1831.] Parliament-— the Continent. 467 



upon herself the waste, the anxiety, and the hazard, that belong to all 

 supremacy, which depends on the perpetual exercise of oppression. 



A government has been offered to Poland ; but it is impossible to be- 

 lieve that a government of Russian bayonets can conciliate the conquered, 

 and, in the present stage of European feeling, that government itself 

 may be the means of striking a blow at the heart of Russia, of all blows 

 the most threatening. 



The Russian soldier, savage as he is in the field, is yet a man ; he 

 can be taught the advantages of a state of things altogether different 

 from that in which he was born, — liberty may hold out its prospects 

 even to the Russian slave. The feelings of personal freedom have a re- 

 sponse in every liuman heart, whether under the civil rule or the 

 cuirass ; and the Russian garrison of Poland may learn, before a feAv 

 years are past, the lessons with which every heart in the Polish terri- 

 tory is teeming. If those lessons shall be brought into practice by 

 honest guidance, and the Russian soldier be placed within view of ra- 

 tional liberty, it is not the distance between Warsaw and Moscow that 

 wiU stop the spreading of the flame to the heart of the empire ; nor the 

 distance from IMoscow to St. Petersburg, that will prevent it from 

 reaching its head. The popular discontents in Russia are matters of 

 publicity. The leading writers are notoriously waiting only an op- 

 portunity to declare the sentiments of all men of manliness and honour 

 throughout Europe. The present reign began with the developement 

 of a conspiracy unequalled for extent in point of numbers, comprehen- 

 siveness in its objects, and we grieve, for the sake of honest and true 

 liberty, to say, for its determination to shed blood. From the few 

 details which the sudden and cautious extinction of that gigantic con- 

 spiracy has suffered to transpire, it is known that nearly two thousand 

 officers of the Russian army had signed their names, that the purpose of 

 the confederation was the total upbreaking of the present government, 

 the dismemberment of the provinces, and the formation of a series of 

 states, on the principle of America ; but that in this determination was 

 included the sacrifice of the whole royal family, — a resolve equally 

 cruel, useless, and guilty, which must have disgraced the entire plan, 

 raised the abhorrence of Europe against its authors, and probably ex- 

 tinguished all the results of its triumph. It is not less probable, that to 

 this sanguinary determination was owing its defeat ; putting out of the 

 question the alihorrence with which a higher power than man must look 

 upon all attempts at good which commence by massacre ; the know- 

 ledge of this desperate resolve clearly roused the government to a vigour 

 which struck at the heads of the conspiracy at once, repaid blood for 

 Llood, and broke the great conspiracy into fragments — for a time ! 



The character of the Emperor Nicholas is favourable to the hope, that 

 Poland will not find in him, at least, a merciless governor. His reign 

 has exhibited none of the furious atrocities of the northern thrones. His 

 personal nature is said to be mild and just ; but. Emperor as he is, he 

 must be the slave of circumstances. The old English phantom of " a 

 power behind the throne greater than the throne," in Russia is a reality. 

 The nobles exercise an influence which has cost Russia many a monarch. 

 Despotism always lives at the mercy of its guards. The Autocrat and 

 the Sultan are the two most despotic lords of Europe, yet how seldom 

 has either an Emperor of Russia or of Turkey died in his bed. We have 

 no love for revolutions, but the revolution whicli shall give tlie benefit 



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