cially to the partitioning powers, with which it has been CHAP. attended. XXVI. 1830. 6. crease of of Russia Poland. The partition of Poland first broke down the northern barrier of Europe against Asia, and brought the might Vast inof the Orientals to the very heart of European civilisa- the power tion. What the conquest of the Byzantine Empire had from the done in the south, that fatal spoliation effected in the partition of north of Europe. Being the most powerful of the partitioning powers, the Semiramis of the north obtained the lion's share to herself. By the successive partitions of 1772 and 1794 the whole of Poland was divided between Russia, Prussia, and Austria; and Lithuania, Volhynia, and Podolia, which fell to Russia, contained no less than nine millions of inhabitants. By the treaty of 1815, Russia obtained in addition the grand-duchy of Warsaw, containing four millions, which had been raised up by the Treaty of Tilsit, and her frontiers were brought to within one hundred and eighty miles of both Berlin and Vienna. It may safely be asserted that by these acquisitions the strength of Russia as against the states of continental Europe was more than doubled; for not only was the barrier which had hitherto restrained her advances swept away, but the strength, great in a military point of view, of the Sarmatian nation, was added to her arms. Thenceforward she became irresistible in eastern Europe; nothing but a coalition of the Western powers, the last hope of freedom, could arrest her advance. The great war of 1854 was the legacy bequeathed to Europe by the partition of 1794. 7. the Poles jugation. Yet, because the guilt of the partitioning powers was great, it is not to be supposed that the fault of the Faults of Poles themselves had been small, or that they are justi- which led fied in raising the cry of injured innocence among the to their subother nations of Europe. On the contrary, they fell mainly in consequence of their own misconduct; and every other nation which imitates them will, to the end of the world, undergo the same punishment. The Sar XXVI. 1830. CHAP. matia of the ancients, Poland, on the first settlement of the northern nations after the fall of the Roman empire, was the most extensive kingdom in Europe. Extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea, from Smolensko to Prague, it was the most powerful state on the Continent, so far as material resources went. Prussia, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, the Ukraine, Podolia, Volhynia, as well as Poland Proper and Lithuania, were comprised in its mighty domains. Its forests, abounding with fir and oak, formed inexhaustible supplies for the construction of houses and ship-building; its soil, everywhere perfectly flat, and enriched in most places, like the American, by the perennial vegetable decay of the forests, was admirably adapted for grain crops, and has ever rendered its harbours the granary of Europe for wheat; its great rivers supplied, ready-made by the hand of Nature, as in the valley of the Mississippi, the immense advantages of a network of water communications penetrating every part of the country; its inhabitants, intrepid and brave almost beyond any other in Europe, had always been distinguished by a passionate love of freedom and attachment to their country; and they have been characterised, with truth, by Napoleon, as the men in Europe who most readily and quickly form soldiers. quickly form soldiers. There must, therefore, have been some great national fault, some overpowering defects in constitution or character, which neutralised all these advantages, and rendered the nation to which Nature had given the greatest means of power, and placed on the frontier of civilisation to shield it from the barbarians, the weakest and most unfortunate. 8. impatience ed Poland. It is not difficult to see what it was which brought It was the this about. The "ignorant impatience of taxation" did of taxation the whole. Poland being a country in which, probably which run from homogeneity of original race, and the absence of any of the distinctions of rank consequent on foreign conquest, equality was really and practically, not nominally, established, the preservation of their equal rights became the ruling passion of the people, to which every other consideration, how pressing soever, was sacrificed. Among CHAP. XXVI. these rights the most important and the most valued 1830. was that of being free from taxation. In all countries where the people have really got the power of government into their own hands, and where they are not ruled, as in ancient Rome, by a hereditary senate, or in modern France, by a despotic Committee of Public Safety, this is a favourite object; and accordingly, in America, no statesman has ever ventured to hint even at any direct taxes. So strong was this feeling in Poland that it amounted to a perfect passion. No danger, however great-no calamities, however threatening-no perils, however overwhelming, could induce them to submit to the smallest present burden to ward off future disaster. In Sidney Smith's words, "they preferred any load of infamy, however great, to any burden of taxation, however light.' They constantly trusted to their own valour and warlike spirit to avert any dangers with which their country might be threatened; but although their heroic qualities often