Chapter IV, of Cassells Illustrated History of England, Volume 9 page 2

Various subjects of pressing interest - European, American, and colonial - were debated in the course of the session, but with so little effect on the policy either of our own or foreign Governments, that there is little use in disentombing those monuments of buried and futile eloquence. Neither the House of Commons nor the House of Lords urged upon the Government a firmer tone when remonstrating with Russia against the treatment of Poland, nor was there much use in discussing and deploring the escape of the Alabama, when she had escaped. As for foreign Governments, perceiving how thoroughly acceptable to Parliament, taken as a whole, was the unalterably pacific policy of the Ministry, they learnt to disregard the indignant oratory of individual members, exposing this, that, and the other enormity, and convinced themselves that England, however its ministers might interfere and bluster, would never fight. To what results this conviction led, we shall presently see. The session was brought to a close on the 28tli of July. '

The desperate effort made this year by the gallant and unfortunate Poles to shake off the despotic yoke of Russia, riveted the gaze and engaged the sympathy of nearly every nation in Europe. We say nearly, for Prussia, as represented by its Government, assisted, on grounds at the time little understood, the Muscovite gaoler to re-manacle his victim. That, among the secret societies of Poland, there were many members infected with the worst revolutionary virus of the times, haters of morality, anti-social, anti-religious, we shall not attempt to deny, for it is notorious that there is no nation in Europe in which the movement party is not to a greater or less degree embarrassed by the presence of an " extreme left," animated by the spirit of the International and the Paris Communists. Russia used this plea in extenuation of her cruelties; but with whatever truth it may have been urged, there can be no question that the outbreak in Poland was no spontaneous act, arising out of a revolutionary hatred of all authority, but was the result of a series of oppressive measures, directed by the Russian Government to the extinction of the Polish nationality, and culminating in an edict, the injustice of which might well have been felt intolerable by a proud and self-respecting people. In January of this year, the Russian Government revived by an ukase the system of conscription, which, having been in former times practised in Poland, had been abolished by the Emperor Nicholas, and under which, instead of allowing a free drawing of lots, the Government assumed the right of arbitrarily selecting any young men it chose from the population of the cities, and compelling them to serve in the Russian army. Lord Napier, our ambassador at St. Petersburg, described it as "a design to make a clean sweep of the revolutionary youth of Poland; to shut up the most energetic and dangerous spirits in the restraints of the Russian army; it was simply a plan to kidnap the opposition, and carry it off to Siberia or the Caucasus." At midnight on the 14th of January, police agents and soldiers commenced the work in Warsaw, surrounding the residences of those whom the Government had marked for forcible conscription, and compelling them to leave their homes in order to enter the military service. 2,500 men were thus carried off in the course of the night. So outrageous an act goaded the wretched people into open resistance. The flame of insurrection burst out simultaneously in various parts of the Grand Duchy of Poland. The operations of the bands that appeared in arms were directed, so far as possible, by a mysterious authority known as the " Central Committee," whose proclamations were circulated everywhere, whose orders were seldom disobeyed, but the composition and j locality of which were involved in the deepest obscurity. Betaking themselves to the forests, which cover so large a portion of the surface of Poland, the insurgents commenced a guerrilla warfare against the Russian troops, cutting off small detachments, intercepting supplies, and even occasionally defeating considerable bodies of men. The most noted leader among them, in the early portion of the movement, was Langiewicz, formerly a follower of Garibaldi; his name flew through Europe, and the friends of Poland were prepared to see in him a Sobieski or a Kosciusko. Suddenly, however, actuated by motives of which we do not remember to have seen an adequate explanation, Langiewicz abandoned his comrades, and, going to Cracow, gave himself up to the Austrian authorities. All through the year the insurrection raged, and was watched with keen interest by the Governments of all the great Powers. England and France were openly, and, so far as words went, strenuously, sympathetic with the movement; Austria simply looked on; Prussia alone, whose policy was guided by the vast conceptions and large forecast of the Count von Bismarck, heartily joined Russia in the work of repression, concluded a secret treaty with her for this purpose, assisted her defeated soldiers with food and arms, and gave up Poles who crossed her frontier to the Russian authorities. How this policy was afterwards requited by a friendly neutrality on the part of Russia, at times when Prussia was engaged in struggles imperilling her very existence, and which, but for such neutrality, could not but have involved her in disaster, we shall understand in the sequel.

