The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-17 00:00:00

LaRD DUDLEY COUTTS STUART AND mounted by la Polish eagle, with the followinr, in-
I
POLAND. scription ; 0

On Monday last, the 10th instant, Sandon Hall,
in this connty, the seat of the Right Hon. the Earl
of Harro-svby, was the scene of a very interesting
event. In the part of the hall called " The Polish
Vestibule," ornamented with the tapestry offered by
the ladies of Poland to Lord Dudley Stuart, the
various reminiscences of Polish gratitude, the bust
of Prince Czartoryski, and the portraits of
other illustrious Polish patriots, the Earl of Har-
rowby, surrounded by Viscount Sandon, the other
members of his family, and a few friends, was pre-
sented with a gold medal struck in honour of his
late relative, Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart, the well-
' known champion of the Polish cause. In addition
to many tokens of admiration and grateful feelings
towards Lord Dudley Stuart during his life, a
national subscription has been raised in Poland
and among the emigrants, in answer to an appeal
from Prince Adam Czartoryski, for the purpose of
striking a medal, which would thus perpetuate their
gratitude for their departed friend and benefactor.
The medal was originally intended for the sister of
Lord Dudley Stuart, the lamented Countess of
Harrewby, whose premature death, equally deplored
by the Poles, is the cause of its having been pre-
sented to her husband.

Major C. SZULCZEWSKI, who was entrusted with
this gratifying mission, thus addressed his lord-
ship :—Though greatly interested in the cause that
brings me before you to-day, I appear only as the
representative of General Count Zamoyski, who
regrets exceedingly that unforeseen circumstances
prevent him from discharging the grateful task
which has thus devolved upon me of delivering into
your hands a medal struck at the suggestion of the
Polish emigration in honour of your lordship's rela-
tive, the never-to-be-forgotten Lord Dudley Coutts
Stuart. I consider it not only a great honour, but
also a rare happiness, to be allowed to be the inter-
preter, on this occasion, of the feelings of venePa:
tion and undying gratitude cherished by the Poles
for their departed friend and benefactor, the noble
champion of the cause, the love of which is en-
shrined with his name in every Polish heart. It
was our anxious desire to testify those feelings in
presenting this medal to the lamented Countess of
Harrowby, who so touchingly manifested her sym-
pathy with the misfortunes of Poland, and actively
exerted herself in common with her incomparable
brother to soothe the sufferings of Polish exiles :
and it is a source of unfeigned regret to us that this
testimonial was not finished before she was called
away to another and a better world. We trust
that, tardy as is this recognition of Lord Dudley
Stuart's devotion to Poland, it will be received by
and kept as an heirloom in your noble family ; that,
when contemplating this humble token of a nat!on's
gratitude, your posterity may remember with pride
that the man whose disinterested sacrifices for an
oppressed people shed a lustre on his country
and on humanity belonged to their kin. It is not
for me to enlarge here on the services which Lord
Dudley Stuart rendered to the cause of Poland ;
they have been dwelt upon with eloquence
in the appeal of the illustrious chief of the
Polish nation, Prince Adam Czartoryski, to his
countrymen on the subject of this medal, and a copy
of which is thereto annexed. Suffice it for me to

say that, although we know and feel that such de-
votion as his cannot be looked for again, we hope
that in your lordship, as his kinsman, as the head
of a noble house, ever noted for its Christian virtues
and generous sentiments, and as one who has so
frequently seconded the persevering exertions of
our matchless friend, our cause will always find a
supporter ready to demonstrate what an honest,
purpose can effect. I now, my lord, beg your per-
mission to read and to place into your hands two
letters, one from Prince Czartoryski, and the other
from General Count Zamoyski, as well as the testi-
monial of which I am the bearer.

