The Sun.
London, England, 1856-05-31 00:00:00

ance of the principle of its independence. There
remains, then, the question of interest which Europe
may have
_to sustain it. _ _

4 The Eastern question, the definitive solution
of which no one has dared to indicate, cannot be
detached from the question of Poland. Any com-
bination the object of whose solution would be the
exclusion of Poland would be at once marked by
weakness and fragility, and of this we see the re-
cent proof in the additional treaty of the 15th of
April, annexed to the act of Congress, and pur-
porting to consolidate it by a guarantee indepen-
dent of its original basis. Such must be the case;
for Russia only negotiated with the view of delay,
her traditional policy is in every respect the same;
and the interposition of Poland is still the only lo-
gical and rational means of arresting her progress
towards the west and south. From the present
date she declares war against the Circassians, who
by their religion are connected with the Sultan.
To-morrow it will be the turn of the Persians; the
eastern road of the Black Sea remains always open
to her. There is an inexorable necessity in the life
of nations as of individuals, which cannot be
avoided by any expedient. One of two things—
either Poland will be freed, or Turkey and Aus-
tria will, sooner or later, pass under the Musco-
vite rule. Let the Greco•Slave empire be not for-
gotten—that empire planned by Peter 1., and rea-
lised by his descendants, would be composed of
near 100,000,000 men 1 Tzarogrod,' the city of
the Czars !—such has been for centuries the Rus-
sian name of Constantinople. Napoleon has said,
The assimilation of Poland would render Russia
all powerful !' The Plenipotentiaries we feel sure
will take these things into consideration in order to
secure for their work the character of solidity and
durability.

" We disclaim the absurd calumnies which con-
nect the cause of Poland with anarchy and agita-
tion ; these are odious insinuations in which no
one believes, not even those who propagate them.
England, Switzerland, and even Austria have
always shown themselves disposed to aid in our in-
dependence ; but surely those Powers have no
interest in serving the cause of disorder. In this
act of reparation and of justice they only see the
accomplishment of a great political necessity, and
we cannot suppose that their initiative would be
rejected by France. We are (told that the Con-
gress recoiled from the question of a general recon-
struction of the map of Europe ; that it feared the
occurrence of a discussion on Poland, as if it could
be a danger more grave than that we have just in-
dicated ;—as if that reconstruction, the inevitable
result of every important war, was beyond the
power of France and its allies. But, in truth,
there was no need of reforming the map of Europe,
of tracing new divisions of territories between the
nationalities which compose it. Quite the contrary,
it was only necessary to guarantee those which
were found already traced in the beginning of the
European struggle. It was precisely the task of
the Congress, and that task it cannot avoid accom-
plishing.
"Is Poland destined to undergo this last out-
rage—to see the last shred of its independence
torn ; this supreme iniquity—to see its very name
effaced from the map of the world, because, 25
years ago, it did not wish to march against the
West, and serve as the vanguard to Russia—be-
cause it constantly hoped the intervention of
Europe, and demanded a term to its martyrdom ?
" And why, then, should Europe refuse to fulfil
its engagements towards one of the most ancient
of valiant nations in Christendom ? Europe has
taken an interest in the fate of the Greeks, the
Roumains, the Servians, the Scandinavians, the
Tartars, the Zingaros, and other heterogeneous
populations whose existence is scarcely known.
Can it do less in favour of the Poles—of a nation
of 20,000,000 men, kept by the common enemy
under a yoke a hundred times more painful and
intolerable ?

