The Sun.
London, England, 1848-03-27 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON

tulations. The national favour of Germany—ribbons
of black, red, and gold—fluttered in his hel-
met. " GOD preserve the Emperor of ALLEMANIA !"
cried a bystander in a burst of enthusiasm. " Not
so " said the KING, " I swear by GOD I aim not at
the rights of princes !" Not so ! say we also ; but—
GOD preserve the royal Liberator of Germany, if he
only employ with wisdom and patriotism the love
and admiration of the Prussians ! FREDERICK WIL-
HELM holds in his grasp the talisman of a grand and
beautiful immortality. Let him not pause or tem-
porise, but proceed and conquer. Then shall his
name be consecrated in the reverence of posterity,
and held in perpetual remembrance as the Liberator
of Allemania.

The last accounts from the Continent speak of an
insurrection in Warsaw, and encourage us to antici-
pate, as the crowning triumph of the present revolu-
tion—without which all its achievements would be
incomplete and unsatisfactory—the emancipation of
Poland. Much as there has been in the
character of the recent movement to excite
our interest and elicit our approval, this would
be an event that would more peculiarly
arouse the exultation and enthusiasm of the English
people. The emancipation of Poland has long been
the day-dream of our patriots and philanthropists—
the object of our most anxious though almost hope-
less desires. It is natural that a nation like our own,
possessed of all the advantages of freedom, and rightly
appreciating and exulting in those advantages, should
experience the most profound affliction in witnessing
the ineffectual struggles of a brave and patriotic
people to preserve their nationality, struggles result-
ing in their complete overthrow—their annihilation
as a nation, and their enslavement as a people.
More especially was this feeling enhanced by the
gallantry and devotion evinced by the unfortunate
Poles, and the relentless tyranny exhibited by their
oppressors. No single event of modern history ex-
cited such powerful sympathy and such universal
indignation throughout Europe generally, and England
especially, as the overthrow of Poland. And those
sentiments were no temporary ebullitions of a passing
emotion, they are not yet effaced from our hearts,
which are alternately agitated with pitying admira-
tion arid indignant horror, whenever the wrongs and
sufferings of Poland pass before our thoughts. A
history so romantic in itself, a picture so vividly
coloured, hardly needed the accessories of poetry or
fiction to enhance its attraction and increase its in-
terest ; nevertheless, our poets and romancists, irre-
sistibly captivated by the theme, have combined to im-
press it yet more effectually on the popular mind,
inter weaving imperishably with our most treasured
remembrances. The overthrow of Poland has given
occasion to one of the most beautiful and interesting
of modern fictions. The overthrow of Poland has
inspired the most sublime stanzas of the splendid
poem which commemorates the happy influences of
Hope—in this instance the pleasures of Hope being
deduced from the very desolation of despair. We
would fain believe that the happy auguries of the
poet are even now on the point of attaining their
realisation. After depicting the awful picture—" the
bloodiest picture in the Book of Time," of Sarmatia's
fall, unwept, without a crime, when—

" Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell!"
the Poet of Hope, with prescient inspiration, looked
forward to this day, and after bewailing the inter-
mediate miseries of Poland, exclaimed with indignant
exultation—

" Yes! thy proud lords, unpitied land! shall see
That man hath yet a soul—and dare be free!
A little while, along thy saddening plains,
The starless night of Desolation reigns;
Truth shall restore the light.
Tyrants! in vain ye trace the wizard ring;
In vain ye limit Mind's unwearied spring;
What! can ye lull the winged winds asleep;
Arrest the rolling world, or chain the deep?
No! the wild wave contemns your sceptred hand,
It rolled not back when Canute gave command!"