The misfortunes of Poland led to one of those diplomatic and didactic interventions of which England about this time was so liberal, and of which the issue was so invariably and so notoriously unfortunate. Earl Russell wrote (March 2nd, 1863) in a somewhat curt style of remonstrance to our minister at St. Petersburg, Lord Napier, setting forth the view of the British Government concerning the rights of the Poles under the Treaty of Vienna, maintaining the right of England, as a party to that treaty, to interfere, with a view to the sincere execution and fulfilment of its stipulations, declaring that since the time of the Emperor Alexander I. Russia had broken faith with Poland in withholding the free institutions which had been promised, and concluding with the demand that a general amnesty should be proclaimed, and the just political reforms required by the Poles conceded. Prince Gortschakoff, " acting in a spirit of conciliation," declined to send a written reply to Earl Russell's dispatch, but expressed to Lord Napier, in conversation, his views upon its principal clauses. The substance of what he said was as follows: - Referring to the text of the Treaty of Vienna, he denied that the pledges which Russia had then given to Poland had been in any way broken. The treaty bound Russia, Prussia, and Austria, the three partitioners or co-parceners of crushed Poland, to confer upon the Poles representation and national institutions; but in the same clause of the treaty it was stated that such institutions should be " regulated by the form of political existence which their respective Governments shall judge it to be useful and convenient to grant to them." Now there were different forms of representative polity, different moulds, varying with the genius and circumstances of particular nations, which national institutions might assume. It did not follow, because, one type of representative government succeeded in England, that the same type would be applicable or beneficial to a country the antecedents and circumstances of which were widely different. The Emperor Alexander I. had, it was true, in the excess of his sanguine benevolence, attempted to carry out the treaty by granting to Poland institutions modelled in a considerable degree after the English type. But how had the imperial goodness been repaid by the ungrateful Poles P They had burst out in open insurrection in 1830, and having been then subdued by Russia by main force, had in strictness lost all right of appealing to the stipulations in their favour contained in the Treaty of Vienna. Upon this point, however, the prince did not desire to insist, but lie maintained that the institutions which Poland had enjoyed for many years were national in the fullest sense; the directing minister (Marquis Wielopolski) was a Pole, and entertained national sentiments of the most decided character; the council of administration was composed of Poles; and with regard to representation, there was a council of state, " embodying some representative elements" (what a beautiful vagueness in this delicate phrase!), in which general laws for the welfare of the kingdom were elaborated. The truth was, that while the peasantry, and the larger and sounder portion of the nobility, were sincerely and loyally attached to the Russian Government, there was a considerable population in the towns, and also a minority of the nobles, who were corrupted by the poison of revolutionary passions, and nourished the guilty desire of separating Poland from Russia's paternal sway; these revolutionists had been plotting an insurrection; and it was with the humane view of disconcerting their schemes, and averting the bloodshed and suffering which a rising in arms would have entailed on the country, that the Government had resorted to the late conscription, in order to disperse and render harmless the ringleaders of sedition. With regard to an amnesty, the Poles must first lay down their arms, and then they would experience in the fullest measure the effects of that clemency which animated the paternal heart of the Emperor.