"Is Europe ashamed to pronounce our name
because that name calls to mind the crime of the
partition, the most disgraceful act of modern times'?
We cannot believe it, for this last injustice woul4l
prove the ruin of its moral dignity by sanctioning
the right of despotism and Asiatic barbarity ! The
blood of our soldiers too often mingled on fields'of
battle with that of France not to secure to the
latter a right to defend and protect her sister-
among Christian nations ! Her honour is at stare,
and in France honour is a principle that does not
admit of discussion.
" Being persuaded that the regeneration of our
country can alone insure to Europe a constant and
solid peace, the regular development of its liberal
tendencies, and complete security ; that it can
alone put a period to the violent commotions which,
since the close of the last century, have agitated
the West, by exhausting in incessant and always
sterile struggles the vita forces of its civilisation ;
that it can alone adequately retrieve the immense
sacrifices made by France and her Allies during
the war in the East ;
"We, emigrants and representatives of Poland,
beseech the chiefs and plenipotentiaries of the
allied States of France, England, Austria, Sar-
dinia, and Turkey, and particularly your Excel-
lency, our natural defender and president of the
Congress, to repair that omission of the name of
Poland, in the interest of all Europe aggrieved at
her abandonment, and to require at least in her
favour, conformably to previous engagements, the
fulfilment of the stipulations which France, although
distrmed; obtained for her in 1815, and which
France, to-day victorious, is the more authorised
to insist upon, namely :
" That our national institutions be for ever re-
stored and guaranteed to us ;
" That the kingdom of Poland and the free city
of Cracow, created by the Congress of Vienna, and,
since 1831 and 1846, illegally absorbed by Russia
and Austria, be re-established on the bases stipu-
lated by the act of the Congress, and assented to
by the three Courts which shared in the partition ;
and
"That the Code of Napoleon, abrogated in 1832,
and replaced by organic statutes imposed by force,
should be again put in vigour throughout the en-
tire of Poland.
" Confiding in the wisdom of their views, in the
uprightness of their intentions, we await their de-
cision in that respect, with a certainty that events,
prepared by Divine Providence, will justify our
anticipations : that we shall find a generous sup-
port in public opinion, the supreme arbitrator
in all great national causes, and which, at this
period of enlightenment and progress, ultimately
comes off triumphant.
" Count CHRISTIAN OSTROWSKI,
Together with several thousand
Members of the Polish Emigration.
" Paris, May 3."

BRIGANDAGE IN GREECE.

In the Greek Chamber of Deputies on the sth of
May there was a very interesting discussion on the
convention between the kingdom of Greece and the
Porte for the suppression of brigands. If we may
rely upon the statement made by the Greek Minis-
ter for Foreign Affairs, the energy of the govern-
ment, the zeal of its officials, and the courage
of its troops, have actually reduced the evil of
brigandage so far as they have authority to act
within the Greek territory itself, and would have
abolished it altogether but for the obstacles which
a different sovereignty places in the way of their
pursuit of the brigands across the frontier. This
difficulty, which the Minister poetically com-
pared to that which the Greek hero in the fable
experienced when he found the monster with
whom he was wrestling renewing his pernicious
strength every time he approached his native soil,
is to be removed by the convention lately agreed
to with Turkey. The engagements are reciprocal,
and for this common object. The soldiers of either
state may advance beyond the frontier, in pursuit
of persons whether foreigners or natives, who have
committed crime in the state to which the soldiers
belong ; but they are prohibited from any inha-
bited place, and they must not come near the posts
occupied by the military of the state into which
they have penetrated. With these restrictions, no
definite limit, as to distance from the frontier, is
assigned for their right to traverse the territories
of the state neighbouring their own. Each of the
contracting parties engages to expel, not only cri-
minals, but deserters from the army of its neigh-
bour, though it does not engage to deliver them up
to their own sovereign. Greeks may be tried and
punished, when apprehended in Greece, for crimes
committed by them in Turkey ; but this, as ex-
plained by the minister, is no innovation, the
principle having been recognised in the former
commercial treaty. One or two of the de-
puties expressed their apprehensions of con-
fusion and conflict arising from the mixture
of Greek and Turkish troops, and Greek and
Turkish thieves on the border, and patrio-
tically disapproved the article relative to the
expulsion, which they regarded as equivalent to the
extradition of deserters; but the prevailing senti
ment of the Chamber was that of congratulating
the Government upon having adopted a measure
so decidedly in the interests of civilisation and good
order, and having thereby given practical effect,
at this early period, to the declaration of the great
powers in the treaty of peace, by which the Otto-
mane en family of nations,recognisedmapireis
as a member of the
EuropThe projet de loi, to
incorporate the treaty, was passed by 68 votes
I against 2.
e

A gentleman well acquainted with the exact state of
things in Hungary gives a very unfavourable account of
that Crown Land in as far as the security of the life
and property of persons who live in remote country
places is concerned.