It is not for man to say to the advancing waters
" Hither shall thou come and no further," and it is
not in the power of man, be he king or emperor, to
arrest the advancing impulse of public opinion, and
force back into their fetters a people who have once
resolutely arisen and shaken them off. It is impos-
sible ; and it is well for the ruler who can learn this
truth by example rather than by experience. The KING
of the FRENCH, unwarned by former lessons, waited for
the latter mode of teaching ; he has now abundant
opportunities of appreciating its correctness. The
Sovereign of Austria wisely availed himself of the
lesson afforded by that example ; he yielded to cir-
cumstances, and thus ensured his own safety and the
prosperity of his people. NICKOLAS of Russia must
choose between the two, at least as regards his Polish
dominions. That he must lose them is inevitable. It
will be vain to have recourse to former methods of
intimidation, "his whiskered pandoors and his
fierce hussars " can now avail him nothing;
he must either make a virtue of necessity,
and give way with a good grace, or his ill-gotten
conquests will be wrested from his grasp, and per-
haps more also. But whichever way it be effected
signifies little ; one thing is certain, and that is suffi-
cient—Poland must be restored. No longer will
there be occasion for London to have " revelry by
night," and gather her beauty and her chivalry to
support the refugees of Poland. The prohibited
banquets of Paris have effected immeasurably more
for the Polish refugees than the balls of London ;
not that we would by any means disparage the good
effects and good intentions of the latter—not that
we would disparage any manifestations of this coun-
try's sympathy for the unfortunate exiles. Happily,
as we would fain believe, such sympathy will be
required no longer. Our sympathy must now
be evinced, not by succouring them in
misfortune, but by rejoicing in their libera-
tion, for their liberation is at hand—must be at
hand. It is not possible that in this hour of uni-
versal reform, when almost all the nations of Europe
seem stirred by one simultaneous impulse to combine
in effecting their individual emancipation and their
mutual regeneration, it is not possible that Poland
alone, whose servitude has been hitherto regarded as
a blot on the fair fame of Europe, should now be
suffered to remain a slave in the midst of an assem-
blage of free nations. Again we repeat it :—it is not
possible. It cannot be that the ardour and patriotism
which once inspired Poles to those deeds of desperate
devotion which rendered their heroism the theme of
European celebrity—it cannot be that their
ardour and patriotism is buried with KOSCI-
USKO ; neither is it possible, we would fain
hope and believe, that any mutual division
and jealousies can again mar the glorious work which
their country demands at their hands. No anxiety
but for their country's weal should now animate their
hearts. The glorious ambition of restoring the
nationality of Poland should arouse the enthusiasm
and animate the exertions of every individual Pole.
Inspired with such a sublime desire, united for such
a sacred object, they would be irresistible, and might
laugh to scorn the menaces of the AUTOCRAT. His Im-
perial MAJESTY would soon become aware of his own
impotence, he would speedily discover that, like " the
pebble stiffening in the torrent's course," he cannot
hinder Time from flowing on. It is too late in 1848
to begin a war of extermination. Poland must be free;
otherwise the European revolution would be a mockery,
and the liberty and fraternity of nations a delusion. But
of this there need be little apprehension. An insur-
rection has already broken out at Warsaw, and the
struggle for Polish independence has begun. The
English people will watch this struggle with no
common interest and no ordinary sympathy. Anxious
we may have felt as to the movements in France and
Germany, but Poland, over whom we have mourned
so long—Poland, for whose wrongs we have been
indignant, for whose sufferings we have sorrowed,
for whose heroism we have been filled with admira-
tion, and for whose emancipation we have yearned as
for the fulfilment of our most cherished wish, and
the realisation of our brightest dream—Poland in her
hour of trial must call forth far warmer sympathies
and more eager anxieties than the interests of any
other nation could have elicited. Heartily and cor-
dially then do we bid them GOD speed in their pe-
rillous, but glorious undertaking. Heartily and
earnestly do we exhort them to forego every minor
consideration, and zealously to devote head, heart,
and hand to the service of their country, in order to
hasten the advent of the day—" When she shall be—
shall hP frpp."

Madrid journals of the 19th have been received.
The Chamber of Deputies rejected, on the 18th, by