Star.
London, England, 1831-01-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE JOURNAL&

Truss.—The affairs of Bclgiun► become every day mote and more
embroiled. Petitions have been sent from Ghent and Antwerp in fa.
your of the claims of the Priniti of Orange t• the Crown. Other
cities and districts have transmitted to Congress supplications as
earnest, in favour of an union. with Prance. The acccasion of the
former, in the present state of Belgic feeling, would occasion a civil
war, and the adoption of the latter would lead to an European con.
filet. In the midst of these perplexities, the insolent manner in which
the friendly Protocol of the five Allied Powers has bean treated by
the Belgic Provisional Government, end Its Inflexible pertinacity, re-
sporting the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, have become new dements
of danger and disunion. The Provisional Government is said to have
made proposals to a Bavarian Prince, who is a minor, to occupy the
Belgic throne under a Belgic Regency. This fact is stated with appa-
rent confidence in the French papers, which mention that the Prince is
sixteen years of age, and that Count de llerode is to be Regent. If •
minor is to be placed on the Belgic throne, why not have taken the son
of the Prince of Orange, against whom the Belgians cannot bring the
same allegations u against the father ?

ClllolllCLL—Peter the Great, In removing the seat of empire from
the Moskva to the Neva, appears to have committed a mistake similar
to that of David, the son of Jesse, in Jewish history, who fixed his capi-
tal at one extremity of his dominions, while he proceeded to extend his
territories in a diametrically opposite direction. But the position chosen
by the Jewish King, however much it facilitated the future dismember.
ment of his kingdom, was in the heart of the possessions occupied by the
privileged Levitical order, the dispensers of good and evil fame, and his
policy united the interests of his dynasty with those of the most in-
fluential and i the only educated class among his subjects.
--Peter, on the other hand, owing, perhaps, more to his
naval propensities thin to any higher political views, chose
a position, which at the same lime facilitates the fumre dismeM-
bernsent of the Russian empire, and has tended in a great measure to
prevent any thorough union of interests between the Crown and the
Aristocracy. If Moscow had remained the capital of Russia, in the
hands of rulers not so pig-headed as the Stuarts In England, the mutual
fears and hopes of the Emperor and his privileged subjects would,
probably before this time, hays converted the Government into a sort
of Joint Profit Company, in which the Rowena' family would have
been the principal shareholders ; whereas, In St. Petersburgh, owing
to the influx of strangers from other parts of Europe, and the
absence of the grandees, who could have overawed the Court,
the Autocrat has, in the mean time, such a command of fo-
reign tools and of the poor and needy from among his own
subjects, that he can beat down very low the allowance of power
to be shared by his aristocracy, and keep a very large portion to him-
self. By a natural consequence of this policy, the old capital had be.
come a focus of discontent so long ago as the time of Catherine 11.
who, in allusion to the freedom of conversation whirls prevailed there on
political subjects, it is said, used to call it her " little Republic." if
it was only for the freedom of speech, the autocrat would have little
cause for apprehending danger from this quarter. But it must be
recollected, that by far the greater part of the officers in the ar.
my is drawn from the Aristocracy (every mother's son of which
is obliged to serve either in the civil or military departments);
and that, as this class of community musters much stronger
in Moscow than in St. Petersburgh, the ties of relationship
bind the majority of those who have the physical force under their con.
troul to the one place more than the other; that Moscow lies more cen-
trically than St. Petersburgh with respect to the bulk-of landed property,
on which the officers are much more dependent than on their miserable
pay; and that it also is much nearer to the corn districts, which, con-
sidering their importance, may be called, in some sense, the key-stones
of the empire. The autocracy having then no moral tie-, either on the
bulk of the population, or on the influential classes (with the exception
of those who enjoy the sweets of place), and cooped up for its
own safety la a corner, where the head is too distant from the heart
to preserve the body politic long in a healthy state, depends for its
very existence upon the good will of the army ; if it should rebel, or be
inclined to revolutionise, the crown-serfs wonld be but • poor support,
scattered as they are in patches over all the provinces of the empire...—
The double rows of military colonies which stud the country between the
two capitals, and hedge in St. Petersbure, Riga, and Archangel, have
at present no Inducements to separate their interests from those of their
fellow-soldiers ; and even if thad, the country which they encircle
would hardly be worth the fight for, to the possessors of the fertile
southern provinces, though, of itself, it might form a snug enough little
kingdom, which would plea the Czar on a more equal footing with his
Swedish neighbour.

