1831.] the Five Great Poivcrs. ' 229 



Tuesday, This warning, (tfter the event, may be diplomatic and Dutch, 

 but all men of common sense will know the name for it. The results 

 of this rash and ungenerous attempt are, already — that the Dutch King 

 has been forced to abandon all the fruits of his expedition in a moment — 

 that he has for ever extinguished the hope of having partizans in Bel- 

 gium — that he has roused the French soldiery, and enfeebled the peace- 

 party in France, a measure which may yet terminate in the extinction of 

 his dynasty — and that he has actually compelled England to take part 

 against an ally to which she has at all times been the most active and 

 powerful protector. In this there is no enumeration of the villages 

 burned, the property destroyed, the families beggared, and the lives 

 lost. Those are considerations too M«-royal for conquerors. But they 

 are high considerations notwithstanding ; and the government which 

 rushes into war without the most irresistible necessity, without that 

 necessity which would make a man start from his bed and take his 

 pistols to repel a robber, has seldom failed of being taught the lesson of 

 fearful retribution. The French are on his haunches still, and tliere 

 they will slay ! 



The state of Poland has long excited the most painful anticipations. 

 From the beginning, every man knew that Russia was too powerful for 

 her, and the,first feeling of all Europe was terror for the ruin which her 

 gallant spirit was bringing on itself. But that spirit exhibited a 

 gallantry so much beyond all that Europe had expected, so high a 

 determination to resist the tyrant, and so noble a courage displayed 

 alike in the senate and the field, that the general hope revived ; men 

 rejoiced to think that one victim more was rescued from the grasp of a 

 fierce and barbarian despotism, and the world looked upon the struggle 

 of Poland and Russia as they would upon a contest of the principles of 

 light and darkness. 



In all this there was no mixture of revolutionary feeling, no delight 

 in the triumph of the populace over established authority ; it was the 

 rising of the slave against a master more ignorant and brutal than the 

 lowest condition of servitude — the rightful demand of an ancient people 

 to possess the enjoyment of their own laws and properties — a justified 

 wrath against the domination of a savage rejected by his own country, 

 and finding the best excuse for his capricious violences in his being half 

 mad. Against Russia and her viceroy, Poland has made out a case 

 which would justify revolt in any age of the world. 



But her rights and her valour have earned for her only the sympathy 

 of Europe — they have not roused its interposition. The Russian armies, 

 however defeated by the impetuous patriotism of the Poles, rest on too 

 populous and powerful a country to be finally worn out ; their defeats 

 have produced fresh levies, and the storm of war seems to be at last 

 gathering round Warsaw. The latest accounts state that the Russians 

 under Paskewitch were within a few leagues of the capital, and that the 

 remaining leaders and troops of the patriots were concentrating round 

 the last hold of national freedom. 



In lamenting that no European interposition had been available, we can 

 scarcely blame England and France, so much as we regret the result. 

 They are both bound by treaties to Russia, and treaties are not to be 

 broken. No contingency of national advantage, nor even of national 

 humanity, can countenance a breach of faith. Tliat tie among nations 



