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Untitled Article
appointed . We cannot but think that the policy , both of France ; and of England , has been both mistaken and pusillanimous . Unless it be affirmed that in no case whatever is the risk of war to be incurred , by the employment of energetic and determined remonstrance , that . risk ought to have been encountered on behalf of Poland . There can be no stronger
case either of justice or of policy . On France the brave Poles had the claim of a long succession of faithful , important , brilliant , and unrequited services . The Polish troops , which abandoned their country when it ceased to be a country , at the period of the second partition , followed the fortunes of the French armies with a zeal and heroism which France ought never to forget . Not a battle but they helped to win , from Marengo to
Borodino , and through that long service they lived upon promises and hopes . The French nation ought to have been the executors of Napoleon ' s will . They ought to have discharged the debt which he contracted on their account . At any rate , when the Poles had paid themselves , when they had actually resumed the possession of their own country , the French ought
to have risked any and every thing rather than have allowed the robber again to wrest it from them . He would , probably long ere this , have been much nearer to themselves but for the check which the struggle in Poland has given to his advances . The warfare of despotism and barbarism against each and every country having liberal institutions is only postponed * not averted .
The policy of England is the same with that of France . The free states of Europe have one common cause . If we have less to apprehend , the more safe and easy is it for us to assert the claims of justice . " He who allows oppression , shares the crime . " We have allowed as foul and bloody an oppression as was ever committed under the sun . Even on the principles of legitimacy , as well as on those of liberalism , Poland had a right to our
interposition . A national existence , and national institutions , were guaranteed to that country in the arrangements made at the far-famed Congress of Vienna . Not merely the Canning , but the Castlereagh policy , not merely the Grey , but the Wellington party , was committed and pledged in this case . The faith of treaties , the consistency of statesmen , the honour of warriors , were all ranged on the same side with the cause of liberty and the feelings of
humanity . The difficulty of rendering assistance is mere cant . If Poland be not accessible , Russia is j and that is the same thing practically . We repeat , that unless it be distinctly understood that on no account whatever is the risk of a war to be encountered , we cannot perceive how a justification can be made out of the governments cither of France or of Great Britain .
Even a Quaker administration might have found some means of interference more efficacious than any which , so far as at present appears , have been adopted . The feet is , that war is not prevented ; it exists offensively , but not defensively . Russia , Prussia , and Austria , are at war ; they have all the advantages of a state of war with all people aspiring to be fiw-
Untitled Article
710 Politics of the Month .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1831, page 710, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2602/page/58/
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