RIRALD.—The fate of the six unfortunate men left for execution at
Winchester, and three at Reading, under the Special Commissions, ex-
cites a stronger and more general feeling of pain and sympathy in the
public mind than any event connected with the strict administration of
penal justice within our remembrance. Nor is this to be wondered at ;
for the people of England are not a sanguinary people, and cannot be
reconciled to the miserable spectacles which are the consequence of the
unrelenting enforcement of sanguinary laws. Besides, they reflect upon
the causes which led to the crimes for which the lives of those men are
declared to be forfeited to the law. They find in those causes, not what
an justify violence on the part of any clue of the people, but a
great deal that ought to opetan in mitigation of the fpunish.
talent which the law has decreed to the offences of which
the individuals now awaiting their doom have been convicted.
We will not row enter into political considerations connected with this
unpleasant subject—but we do say that political causes have led to
those crimes; and that, for whatever blood shall be shed judicially,
or otherwise, Statesmen and Legislators will be deeply responsible—
responsible before a higher tribunal than that of man, where the actions
of those upon whose enduct the happiness or misery of millions of hu.
man beings depended will be tried by an infallible Judge, and the
hand of Omniseenee itself holds the balance of Justice. But whatever
may have been the precise nature of the political errors which have led
to this calamitous result, there is no unprejudiced person in the con.
munity who doubts that distress was the immediate cause of the
disorders which the special Commissions have been appointed
to punish. Distress produced excitement, and exitement led
to crime. But acts of disorder, and even of petty plun-
der, committed under such circumstances, are of a very different
character of guilt, at least, in a moral point of view, from those viola.
tions of the laws of order and property which are the result of a cold
and deliberate depravity of disposition. Such acts must, Indeed, be pu-
nished ; but, if punished in a manner that causes the public detestation
of the offence to merge in sympathy for the fate of the offender, the ex.
ample can have no salutary result. For high treason and murder men
an only suffer death ; but the rioters and breakers of machines in the
late disturbances have not done any thing to confound them in the guilt
of the traitor or murderer, and should not be confound. d in their pu-
nishment. It is true that when the advocates of sanguinary examples
are driven from every position of morality, reason, and religion, they
entrench themselves behind that of expediency. But expediency was
of the doctrine of Pilate, who, on that principle, which is so much
in acceptance among modern Statesmen, put one in whom be " found
no fault" to death, in preference to the murderer &rabbits. There is
no crime in statemansbip, no vice in legislation, no error in the admin.
istration of justice, that expediency cannot sanction 1! It is the doctrine
invented by knaves to impose upon fools. When men abandon the
immutable principles that distinguish right from wrong, and tell us that
it is eapedUnl to do a thing which it is not right to do, we think very
ceenseeptuensi of such men's understandings, or very unfisvourably of
thole either tally or dishonesty is the scum of their actions.
The hits Ministers of Prance thought it oopecliene to subvert the Char-
ter, thigh they were well aware that it was illegal to make the attempt.
They tseelliced thousands of lives in pursuance of their wicked wen-
dons, yet the justice of their country has spored Asir lieu, and
the very persons who of the execution of the rioters in the
counties of Rants andaPrekes approved of the sentence which in.
fisted only a secondary punishment on the greatest criminals that have
held up their bands at the bar of public justice in modern these ? Bow
can men reconcile themselves to such contradictions ? If the crimes of
the ex-filinisters of Trance had their origin In political considerations,
so had those of the English rioters. But the ex. anthem et Fume
sacrificed thousands of human Wage to their ruthless anibitien, and
the rioters in England did not destroy a single life. Even the &aline
of expediency does not apply in this case; for, as public opinion is
against the infliction of death, it would answer no conesivalie purpose
to inflict it. Ihe survivors will hese mese pity expressed for the fate
of their comrades Watt horror at their offence; they wWheer the merci-
less enforcement of the law condemned by these whose opinions have
influence upon their tows—.and all the salutary effect of example will
be lost. It is therefore neither rigid nor expedient that the intended
executions should take place ; but It is expedient that the moral force
of another sort of example should be ;given. The example we mean
does not cause any tars to be shed, or bring painful recollections to the
isoactenee. It makes no wife a widow, and no children fatherless;—

'above all, It does not teach the people the lessons of cruelty and revenge
by spectacles of blood. We speak of the example of mercy I To that
noblest prerogative of the Crown of England we now appal. Ors-
clousness and affability of manner becomes a King t but his mat en-
during popularity is to be derived from administering justice in mercy.
The justice of the law may be executed by many ; but the mercy,
which governs, controls, tempers, mid, we may add, Mei/ism the law,
is intrusted but to one. It resides in the breast of a King—it is the
noblest and most beautiful Hower of his constitutional pre•eminenee!—
Judge Hale has said, and modern Judges have reechoed the sentiment,
that " Christianity is part and parcel of the law of England." Need
we add that mercy is the most sublime and glorious attribute of the
Christian dispensation.