The following are copies of the letters :
"Paris, 10th August, 1850.
"My Dear Lord Harrowby,—eneral Zantoyski, my
nephew and your friend, will have the honour to de-
liver to you the medal by which the Poles have tried to
transmit to posterity their gratitude to Lord Dudley
Coutts Stuart, the noble, the generous, the constant
friend of the Polish cause. I have thought it
necessary to annex to it an explanation of the motives
which have impelled my countrymen to the performance
of this national act.
" Both myself any my countrymen must ever regret that
this duty of all Poland was not accomplished at the time
when the noble sister of our generous champion might have
been informed of it ; she who loved her brother so much—
shared his sentiments—who comprehended the greatness
of his loss, and who, herself inconsolable, has endeavoured
to assuage our anguish. You, my lord, whom the close
ties of friendship and of kindred, and of which she was the
link, attached to our mutual friend—you who have been the
witness of his boundless devotion to our clearly just, though
cruelly persecuted cause,—you, who in common with us
deplore his irreparable loss, it is to you, my lord, that is
duo the first copy of the medal commemorative of his vir-
tues. It is to your noble heart that we prefer to disclose
our feelings of regret and of gratitude, and our hope that,
should circumstances prove favourable, we shall find in you
as before an advocate of our unfortunate country.
" We beg of you that this medal may become an heir-
loom in your family, and thus the possession cf your eldest
son, who, we trust, inherits the sentiments of his mother,
and will demonstrate them through a long and honourable
life.
ic It is with these feelings and the unalterable attach-
ment which I cherish for you that I never shall cease to be,
my dear Lord Harrowby,

. ,
" Yours very sincerely,
(Signed) " A. CZAILTOR'ISKI,"
" My dear Lord Harrowby,—On nay return from Saudon,
and at the very moment of starting for France, I received
a packet from Prince Czartory ski containing the enclosed
letter addressed to you. I regret exceedingly that this
packet should have been so long in reaching me, for I am
unable, as the Prince informs you, to deliver in per son to
you, on his part and on that of his countrymen, the medal
struck in honour of our dear Dudley, originally destined
for his sister, and, now that it has pleased God to unite her
to her brother, offered to those who possessed his earliest
affections.
" Compelled to leave England, I have entrusted this
message to Major Shulczews,ki. The particular affection
which Lord Dudley Stuart felt for him, the long and use-
ful services he has rendered, and does not cease to render,
to the cause of Poland, naturally point him out to take my
place on this occasion. I hope that he will find now as be-
fore, from yourself and Lord Sandon the kind reception
which he deserves.

" Believe me,
(Signed) "14. ZAMOYSKI.
" London, 18th August, 1869."

Lord HARROWBY then addressed Major Szul-
czewski in a few words, expressing on the one hand
the regret which he experienced that Gen. Count
Zamoyski, to whom ho was bound by ties of long-
established friendship, should have been prevented
from fulfilling his sad though gratifying mission ;
on the other, his satisfaction that the task had in
his default fallen upon one whom ho had so long
known personally, and esteemed both by his private
character and his services to the cause to which he
had devoted himself. In regard to the object of
the mission, there were circumstances of such a
nature that he was unwilling to trust himself to
speak of them, and he would therefore do no more
than read the reply to Prince Czartoryski's letter,
which, through Major Czulczewski's kindness in
permitting him to have a sight of the letter previ-
ously, he had been enabled to prepare. The reply
was in the following terms :
" My dear Prince Czartoryski,—The beautiful memorial
and faithful resemblance of my lamentee friend and kinsman
Lord D. C. Stuart, which under your instructions, as the
organ of exiled Poland, has now been put into my hands,
comes to me under very touching circumstances. It was
intended for one who would have indeed most highly
prized it; but she, alas, is no longer amongst us, to share
in your sorrows, and to derive consolation in her own
grief from feeling how deeply it had been sympathised in
by those, for whom her brother had devoted many years
of his benevolent and earnest life, and at last life itself. As
her representative, I accept it with pride and gratitude, as
a record of personal ties of the nearest and dearest kind, as
well as of the community of opinions and feelings which
had long united me with my lamented kinsman in the
great cause in which he had employed his best energies.
He was a more sanguine, more able, more devoted, more
persevering advocate of Poland than myself ; but we fully
concurred in principle, equally united in condemning
the partition of your country by the three con-
tiguous slates as the groat crime aad the great
error of the age in which, by a mixture of
treachery and violence, it had been effected ; in
denouncing the tyranny which your country had subse-
quently suffered ; in looking to the re-establishment of your
country in its independence as the best, if not the only,
security for the West of Europe against the encroachments
of the aggressive East; and in sympathising with the gal-
lant men who had sacrificed everything to a noble cause,
and after an heroic struggle had borne the consequences of
failure with an unshaken and admirable constancy. In
these sentiments we were heartily united, and in these I
still remain.

