The Sun.
London, England, 1832-04-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

At length the fate of Poland has awakened
something 'like sympathy in the British House
of Commons ; but that sympathy comes too
late. It is a poor and barren homage on
the tomb of that departed independence, which;
in the living' agony of its great struggle with the
giant despotism of the North, was deserted of
all, and met with neither sympathy nor support.
It will not be honourably recorded, in the future
pages of history, of the reforming House of
Commons of England, that it looked on in si-
lence, and with the most perfect indifference,
while the great crime was perpetrated which has
dosed in massacre and confiscation the melan-
choly tale of the wrongs of a gallant nation, and
erased the name of Poland from the map of
Europe. While advocating " Reform" as stre-
nuously as any of the Members of the House
of Commons who had given pledges to their con-
stituents, and more constitutionally than some,
we did not think that the support of that ques-
tion alone ought to atone for the dereliction of
aluty in other respects, or that it could com-
pensate for a neglect of other great princi-
ples, or a betrayal of the interests of humanity.
We, therefore, supported the cause of Poland,
from the beginning, as the cause of a nation to
whose independence England stood pledged by
a solemn treaty—a treaty from the obligations of
which she could not be relieved but by the vio-
lation of that high principle of honour which
was once dearer to her than any other considera-
tion. Nor was it on this ground alone we sup-
ported the cause of Poland ; we felt that the
interests of England were materially involved,
as well as her honour, in the question of
the success or down fal of Poland—for
the treaty of Polish independence was signed
by the representative of England on the ex.
press ground of erecting the new kingdom
as a check upon the ambition of Russia on the
side of Western Europe. Even Lord Castle-
reagh, at the Congress of Vienna, had sagacity
enough to foresee something of the growing am-
bition of that Power, whose Ruler was then
called our magnanimous Ally. He had not
only sagacity enough to perceive that the " mag-
nanimous" Alexander and his Cabinet, under
the specious pretext of the " deliverance of Eu-
rope," entertained views incompatible with the
future peace of civilized nations; but he had
the spirit to avow the sentiment, and did not
hesitate to declare, at the Congress in question,
that it was necessary to erect the then Duchy of
Warsaw into an independent kingdom, as a
check upon Russia. Mr. C. Fergusson, in sup-
porting his motion relative to that country on
Wednesday night, eulogized the conduct of Lord
Castlereagh on that occasion, and said he had
made a manly stand for the independence of
Poland. Such praise as this is, however, not
borne out by historical facts. He made, indeed,
a manly declaration on behalf of Polish inde-
pendence, but he did not make a manly stand.
If he had, he never would have neutralized, by
his own act or consent, the principle which he
proclaimed; yet he did, in a great degree, neu-
tralize that principle, by permitting the sove-
reignty of the newly-created kingdom to be given
to the Muscovite Ruler and his successors. It
is true it was not given to him as Czar of Russia,
but as King of Poland ; and the latter country
was not made subject to the former (for then it
could not have had even a nominal independence),
but placed in a sort of federal union with it, hav-
ing its own distinct and separate legislature,
courts of justice, army, national colours, laws,
and customs. Still to make the possessor of
the throne of Russia the King of Poland was
to counteract the very object for which Lord
Castlereagh contended, in having the Duchy of
Warsaw erected into an independent kingdom :
for who could suppose that, in his double ca-
pacity of King of Poland and Czar of Museovy,
die barbarian Monarch would not prefer the
interests of the latter country to the former, and
take advantage of his position to make that
which was intended to be a rampart against the
incursions of Russia a road to her ambition
This has been accomplished, and other nations
will yet weep tears of blood for the slaughters-
that reddened the wave of pfie ,Vistula, and the
" great murder" of Warsaw. We havedischarged
ourselves of all cause of self-accusation on this
account, as have some able and zealous fellow-
labourers on the same side in the press ; but
we cannot see how the present Ministry, and
the House of Commons can relieve themselves
from the charge, which history will assuredly
fix upon them, of being passive accomplices in
the ruin of Poland. We believe that a decided
tone and energetic remonstrance on our part,
more especially at the time when the Govern-
ment of France was willing to cooperate with
us, would have saved all Christendom from wit-
nessing the consummation of the crime in the
19th century, which began in the original rob-
bery and partition of Poland, which had fixed
indelible disgrace on the history of the nations
of Europe in the preceding century.—Morning

The debate on Mr. Fergussota's motion, in-
deed, presented the novelty in the House of
Commons of a discussion in which there were
no dissentients. Every Member who spoke
gave utterance to the one expression of sym-
pathy for the wrongs of Poland, and indignation
against the perfidious conduct of the tyrant, who
has dared to tear to pieces the treaty to which
England was a party, and has annihilated the
nationality which that-treaty guaranteed, at a blow.
We wonder how those feelings had been so long
frozen up that they never thawed into expression
in the House of Commons before. Lord
Althorp told the House, in the absence of
Lord Palmerston, who had too important
business elsewhere to allow him to attend
on such a trivial question, that Govern-
ment had no official information whatever as
to what the nature of events in that country had
been, nor any intimation from the • Court of
Russia with respect to. the Autocrat's prodan3a-
tion. If our Government have not official in-.
formation of the barbarous events which have
occurred in Poland, and of the exiv:ampled in-
'quit which the Autocrat has' offered to England,
they have had such historical evidence of the
facts as ought to make it their duty to demand
official information. And as to the Autocrat's
proclamation and his organic statutes, proclaim-
ing in contemptuous defiance of the treaty of
Vienna, and, of course, of England and France,
that " Poland is henceforth, for ever, incorpo-
rated with Russia," we presume . that such
solemn acts of state, being published _ in- the.
usual way, are evidence of themsetves, and want.
no protocol ratification
_to' render them ourthentic. It is fe4rfuLto in ag-
grandisement which has,rriade An a
few years. Turkey, her great.-Eaistern rival, has
been subjugated= Persia tedidetl'into little more
than a NI. uscovite:'prOvine7:—; the hardy tribes
of the Caucasus siibcruid—Greete seized by a
Russian satrap, and wasted by civil commotion