..,
.4111

POLAND AS IT IL

IT A FOLIOSE

The present " Kingdom of Poland," the heart and centre of its an-
cient sovereignty, is hereditary in the person of the Russian Autocrat
and his succession, and comprises a superficial of 6,340 square leagues,
having a population of 3,280,006 souls. It is divided into eight wet-
wodeship, namely :—Warsaw, flendomir, Kali* Lublin, Pinta, Ma.
scoria, Podolachia, and Augussowo. The national revenues amount to
fifty millions of Polish guilders (2,280,000 L) of which seven millions
are assigned to the civil list expenditure. Its military force consists of
thirty thousand infantry and twenty thousand cavalry. Warsaw, with
126,433 inhabitants, is it capital ; and next in succession stead &ado-
mit-, with 50,000; Lublin, 14,000; and Salim, 8,500
In those portions of Poland which have been incorporated with the
dominions of Kugel', Austria,. and Prussia, we find that the nobility
have been shorn of some of their feudal rights, whilst the common peo-
ple have acquired partial advantages. The property of the latter is
better secured; the alienation of land is rendered more facile, and the
agriculturist or peasant has been enabled freely to tent whole villages
and districts, where under the ancient millstone of aristocracy, be was
ground down by extortions and impositions, against which there was
no legal redress, bemuse every judicial station of any eminence was
filled by noblemen.

That part of Poland which is subject to Austria, bears the desig-
nation of " the Kingdom of Galicia and Ludomiria." Its population
amounts to 4,170,000 souls, wbo are split into two distinct races, Poles
and Rusulaks, the latter being a branch of the Mao-Russians. Lem.
berg is the capital of Gaßicia, a country which was an appanage of
the kings of Hungary in earlier ages, but was made over by them to
Poland in the early part of the fifteenth century, though the abandon.
ment of their hereditary right was rather passed sub silentio than openly
acknowledged. The equivocal nature of this cession, served the house
of Austria for a pretext to bring forward their dormant claim ui on
Galicia at the time of the partition. In religious matters, nothing can
be more tolerant than the conduct of its new masters; the industry of
the country has been greatly promoted by the immigration of German
settlers, and the pressure of taxation is extremely light ; but the con-
dition of the peasantry has undergone no material amelioration. The
amount of military force which Galicia contributes to the Austrian
ranks, is eleven regiments of infantry and five regiments of cavalry.
The provincial governors, who though of noble birth, are in general a
race of mere "c6evaliers d'induslrie," keep the country In a rate of
discontent by their arbitrary and rapacious conduct.

The immense tract of country comprehending Lithuania, Volhynla,
and Podolia, and containing a population of 8,000,000 souls, is become
part and parcel of the Russian territory, though its natiee laws and
customs have remained intact; even the major part of the local ap-
pointments is intrusted to natives. The nobility have in general con-
trived to retain their immunities, and the peasantry remain in a mate at
abjrct vassalage, though their persons are considered more sacred in the
eye of the law. This portion of Poland has evinced a readier disposi.
don than perhaps any other, to accommodate itself to political exigen-
cies, and is become more essentially amalgamated with its Russian
yoke-fellows.

Of all its Polish acquisitions, Prussia has retained nothing beyond
the Grand Duchy of Posen, which has provincial states of its own. As
far as personal observation enables me to judge, none of the Poles are
so little satisfied with their modem rulers as those of this province,
especially the nobility ; there are three obvious causes for this dissatis•
faction ; the government appointments are given to Germans instead of
nativesZthe Teutonic language has been forced, as far as practicable,
upon their adoption ; and their patience is sorely baited and worried
by the tedious processes of Prussian legislation. I have reason to
believe, however, that this inauspicious state of things has not
escaped the vigilance of the Court of Berlin, and that measures are in
course of operation to remedy the evil. The Grand Duchy of Poses
contains 538 geographical square miles, and 1,051,137 inhabitants;
and its chief towns sre Bromberg and Pa5e0...47,44d Service Jourosa