The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-12 00:00:00

DINNER OF THE FRIENDS OF

at about - o'clock, a great
ittswaegreo,attracted to the Pont du Carrousel
few • I
by the exclamations of a man who said his companion had
fallen into the Seine. He called out, " Edward ! Ed-
ward !" and presently a voice was heard to reply, " I am
here." " Thank God !" said the man, 6, he is not
drowned, and may yet be saved ; but how ? we have no
boat. If we had but a rope !" No rope being at hand,
the man suggested that a communication might be made
with his drowning friend by means
of t handkerchiefs, and
taking his pocket-handkerchief and his cravat, he tied
them together. The idea was adopted by the crowd, and
in a minute or two, more than thirty handkerchiefs were
lent to him for the purpose. Having tied them all together,
and with a key at the end, to give them weight, the man
threw the line of handkerchiefs in the direction from which
the voice came; it was seized, and all who were present
were waiting with anxiety to see the drowning man drawn
towards the quaY, when the person to whom the handker-
chiefs had been intrusted dropped that which be held.
" What a misfortune," said he ; but
" Edward has, I
hope, succeeded in reaching this quay.„
He then ran off
suddenly,, as if to look for his friend. He was soon lost
sight of in the dark, and returned no more ; neither did
the handkerchiefs, for it appears that they were caught by
a confederate who was clingin,; to the bridge, and who
took case to get off at the same time.—Galignani's Mes-
senger. . .
The Mayo Constitution mentions a report that
Mr. R. Dillon Browne, M. P., and Colonel Charles Fitz-
gerald had gone out to fight a duel,

POLAND.

On Wednesday, the 9th inst., several members of
the Council of the Literary Association of the
Friends of Poland, and those Gentlemen of the city
who had interested themselves in getting up the late
splendid ball at the Guildhall, dined together at the
Loudon Tavern.

Deputy PEACOCK, who had acted as Chairman of
the Committee of Management on that occasion, took
the Chair. The dinner was served up in first-rate style,
and the wines, fruits, &c., were of the finest quality.
Immediately on the cloth being removed,,
The CHAIRMAN proposed the health of the Queen,
and the Princess Royal, which was received with all
due honours, and drank cnthuaiastically. The health
of Prince Albert, and that of the Duchess of Kent,
and the other Ladies Patronesses of the ball at Guild-
hall, were next proposed, and received likewise with all
due honours.

The CHAIRMAN then said, that it was his agreeable
duty to propose the health of one, who was not merely
the friend of Poland, but of mankind, and the advo-
cate of liberal and enlightened institutions all over
the world. The toast being one which might well
stand on its own merits he should not trouble them
with a long preface, but call on them at once to fill
a bumper, and drink to the health of his Royal High-
ness the Duke of Sussex, Patron of the Literary As-
sociation of the Friends of Poland.—(Loud cheers.)
The next toast was one, the CHAIRMAN observed,
which might emphatically be called the toast of the
evening.—(Hear, hear.) They all guessed what toast
he meant. He had the honour, the pleasure to propose
to them the health of Lord Dudley Stuart—(Loud
cheering)—a nobleman whose exalted virtues would do
honour to any station in life. His name had long been
identified with the cause of unhappy Poland in this
country. They were become almost convertible terms;
.aoit:the untiring energy,- the flowing benevolence, that
supposied fila:Lorviainp ttitongh_tha thotisand vexations
and