extricated the republic from perils which seemed insurmountable, it could not supply the want of a regular army, or the preparation in peace of the means of effective defence in war. When all the adjoining states were putting on foot powerful standing armies and constructing strong fortresses, they had only a few regiments of mercenaries as a durable force, no fortified towns or arsenals, and they trusted the national defence entirely to the pospolite, or armed convocation of the nobles. The consequence was, that, in the last struggle under Kosciusko, they could not oppose 25,000 men to the united armies of Russia, Austria, and Prussia. In a word, the Poles did, during three hundred years, what Mr Cobden and the Peace Conference so strenuously urged the English government to do; and had their advice been equally implicitly followed, England, like Poland, would beyond all question, in the course of time, have been swept from among nations. A strange and mysterious connection has existed for a long period between the cause of Poland and that of 116 XXVI. 1830. 9. connection Poland and CHAP. European democracy. It is more than a mere ardent sympathy of the one for the other; it is a linking together of fate, apparently by the decree of Supreme Mysterious Power. As Poland was the frontier state of European between civilisation, so it seems to have been destined to stand as the cause of the advanced guard to warn the other nations by its fate democracy of the danger which awaited them if they listened to the voice of the tempter within their own bosoms. Its longcontinued misfortunes, despite the valour of its sons, and ultimate subjugation, was beyond all doubt owing to the violence of the passion of equality in its inhabitants, which led them to retain an elective government when they should have exchanged it for a hereditary, and neglect all provision for defence when their neighbours were daily augmenting their means of attack. When the volcano broke out in France, and Polish nationality was extinguished, the same connection continued. It was the anxiety of the partitioning powers to provide for the division of Poland in 1792, 1793, and 1794, which led them to starve the war with France, and permit its insane demagogues to precipitate the French nation into the frightful career of the Revolution, when they might, by uniting their forces, with ease have captured Paris, and restored a constitutional monarchy in a single campaign. With the crushing of the revolutionary spirit in France in 1814, and the capture of Paris, Poland again emerged from its ashes; it obtained from the efforts of Lord Castlereagh at the Congress of Vienna the shadow at least of nationality, and the progress it made during the next fifteen years, and the strength it displayed during the contest with Russia in 1831, proved that the division and weakness of democracy had hitherto been the cause of its ruin. With the triumph of the barricades, the dark cloud again came over the fortunes of Poland; her nationality was destroyed, and a long period of humiliation, of suffering, again presented the lesson to Europe of the national punishment of democratic institutions. 1 XXVI. 1830. 10. of Poland Russian 1815 to 1830. viii. §§ 9, Though far from enjoying the blessings of real freedom, CHAP. the small portion of Poland which was erected in 1815 into a separate state, with the Emperor of Russia on its throne, enjoyed a degree of prosperity, and made an Prosperity amount of progress, far beyond any that it had ever ex- under the perienced under the weak government of its elected kings, rule from or the blind rule of its stormy Diets. The statistical facts already given place this beyond a doubt.1 The army was 1 Ante, c. thirty thousand strong, and in the very highest state of dis- 10. cipline and equipment; while the growing information and intelligence of the people, owing to the great extension of the means of education among them, and the vast increase of their material comforts, had augmented in a surprising degree the resources of the country. Many grievances, indeed, were still complained of, and some existed. It is scarcely to be expected they should at once disappear under the sceptre of the Czar. Though fond of Poland, to a native of whom he was married, and proud beyond measure of its troops, Constantine, its viceroy, was by nature capricious and passionate. Several acts of tyranny occurred during his government, and it was too evident that the attempt to ingraft the constitutional freedom of Europe upon the traditional despotism of Asia was of all human undertakings the most difficult. The sittings of the Chambers, which never lasted more than a few weeks, had been discontinued for five years before 1830, when June 1830. they were held for a month by the Emperor Nicholas. The debates were not made public, and the most rigorous censorship of the press shut out the communication of independent thought throughout the community. But with all these restraints and evils, which were far from imaginary, the condition of Poland had marvellously improved, from the mere effect of a steady rule, since it fell under the government of Russia. The proof of this is decisive. Strong as Russia was, and immensely as her resources had augmented since the last partition in 1794,2 40, 46. the strength of Poland had grown in a still greater pro 2 Cap. iv. |