"Perhaps some additional life may have been supplied to
these feelings and convictions by personal attachments, by
a deep sense of veneration for your own noble character—
for the character of one who had abandoned wealth, station,
family ties, country, without ostentation and without per-
sonal ambition, and had devoted, as he still devotes, even
to extreme old age, those resources of influence and charac-
ter, which nothing can deprive him of, to the interests of
that same country and her sons.
"My son, Lord Sandon, whom you have named as joint
sharer in the beautiful testimonial gift, will value it as I
do, and I hope it will long remain as an heirloom in my
family, and one of its most cherished distinctions.—l re-
main ever, my dear Prince Czartoryski, yours very faith-
fully, " HARROWB Y."

The medal is greatly admired fix the beauty
of its workmanship, and the tiriking resem-
blance it bears to the deceased nobleman.
The subject of the medal and the inseripFo3
are by Mr. Charles Sienkiewicz. a very emi-
nent scholer end eiatlitian. The dies were
executed by Monsieur Bony, one of the first
artistes in Paris. The medal, which is 21 inches
in diameter, and, in point of design and execution,
a most exquisite piece of workmanship, was struck
by Messrs. T. and J. Pinches, medallists, in
London,
The case containing the medal is extremely de-
glut and bears on the top a silyor tablet, sur•

To the Husband and the Soil
of the Late
Countess of liarrovvby,
Sister of
'PhisDUDLEY COUTTS STUART,
Thi6 token. of gratitude is offered
by
Poland,
1859,
The inscription or, file front of the medal is :
Dudley C. Stuart,
Caus-e l'olona; Indefessus Vindex
Polonorum,
Amiens et Pautor.
Nat. A. 18.03, Ob. lioltnie A. 1651.
Cives Poloni Hoe Monurnenturn netatis Pub rieri
Curaveruut.

P. C.:. iko,
On the reverse of the medal, round the map of
Poland, are tho words :

"Dile Hones Nomenque Tuum tandesque Manebunt."
The map, which is most beautifully engraved,
with the Carpathian mountains in relief, exhibits
the countries comprised in the Kingdom of Poland,
in various periods, from the the reign of Mieczyslas
1., when Poland was converted to Christianity
(A.D. 965), to that of Stephen Batory, when Riga
became a Polish port, (A. D. 1586). The
great historical importance and early civiliz-
ation of the country is explained by its position
between the Baltic and the Black Sea, and by the
fact that it comprehends the most fertile land (per-
haps excepting the alluvial plain of the Danube) in
the whole of Europe. The Vistula and the Dniester
still bear the harvests of Poland to the ocean, but
as the ports of shipment are Odessa and Dantzic it
is often erroneously asserted or assumed that Russia
and Prussia are the sources of the inexhaustible
supply of corn which is in fact only to be found in
Poland.

