The Sun. — 1863-07-27 (London, England)

SPECTATOR.—We trust Earl Russell is satisfied with his diplomatic success. The result of his labour of months, of a combination including half Europe, of warlike whispers to Baron Brunow and peaceful speeches made in the Lords, of a formal appeal to the faith of treaties, and a still more formal repudiation of the means by which treaties are supposed to be ultimately enforced, has been to elicit from Russia a despatch full of a calm and polished disdain. So loud has been the talk of the clemency of the Czar, so carefully has excitement been cooled by rumours of conciliatory counsels et St. Petersburg, that the public scarcely yet understands the import of the reply. From end to end there is not in it one trace of conciliation, or compromise, or moderation, or fear, nothing but sovereign pride—a determination to refuse all concession, which ;is only the more immutable because it can permit itself officially to appear to discuss. Even that discussion, however, has its carefullydefined limit. if the Powers should begin talking of promises made by Alexander I.—promises which Prince Gortschakoff defines as a "passing inclination of the Emperor which he did not accomplish" —and ask anything not confined to Congress Poland, discussion is at an end. " This question," says the Foreign Minister of Russia, " must be excluded, even in an interchange of ideas made within the limits of the treaties of 1815," though those treaties were notoriously drawn up by the light of the Emperor's avowed designs. " We must exclude," he says, still more definitively, in the reply to France, "even from an exchange of friendly ideas, every allusion to portions of the Russian empire to which no special stipulation of any international act applies." It is Congress-Poland alone of which Russia will even speak; and let us see what she concedes to the demand on Congress-Poland. Simply land. Simply this, that if Poland submits at discretion, the Czar will accept her submission. The armistice is blankly rejected. "Desirable as it may be speedily to place a term to the effusion of blood, this object can only ba attained by the insurgents throwing down their arms and surrendering themselves to the clemency of the Emperor." Negotiations are to terminate before they can begin, and the Poles, whose whole case is that by treaty they are not subjects of Russia, are to acknowledge subjection, and then see what interpretation the Czar treaty rights they will have themselves surrendered. Till then not only is armistice impossible, impose but' his Majesty owes it to his faithful army, which struggles for the maintenance of order, to the Peaceful majority of the Poles, who suffer from these painagtuitations and to Russia, on whom they to terminate sacrifices, to take energetic measures Mouravieff, as the Steele has  aa rceen tt hl ye said, is the avowed as well as the intended reply to demands for conciliation. Even when " energetic measures" have produced a peace or a desert, Russia iudnon eqdseurne question," eyinnE,t,e, unirdeu.p,t oeaappupl designs,,. whioerleconstitution of Poland c"oBnufeffir ec sufficient would result a direct "have already been decreed" are _in atnheiumteorsftereguarantee.the emperor's the measures gracious eefouldthbee without object," if not, " there iinterference te pacificationrfere nne ofn foreignthe .e ras The conferenedee,ttahlelareofte'rtehennArdmeliannidstriastironn. intimatence that no. great Power could accept."fused ; but Prince Gortschakoff w, ill not appear to close the door finally on every mode of discussion. With an adroitness which it is hard for simple men to distinguish from impudence, he declares that general principles alone can concern the parties who signed the treaties of Vienna, that " at present it is not a question of these general principles but of administrative details and ulterior arrangements," and that these latter have always been settled bet wean " the Courts of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, among which the traditions of history, a permanent contact, and an immediate neighbourhood created a strict solidarite." The appeal of the robbed man not to be murdered is to be discussed by a tribunal composed of the robbers ! Nay, even that is hardly the truth, for the police are bidden to stand aside till the robbers have settled the espediency of such details as the mode of murder to be adopted. Even the thieves must not, however, be consulted too soon. There are thieves and thieves—thieves who are troubled with remorse, and thieves who have in their hearts a fear lest retribution should arrive at last, and it is dangerous to wake up those lurking sentimentalities. Russia prefers to complete the murder first, and confine the discussion to the texture of the victim's shroud.