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Untitled Article
tions ; though , unfortunately , their constitutional freedom was then , most probably for some sinister purposes , very imperfectly defined . But the Duchy of Warsaw received by the treaty of Vienna the most definite and solemn guarantees of being- suffered to remain an independent and free Polish kingdom . It was expressly stipulated , that the Emperor of Russia was to be King of Poland in the right of its
constitution only . By that treaty , a positive national and political independence was guaranteed by Europe to a remnant of the Polish nation in the Duchy of Warsaw—guaranteed by Great Britain herself ; but Russia , in mockery of all this , has set aside every engagement on the subject . First of all , the Emperor Alexander repented of his liberalism in having promised a constitutional government to Poland ; and he behaved even more inconsistently than Nicholas towards the
Poles , for he began by mildness , and ended by sending his brother Constantine to rule over them . Still , as long as Alexander lived , things were not so bad in that country as after his death . Nicholas ascended the Russian throne , and Constantine was made ( virtually ) King of Poland . He swayed with a rod of iron . His dominion was utter , and wreckless , and lawless despotism . He committed crimes
and cruelties which admit of no better apology than that he was half a maniac . At the very moment the Emperor Nicholas , by his coronation oath , had solemnly sworn to the Poles to maintain their rights , as they were guaranteed to them by their constitution , the people beheld their noblest patriots chained and dungeoned , for simply claiming that constitution . Despair drove them , at last , to demand their rights , sword in hand . '—pp . 6 , 7 . 4
The Poles arose and fought with an intrepidity that has scarcely its parallel in authentic history ; and but for the criminal interference of the cabinet of Berlin , they would have beat the barbarians . As it was , they have thrown an immortal glory over their melancholy name . And it is even of this melancholy glory , that the Autocrat wishes to
defraud them . He would abolish their language , and , not contented with robbing their heroes of life , he would rob the very dead of their memory , and erase them from human recollection ! That is more than he can do I But let us look to his more practicable determinations . Poland is to be for ever annexed to the dominions of the
Muscovite ; its institutions and its language are henceforth to be Russian ; and though Great Britain guaranteed to them a separate independent existence , the independence of the Poles , as a nation , is to be annihilated . Meanwhile the Muscovite is sending , by thousands and by tens of thousands , the wounded men , the weeping mothers , and the very youth from the schools of Poland , in chains to Siberia . Would to God we could believe that report has exaggerated these atrocities ! It would be wicked in us to shock you with them if they were not
literally true ; and we would scorn to calumniate , if that were possible , even the oppressors of Poland . But , alas ! we know those horrors to be too true . Authentic documents of too melancholy conviction lie before us . But we need not refer to such sources . Facts enough are already known to all of you , and as notorious as the sun at noonday , to ehow the Autocrat ' s barbarity towards Poland . His own ukases avow it openly . ? Fellow Countrymen ! is all this outrage to your humanity , as men ?
Untitled Article
& $ d Publicatio n * of the Polish Literary Society *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1832, page 590, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1820/page/14/
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