The noble conduct of the late Lord Dudley Stuart
was admirably sketched:by Prince Czartoryski, in a
letter to the Poles on the subject of the national
subscription for the medal which has been presented
to Lord Harrowby. A few extracts from the letter
will form a fitting pendant to the account of the
very interesting event which it is our gratifying
duty to record :—" Issued from one of the most
illustrious families of Great Britain, a descendant
of the kings of Scotland, united by the ties of con-
sanguinity to the dynasty now reigning in France,
and member of the British Parliament, Lord Dudley
Stuart knew how to rise from the high position in
which he was placed by birth, to that still higher
and most honourable post which only a lofty mind
could appreciate, select, occupy worthily, and pre-
serve. Guided by justice, and by the exigencies
of the balance of power in Europe, he devoted
himself to the service of an unhappy nation, which.
the triumph of violence and ci.nning had reduced to
slavery. After our heroic struggle in 1831, when
the generous and universal enthusiasm which our
cause once kindled among all nations was beginning
to cool, when Poland, succumbing under the re- •
peated blows of a conqueror thirsting for vengeance,
was delivered up to martyrdom by silent and indif-
ferent Europe, and her sons, seeking everywhere
help against the oppressor, became homeless, bread-
ass wanderers in foreign lands, where their misery
rio longer excited more than a timid compassion,
Lord Dudley Stuart stood forth, and devoted him-
self courageously to the Polish cause. From that
moment, every energy of his soul was given to it,
and he'remained faithful to it until the last breath of
his admirable life. Whenever a favourable opportu-
nity occurred, his voice was heard pleading the inte-
rests of our cause before thel-,]nglish Government, to
each Minister individually, in Parliament, and in
the public assemblies of the people. When offered
a place in Government, his answer was—' I will
accept office when you can send me on a mission to
the Court of Poland.' Want of success did not
discourage him, faith never abandoned him—be
was ever ready for new efforts. Descending from
the exalted regions of the statesman, he also
mingled with the crowd of Polish emigrants-
Making no distinction of rank, of condition, of
political opinions, he embraced all in his tender
solicitude—fed them, clad them, encouraged them,
reconciled conflicting parties, and even bore
outrages from them without being disheartened.
As their benefactor, he was an example of
perseverance, patience, and indulgence, ao
throughout his whole career he was an
example of every civil virtue, and besides his other
services in our cause, Lord Dudley Stuart reor-
ganised in London the Literary Society of the
Friends of Poland, first established by the honour-
able and illustrious poet Thomas Campbell ; he en-
sured its continuance, and enlisted among its melt!'
begs persons of high rank and position. He' re-
mained its president during life, and did not even
forget it in his last will. This society will remain-
a living monument of his ideas, of his zeal, of hie
ceaseless efforts, and, if God so wills it, a time may
still come when it will render important service
to Poland. When the war broke out in the East,
Lord Dudley Stuart, who for years had been pre-
dicting its inevitable necessity, was not of opinion'
like so many others,that the Western Powers could,
without the aid of Poland, carry on with advantage
the war against Muscovy. The hopes raised b
the war, as well as his fears of failure, caused hint
to redouble his zeal and activity, and with un-
bounded devotion, he made, at that solemn moment,
the most strenuous efforts to conquer every obstacle
that impeded the triumph of the cause he held 0°
much at heart. In order to infuse greater boldnesB
into the timid calculations of the policy of the allied
powers he visited Turkey and Sweden, two nations
which have long been friendly to our country. 11. 4°
endeavoured thus, beyond the precincts of officla`,
relations, to create facilities for the powers who wer°
about to attack Muscovy to raise the Polish ques-
tion. At Constantinople he was received with that
traditional sympathy for our cause which
already attracted thither several of our country
men ready for the combat. From the South
proceeded to the North. Received with much kind"
ness by the King of Sweden and his family, tll'
friend of Poland was allowed to speak and was lis-
tened to. But, alas ! it was the last time his vo.
.
was allowed to plead our cause before men. Seized
with illness during an audience granted him by 07
Crown Prince, he had not even the strength to re
tire, but fell prostrate. He died at Stockholm,
Victim of his zeal in our cause—but like a valorone
knight, he fell in the thick of the battle."