, who waste in f, atrieidal
struggles all the living strength of Mexico. Yes,
I, as well as all those who see the sad situation of
your country, tell you so with pain, you are has-
tening to your ruin, and you have only another
step to make to fall into an abyss which will swal-
low up your independence, and again plunge you
into barbarism if you do not make a back« and step.
Make it then, that step, when Providence offers you
an opportunity which perhaps will not be repeated.
France sends you an army, a model of order and
discipline, notwithstanding that an odiously calum-
niating press has dared to write to the contrary. It
has come to aid you in constituting yourselves into
a rich, powerful, and free nation ; free with that
real liberty which is always accompanied by order;
into a nation which all others may recognise as
civilised. That army will assist you in forming
an honest and upright government, which shall
only employ agents honest and upright like itself.
Then the State finances will promote the wellbeing
of all, and not of a few only, instead of serving to
enrich a few ambitious men only, they will a regu-
lar army, capable of maintaining order in the coun-
try, and of protecting private fortunes instead of
destroying them. They will serve to open means
of communication, as in Europe, in order to faci-
litate commercial relations, in which consists the
prosperity of the people; they will serve to repair
your roads, bridges, and public buildings, and to
improve your ill paved and badly lighted streets.
Are all those advantages not worth taking into
consideration, and to attain them should not all
Mexicans, to whatever party they may belong,
agree to forget their former differences, and labour
together for the grandeur of their country ? It
is under the shadow of the French flag that they
may obtain that result, for they will remember those
noble words of the Emperor—' Everywhere
that flag floats it represents the cause of natiuns
and civilisation. General of Division, Senator, and
Commander-in-Chief of the Expeditionary Corps.
" FOREY."

POLAND.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

The Poles resident in Paris have celebrated, as
is their custom, the anniversary of the national in-
surrection, by a mass at the Church of the As-
sumption. At two o'clock the Literary Historical
Society held a public meeting in the building of
the Polish Library. Prince Czartoryski, Presi-
dent of the society, made a speech, of which the
following is an extract. The illustrious speaker
began by rendering homage to the unshakable
constancy of which the nation had given proof
during the last two years, notwithstanding the
severity which the Russian Government had dis-
played. He said, " Vacillation and irresolution
had not ceased to characterise all the acts of those
who, being possessed of physical force and absolute
power, might the more easily have traced out a
line of conduct, and executed with safety their
plans. While, on the other hand, they who had
neither physical force, nor help, nor even encour-
ragement from without, and who, in the midst of
the most terrible persecutions, might so easily have
succumbed to lassitude, and abandoned an unequal
struggle, it was they who always remained
faithful to the programme once traced out—who
were consistent in their acts, and firm 'in their
convictions."
The speaker then recalled the last declaration
of the citizens of the kingdom, and the address
of the inhabitants of Podolia, whose demands
might be resumed in these words—administrative
reunion to the kingdom of Poland of all the Po-
lish provinces subject to Russia. He then con-
tinued thus—
To the national spirit so energetically deve-
loped, and manifesting itself in so unanimous and
imposing a manner, purely administrative reforms
cannot suffice, were they even conceived on a
broader basis, and executed in better faith. The
country cannot be content 'with insignificant ame-
liorations in its system of education and in its
municipal organisation, especially so long as these
are restricted to a single remnant of our country,
and do not embrace all the Polish provinces, at
the present day subject to the same sceptre, and
bound to each other by the traditions and glory of
the past, and by the sufferings of martyrdom of the
present.
Doubtless all wise patriots will take advantage
of every field of action, be it ever so limited, which
will enable them to augment the physical, the
moral, and intellectual forces of the nation ; but
concessions of this sort granted with a niggardly
hand to the inhabitants of a few provinces arbi-
trarily called Poland will not bring about even an
armistice of a few months in a struggle sus-
tained by the country against an oppressive
system.

And what can be said of a deceitful policy which
flatters itself not on.y with confining a nation in so
narrow a circle of insignificant ameliorations, but

of marking it on this occasion with the seal of
apostacy, of bringing it to the renunciation of all
its past, of all which constitutes its very genius.
How vain and sterile was that doctrine of despair
which counselled Poland to reject at the price of a
few concessions and a few paltry favours the vital
idea of its existence to submerge itself into a mon.
strous agglomeration of reputed races to become the
vanguard of an Asiatic invasion destined to con-
quer and to punish the world.

Poland has not allowed itself to be led away
from its path, painful it is true, but traced out by
Providence itself. She has remained deaf to the
suggestions of a blind hatred against the West,
which, she has been told, has degenerated, and is
without pity. She has not believed in the promises
of political regeneration by moral suicide, and she
herself has answered in her turn—No more idle
dreams.

