The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-26 00:00:00

POLAND.

(Front the Edinburgh Courant.)

The Emperor Alexander, surnamed by his sub-
jects " the well-intentioned," most certainly de-
serves that epithet. He wishes to give land and
liberty to the Russian serfs without diminishing the
revenues of the Russian proprietors, and to make
Poland happy and contented without conceding the
least political freedom to the Poles. His intentions
are good enough, only it is impossible to carry them
out. In a few months the peasants will find that
they have not enough land, the proprietors that too
much land has been taken from them; while the
Poles will still complain as they do now, that under a
sovereign who has raised their hopes they are as
unfairly treated as they were by Nicholas, from
whom they knew they had nothing to expect but
insult and persecution. Nicholas was to be moved
by no suffering. It mattered not to him that the
Russian proprietors had serfs, so long as they al-
lowed themselves to be governed like slaves. As
for the Poles, he told them in so many words, four
years after the suppression of the insurrection of
1830-31, that they might remain quiet if they
pleased, but that upon the slightest movement in
Warsaw, Marshal Paskievitch had orders to retire
to the citadel and bombard it. "I will reduce the
city to ashes," said the paternal Monarch," and you
certainly will not catch me building it up again."
No such speech as this could have escaped the
lips of Alexander 11., no such thoughts have been
harboured by him. He is certainly not a man of
cruel or even severe disposition. He had reigned
eight years before he sent a single person to Siberia
for a political offence. The first " political martyr,"
as the Russian communists say, of the present reign
—the first political felon, as we prefer to call a man
who seeks to excite millions of ignorant peasants to
rapine and murder—was a certain Mr. Mikhailoff,
convicted last year of printing and circulating an
absurb, immoral, and bloodthirsty sheet, and whose
sentence as pronounced by the Senate was com-
muted by the Emperor from 12 years to 6 years'
exile. It is said to have pained his Majesty very
much to send this foolish and bad man to Siberia,
and when a number of suspiciously benevolent per-
sons took upon themselves to raise a subscription
for the banished demagogue and Communist (who,
of course, had no money), the Emperor Alexander
took all the sting out of this indirect attack made
upon himself by desiring the Governor-General of
St. Petersburg to give Mikhailoff 1,000 roubles out
of the imperial funds. Alexander IL would be very
glad if there were no Mikhailoffs to send to Siberia.
He would be delighted, too, if the Poles would ac-
cept their position as political slaves, and not tempt
him to talce,seveire measures of repression against
them. Re u' "j hi.' ha isa un-
decided, wanting in energy, and frequently unjust,
simply because he has inherited an unjust policy,
and has not strength of mind to change it.
The good and bad qualities of the Emperor
Alexander have lately been shown in a remarkable
manner in connection with Polish affairs. He has
ordered Count Andrew Zamoyski to travel in the
West of Europe, when Nicholas—though the Count
cannot be charged with any kind of offence—would
doubtless have sent him to Siberia; and, on the
other hand, he has rejected a conditional offer of
support made to him by 300 of the principal men in
Poland, which, if accepted, might have terminated
the now seemingly interminable feud between Rus-
sians and Poles. The conditions stipulated for by
the Poles were not immoderate; and they were
quite in accordance with the spirit of the treaty of
Vienna, which requires Russia, as well as Austria
and Prussia, to grant " representative and national
institutions" to all her Polish subjects. The Poles
would gain immensely, no doubt, by the change
proposed ; but all that Russia would lose would be
the barbarous satisfaction—if satisfaction it can be
—of persecuting an ancient enemy who now wishes
to become a friend, and as a proof of sincerity, is
quite willing to remain unarmed.
It is not a hopeful sign that, for allowing the
address of the Polish nobility to be signed at his
house (it was never presented at all) Count Za-
moyski was ordered to be arrested and sent to St.
Petersburg, and thence dismissed to the west of
Europe with an injunction not to re-enter Poland
until further notice. To understand fully the in-
justice of this punishment, it must be known that
the Grand Duke had previously asked Count
Zamoyski personally to tell him why he and all
the principal men of the kingdom refused their
support to the Government. The Count having
replied that a few reforms based on no recog-
nised principle would not suffice to gain the con-
fidence of the Poles, but that if the Emperor
would unite all his Polish provinces into one
constitutional kingdom they would give him
every aid, his Imperial Highness inquired
whether this was the feeling of the Poles in general.
The Count answered that he naturally spoke for
himself alone; and he appears to have understood
the Grand Duke's question as an invitation to obtain
an expression of opinion from the Polish nobility as
a body. It was the common talk of Warsaw that
day that the Polish nobility had been invited to pre-
sent an address to the Lieutenant of the Kingdom;
and the news was transmitted by telegraph and
appeared the day after in all the principal journals
of Great Britain. Two days more, and Count
Zamoyski was on his way to St. Petersburg under
escort.

Count Zamoyski, if he has done no other good for
his country by this his latest endeavour, has at least
explained to every one under what circumstances
the moderate and influential party in Poland will
abstain from taking part in the Government of their
country, and under what circumstances they will
assist it by every means in their power.
As regards Count Andrew Zamoyski personally
(who, by the way, has not only a Scotch Christian
name, but has also received a Scotch education,
having, as a young man, attended lectures for three
years at the University of Edinburgh), we may now
mention that the Countess Zamoyski was ill beyond
all hope of recovery when her husband was sent into
exile, and that no attention was paid to his entrea-
ties to be allowed to pass through Warsaw on his
way to the West of Eguraoinpeh,
atvheouagnh 0 itp p wo
rat su
nc
tryt a ionf
ears the Count
genuildtenaelvoeorf
fom the Russian Governmentar
would
wife alive. For thirty y
sthheaeaditnkgheeph
and had occupied himself exclusively with the de•
velopment of the agricultural and industrial re-
sources of the kingdom. Misled by the seeming
candour of the Grand Duke, he, in an unhappy
moment, became impressed with the idea that tilt,