Earl Russell, in reply, urged with considerable force, that representative and national institutions, during the existence of which 2,000 young men had been seized arbitrarily in the night, and condemned to serve as soldiers in the Russian army, in defiance of justice and positive law, could not well be regarded by the people which enjoyed them as satisfactory or sufficient. But, in fact, there was a radical and fundamental difference of view between the two Governments, and no exchange of diplomatic notes could bring them much nearer to each other. Wherefore it was significantly asked by the Russian ambassador, Baron Brunow, whether the communication Her Majesty's Government was about to make at St. Petersburg was of a pacific nature. Earl Russell replied that the British Government had no intentions that were otherwise than pacific; yet vaguely intimated that this' might not always be the case; "the state of things might change; " and if the horrors of the insurrectionary war were continued and aggravated, " dangers and complications might arise not at present in contemplation."

France, the ancient ally and patron of Poland, could not but regard her sufferings with deep emotion. Yet, when, in March, Prince Napoleon, in the Senate, made an incendiary speech on Poland, to which the Minister for Foreign Affairs, M. Billault, made a cautious reply, the Emperor hastened to address the following note to his minister: -

"My dear M. Billault, - I have just read your speech, and, as ever, have been happy to find in you so faithful and so eloquent an interpreter of my policy.

" You have been able to reconcile the expression of my sympathy for the cause dear to France with the regard due to foreign Sovereigns and Governments. Your words were on all points in accordance with my meaning. I reject any other interpretation of my sentiments.

" I beg you to believe in my sincere friendship. " Napoleon."

In truth, the Emperor ever since the Crimean War had maintained a very friendly understanding with the Czar, and did not desire to disturb it. Besides, what could be effected for Poland by going to war? Russia could not be attacked by land on a grand scale unless with the consent and co-operation of Prussia or Austria, which on the present occasion there was no chance of obtaining. By sea she was, indeed, more or less vulnerable, both in the Baltic and the Black Sea. But in the Baltic, the experience of the Crimean War was not encouraging, for the damage inflicted by the English fleets had been out of all proportion to the immense expense incurred; and in the Black Sea, since Sebastopol had been dismantled, it could scarcely be said that there was anything worth attacking, or the attack on which could much affect the progress of the struggle in Poland. At any rate, as a war undertaken for Poland must be mainly naval, and France had not a particularly strong navy, it would be absurd to undertake it unless in alliance with England. It was thus that the Emperor probably reasoned; and with regard to the latter point - the assistance of England - we shall presently see that there was no serious thought at any time of rendering it, unless in the form of those edifying moral lectures upon the duties of government which Earl Russell so liberally and perseveringly dispensed, and which foreign countries treated with such unaccountable disregard.

Moved, however, it would seem, by the representations which reached him from almost every civilised nation, the Emperor of Russia did, in April, proclaim an amnesty, by which he held out the offer of a " free pardon to all those of our subjects in the kingdom implicated in the late troubles, who have not incurred the responsibility of other crimes and misdemeanours committed on service in the ranks of the army, and who may, before the 1st [13th] May, lay down their arms and return to their allegiance." But the Central Committee (which now called itself the Provisional Government) called upon all true Poles to reject the " pretended amnesty," seeing that " it was not with the intention of obtaining more or less liberal institutions that we took up arms, but to get rid of the detested yoke of a foreign Government, and to reconquer our ancient and complete independence." Language such as this was, of course, taken advantage of by the Russian Government, and adduced, in its communications with foreign Governments, as evidence that what the insurgents wanted was not reform, but revolution. But Earl Russell had by this time formulated, in concert with Austria and with the knowledge of France, the plan for the regeneration of Poland which he had been long meditating, and was now prepared to propose for the acceptance of the Russian Government. The plan, as unfolded in his despatch of the 17th June, comprised the following six points or articles: -

1. A complete and general amnesty.
2. National representation in a form resembling that which had been granted by Alexander I.
3. A distinct national administration, carried on by Poles, and possessing the confidence of the country.
4. Full and entire liberty of conscience, involving the repeal of the restrictions imposed on Catholic worship.
5. The Polish language to be recognised in the kingdom as the official language, and used as such in the courts of law and in the schools.
6. The establishment of a regular and legal system of recruiting.