But much more disquieting to every heart ani-
,
mated by the thought of the welfare and future of
the nation, is another tendency which, though
utterly dissimilar and based on generous instincts,
has not less its starting point in despair, and whose
working is no less suicidal. The terror and per-
secutions under which the country groans have
given birth in some ardent minds, in some sore
spirits to fatal ideas which would seriously com-
promise the destinies of our country. I speak not
merely of the deplorable crimes recently perpetrated
at Warsaw, of those monstrous deeds unexampled
in our past biatory, and occasioned entirely by a
system of political cruelty, which is likewise unex-
ampled in the civilised world.

It cannot be denied, gentlemen, under the smart
of wholesale imprisonments, of condemnations to
Siberia and to death—under the smarting of the ab-
solute indifference of Governments formerly ani-
mated by sympathy for our misfortunes; lastly,
under the threat of that law, impossible to qualify,
for recruiting, which would deprive the country of
its noblest children—the idea of insurrection has
arisen in more than one mind, and each day aug-
ments the number of those who meditate changing
into military resistance a purely moral struggle
sustained now two years by the nation with un-
shakable constancy.
I feel sure I only express the deep conviction of
every enlightened patriot, however ardent he may
be, when I declare that a military rising attempted
at this moment would more seriously than aught
else endanger the national cause. I leave it to the
conscience of all those who would not willingly and
most culpably blind themselves, to answer the
question—,, Are our forces on a sufficiently firm
footing—our ranks sufficiently filled—is our finan-
cial situation sufficiently assured to enable us to call
the nation to arms without committing, of all im-
prudences, the most criminal ?" I leave also to those
who judge rir ely the situation of Europe—the al-
liances about to be formed—the interests engagcclin

to answer the question, whether an insurrection in
Poland could at this juncture rely ou the emailest
foreign aid ?

I shall only touch at greater length on one sole
point—becaus3 standing alone—it is said to be
favourable to an insurrection in Poland, because
it alone appears to afford a ground for an attempt
devoid of reason and against conscience. It is
said from various sides that the actual state of
Russia might offer chances of success to a❑ insur-
rectional movement in our country, and, it must
be confessed, the generous death of several officers
of the Russian army, who did not conceal their
sympathy for our cause, has lately added weight
to this erroneous belief. A foot like the preceding
could not but impress deeply the popular imagina-
tion, and the martyrdom of a few has been taken
by it as an incontrovertible sign of the general sen-
timent of an entire people. We must not, however,
Tield ourselves to legendary exaggerations, but
give to such various symptoms their sober pro-
portions.

True, the empire of the Czars is a prey to agi-
tations and embarrassments of every kind, of
nature too serious to be denied; its force, however,
has not declined to that degree but that it could
still crush at one blow a people who should revolt
without army, without organisation, without foreign
alliances. True, ideas of liberty and civilisation
begin to spread in Russia, but they are very faint
as yet, and threatened in their germ by a hand
still powerful and ready to let loose the blind
and brutal passions of the masses against the ula-
dern spirit.

All honour to those generous Russian officer°
who preferred sentence of death by their oval
military tribunals to massacreing a defenceless
people, to doing outrage to its sufferings, its rights'
By this they have wiped away more than one
:iniquitous deed of their countrymen, and their
memory will live for ever in Poland ! But thee°
noble victims even speak loudly enough by the
smallness of their number and the abandonment of
their comrades, to warn us against dangerous illu-
sions, to teach us to distinguish between rare or-
captions and the general spirit of the army and the
Russian nation. That nation and that army will
yet long remain animated by thoughts of violence
and conquest, and only when they shall /103.°
acquired the consciousness still so wanting t°
them, of their own rights and misery—will they
learn one day to understand and respect the right°
and sufferings of others."
After having insisted again on the immiee°
dangers of an insurrection to Poland, the speaker
concludes with these words :
" So lOng as the political_ foundations of all social
life be not firmly laid in every province of °tic
country, the cry to arms can be but the cry of de:,
spair, heard with joy by the oppressor alone; I"
can be but an appeal to hopeles combat, to 1111
glorious death. May God, in his mercy, spare
so terrible a trial!"

The citizens of the kingdom have declared 114
lately by a solemn act, " That neither brute forcei
nor military tribunals, nor prisons, nor exile,ll°
even the :caffold, shall stifle in them—faith in th:
rights and in the future of Poland." A natic);
which can speak thus in the face of its oppressor
must have sufficient confidence in herself not ta
provoke a decisive, desperate battle, must lino
she has sufficient forces to maintain still a I°4'
campaign, should even that campaign be
marked by reverses.