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

LORD DZIDL

EY COUTTS STUART AND

POLAND.

'On Monday last, the 10th instant. Sandon Hall,
in this connty, the seat of the Right Hon. the Earl
of Harrowby, AVflq 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
Harrowby, 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
replesentative 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 Coatts
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 venera-
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 naVon'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
my ,hbcat,a3nouhronpeesrt_
purpose can effect. I now,lord,
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, 1859.
" My Dear Lord Harrowby,—General Zamoyski, 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 wh,:o, 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, attachad to our mutual friend—you who have been the
witness of his boundless devotion to our clearly just, though
cruelly persecuted cause,—youl who in common with us
deplore his irreparable loss, it is to you, my lord, that is
due 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
ase
b
_ before aeng
of advocate
yn h
o t of our
this iusnifnoerdtuanlamteay countr3;
become
an h
in your family, and thus the possession of your 'eldest
owmeontrustrsatiainthheemritsthrthaenosochnatimlaenngtsano
df
honma
no
itnhbe
as onnd,
wwito
d,

It is with these feelings and the unalterable attach-
ment which I cherish for you that I never shall cease to he,
my dear Lord Harrowby,

" Yours very sincerely,
(Signed) " A. CZAIerORYSKI."
" My dear Lord Harrowby,—On nay return from Sand on,
and at the very moment of starting for France, I received
a packet from Prince Czartoryski 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 person 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 thoso :who possessed his earliest
affections.
6! Compelled to leave England, I have entrusted this
message to Major Szulczcwski. Tho particular affection.
which Lord Dudley Stuart felt for him, the long and use-
ful services ho 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 ho will find now as be-
fore, from yourself and Lord Sandon the kind reception
which he deserves-.

" Believe me,
(Signed) " L. ZA.MOYSKI.
" London, 18th August, 18:59."
Lord HARROWBY then addressed Major Szul-
czewski in a few words, expressinc, on the one hand
the regret which he experienced that Gen. Count
Zamoyski, to whom he 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 he 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 Sunder 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 tics of the nearest and dearest kind, as
_well as of the community of opinions and feelings which
had long united me with any lamented kinsman in the
great cause in whibh ho had employed his best enetgies.
lie was a more sanguine, snore able, more devoted, mere
persevering advocate of Poland than myself ; but we fully
concurred m principle, equally united in condemning
mixturet
hegre
of
error cus
of s'
&
the partition of your country
,by the three con-
tra glwhaitch, crirno
a aad
asag
age
thein
Le:
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
security for the West of Europe against the enero only,
of the aggressive East; and in sympathising with the.tiaeh.ments
lant men wko had sacrificed everything to a not_ gal.
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 somo 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,
faniily ties, country, without ostentation and without per-
sonal ambition, and had devoted, as ho 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 Ixautiful 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, " HAnnowny."
- - •

The medal is greatly r.dmired fc r the beauty
of its workmanship, and the s liking resem-
blance it bears to the deceased nobleman.
The subject of the tre3al and the inscrip:o
arc by Mr. Charles Sienkiewicz, a very emi-
nent scheler ,end ulitian. 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 die-
tablet, sup•
gant and bears on the top a silver