cross circumstances, which continually thwarted his
exertions in the noble cause of charity and freedom,
might well be a higher source of pride to him, than his
descent from the Royal line of the Stuarts.—(Loud
cheer.) He had allied himself with a cause from which
neither wealth or fame was to be reaped, beyond the
mental riches which the consciousness of virtue ever
bestows ; yet he was much mistaken if his Lordship was
not one of those who prized the consciousness of hav-
ing done a good action, far beyond the less solid, but
more showy distinctions, that the merely worldly so
eagerly covet.( Hear, hear.) His Lordship seemed to
act through lifo on the manly principle so well expressed
by his countryman Burns—
" A king may make a belted knight,
A lord, a duke, and a' that;
An honest man's abune his might,
A man's a man for a that."—( Loud cheers.)
And, gentlemen, Lord Dudley Stuart is an honest man.
—(Renewed cheers.) And what higher dignity can
earthly monarch give ? for, as Pope says, " An honest
man's the noblest work of God !" I fervently hope
that his Lordship will at length meet with the re-
ward is devotion and labours deserve, in the hap-
piness of seeing his beloved Poland rise from
that which is not her tomb, but her cradle—(Hear,
hear, hear)—and again assuming her place amongst the
nations of the earth. Yet whatever may be the success
of your labours (said the Chairman, addressing himself
to the Noble Lord); whether Poland is again to be, or
whether Providence has in its inscrutable wisdom
thought fit to decree a more gloomy destiny to that un-
fortunate country—whether successful or not, your
name shall not perish from the record of those whose
good deeds are registered before a higher tribunal than
that of mortals ; there, at least, " Sewer honor, no-
menque tuum, ladesque ruanebunt."—(Loud cheering,
which lasted some time, the company all rising, and
drinking the toast with most enthusiastic applause.)
When silence was at length restored,
His LORDHIP rose, and spoke nearly as follows—
Gentlemen, you have by your kindness taught me, in-
deed, that 1 am "poor in speech," for I cannot thank
you as I ought—as I could wish—but my heart tells
me that I am at least rich in gratitude.—(Hear.) Gen-
tlemen, I have never come amongst you that I have
not been treated with a marked personal kindness. If
anything, however, could add to the pleasure of a mo-
ment like this, it is the knowledge that in me you
honour not so much the individual as the cause to which
I have devoted myself. Believe me that, in so doing,
you pay tie the highest compliment, and confer on me
the greatest gratification. Whenever I approach the
hospitable mansions of the City, I meet everywhere
the moat ample proofs that, though Poland may be
forgotten elsewhere, her memory is still warmly
cherished in this the greatest and most opulent metro-
polis in the world.—(Hear, hear.) For years the
greater part of my time has been devoted to the one
object, the furtherance of the cause of Polish inde-
pendence, a.ss!.-the,. relief of the wants of her exiled
s-te'kiseeePes—rsslsf.'" -ss. s :sss: s :ass, s, ..... ee - - ......s
—with eoldisCss, apathy, and indifference, till I have
almost fancied that mankind would become finally con-
tent to bury every nobler feeling, every generous sym-
pathy, and witness with indifference the good, the
patriotic, and the brave enslaved. Such, I confess, have
been my thoughts at times in moments of despondency ;
but how quickly have these gloomy forebodings vanished
before the warmth which I have ever experienced here,
and then how have I chid myself for supposing, even for
a moment, that Englishmen could forget the cause of
freedom !—(Loud cheers.) How often have I been
gratified in the City of London by the noble spectacle
of men of every party flinging political feelings to the
winds, and uniting heart and hand in the exercise of
that virtue of true charity, which in generous souls
regards not the paltry distinctions of party, sect, or
creed, but overleaps such puny barriers in search of
wrebahedness and want throughout the world.—(Cheers.)
Surely the feeling must be contagious amongst those in
whose veins the blood of a Briton flows ; for all here
seem animated with the same burning hatred of des-
potism, and the same desire to see their fellow-men free
from the galling, the degrading yoke of foreign oppres-
sion.—( Hear, bear.) It is this universal desire amongst
us to see rational and enlightened freedom substituted
for slavery, wherever slavery exists, that has enlisted
such general sympathy in the cause of Poland. Fore-
most, however, amongst the friends of the Polish exile
must be reckoned those who form the staple of the
wealth, intelligence, and power of the country, the
merchants of the city of London.—(Hear, hear.) To
them Poland owes much, and she is aware of it. I can
assure the City that its generous conduct is at this very
moment known through every corner of Poland.
Threats of Siberia and the knout are idle, when in-
tended to stifle human gratitude ; and the Poles are
grateful to you. It is their pride to be so, and their
present tyrant might as well strive to chain the viewless
wind, or bind the winged coursers of the air, as prevent
the electric thrill of gratitude from vibrating through a
nation's pulse.—(Cheers.) Who can prophecy what
benefits may yet accrue to this country, when the po-
litical horizon changes, from such a feeling existing in a
people so well able to give powerful assistance
to an ally ?—(Hear, hear, hear.) I am happy to be
able to state from my personal knowledge of the
refugees in this country, that their conduct, generally
speaking, is not merely deserving of the sympathy you
bestow on them, but also deserving of it in a very high
degree. There are certainly some bad characters
amongst them. For where will you find six hundred
men ;brown by chance together amongst whom there
will not be :ewe bad characters ?—(Hear, hear.) Gen-
tlemen, till human nature changes, it would be absurd to
expect men to be other than they are, and no rule can
be more unjust than that inculcated in the lazy and un-
fair principle of "ex uno disco omnes."—(Loud cries
of " Hear.") Yet this is the principle on which num-
bers have acted towards the Poles, and by which they
have confounded the gallant patriot, the exiled noble,
the dastard hireling spy of Russia, and the swindler, in
one sweeping condemnation. How unfair, how un-
Englishlike is such a mode of reasoning ?—( Hear, hear.)
But I shall pursue this topic no further. I am sur-
rounded by those who, thank God, are too high-minded
to condemn, by any indolently general assumption, the
good and the bad alike.—(Hear, bear.) I have said
that the Polish exiles were grateful to you. It is
hard for persons situated as they are to evince
that gratitude. The best proof they can give of
it is in following the course, which I assert they
do pursue, namely, in rendering themselves by their
mode of life deserving of your favour.--(Hear,
hear.) Ah ! Gentlemen, if those who are so ready to
lend an ear to tales of calumny, were equally ready to
consider the temptations and hardships to which the
unfortunate exiles are exposed, most of them unedu-
cated men, who had served as privates in the revolu-
tionary army, and others men of rank and fortune, sud-
denly cast on a strange land, " where poverty is crime,"
—cast there destitute of everything, without clothes or
food, friends or shelter—if they would take all this into
consideration, they would not be so ready, perhaps, to
allow hasty prejudice to warp their better judgment,
and might at last learn that in becoming less severe it is
possible to become more Christian.—(Loud cheers.)
Gentlemen, lam unable—l feel that lam unable to
thank you as you deserve. To the hearts of such Bri-
tons as I see round me, the knowledge of having re-
lieved want, constitutes the best thanks.—(Hear, hear.)
This must repay you ; I know nothing else which can.
Those who honoured the Guildhall on the night of our
ball with their presence, amidst the gay and glittering
groups, the blaze of lights, and dazzling bloom of grace
and beauty, saw nought but hilarity and festive splen-
dour. But I know the toil, the trouble, the weary
1 hours which many of you so cheerfully encountered, in