POLAND. 



several officers crossed the Vistula, on the night 

 of March 19th, at Uscie-Yesnickie, and escaped 

 into Galicia. He was captured and brought first 

 to Tarnov, from there to Cracow, and subse- 

 quently to Moravia. His female companions 

 were at once set at liberty. The Poles lost 

 about four hundred in killed, but all the rest 

 of their army were dispersed. This was the 

 end of the only large body of troops which 

 the Poles, during the year 1863, were able to or- 

 ganize. Henceforth they had to confine them- 

 selves exclusively to guerilla warfare, which 

 presented but few interesting incidents. 



The Central Committee of Warsaw, on March 

 21st, declared the power of Dictator Langie- 

 wicz to have ceased, and resumed the supreme 

 direction of the insurrection. Mieroslavski, 

 who returned from Paris to Cracow, seemed 

 to have fallen into discredit. It was even re- 

 ported that he had been outlawed, and that 

 one of the two indorsers of his protest had 

 been hanged. 



On April 12th, the Emperor issued an offer 

 of an amnesty to the Poles. In this document 

 the instigators of the insurrection are designa- 

 ted as "individuals who, by long years of an 

 unsteady life abroad, have become accustomed 

 to instigate disturbances and violence, and to 

 plot in secret. The task of the present age," 

 the Emperor said, "is to establish the pros- 

 perity of the country, not by streams of blood, 

 but by peaceable legislation." He offered a 

 complete amnesty to all Poles who had taken 

 part in the insurrection, if they were not guilty 

 of desertion from the army or of other crimes, 

 and if they returned to their allegiance by the 

 1st (13th) of May. He again assured them of 

 his wish to open a new era in the political life 

 of Poland, by gradually developing national 

 institutions. 



The Central Committee of Warsaw replied 

 to this amnesty by a declaration that the Poles 

 would not lay down their arms until the inde- 

 pendence of the country had been secured. 

 Another act of the Central Committee forbade 

 the inhabitants of Poland henceforth to pay 

 taxes to the Russian officials, and ordered all 

 Poles serving in the Russian army to join the 

 insurrectionary force. The Committee also 

 divided the kingdom into twenty-three dis- 

 tricts, each one of which was to furnish, with- 

 out delay, four hundred men to the insurgent 

 army. Each place was also to pay a certain 

 amount of taxes to the National Government. 

 For each district, branch committees were es- 

 tablished, to attend to the recruiting, the levy- 

 ing of taxes, and the enforcement of the penal 

 laws. 



The secret government which, on May 1st 

 (13th), adopted formally the style and title of 

 the "Polish National Government," was rep- 

 resented by no less than six secret journals, 

 all secretly printed and almost publicly dis- 

 tributed in Warsaw, and from Warsaw trans- 

 mitted to every part of the kingdom. The 

 Movement (Ruck) was the national official or- 



gan, and the edicts and the laws which it pub- 

 lished claimed obligatory force throughout 

 the whole country. The others were semi- 

 official publications to which the orders of the 

 government were from time to time communi- 

 cated, or independent prints supporting the 

 government, and containing news of the in- 

 surrection, and of the general position of the 

 Polish question at home and abroad. 



The National Government continued issuing 

 decrees during the whole of the year, and en- 

 deavored to enforce their execution by threat- 

 ening with the severest penalties all who 

 should refuse obedience. IB July it ordered 

 a general conscription of all men from eighteen 

 to forty-five years of age, appointed the places 

 for their rendezvous, and issued minute in- 

 structions for carrying on the war. It also 

 published a municipal law for Poland Proper, 

 for Lithuania and Ruthenia, established three 

 supreme courts, and again forbade all Poles to 

 pay taxes to the Russians. On July 17th, it 

 decreed a new forced loan of twenty-one 

 millions of Polish florins, to be paid in three 

 equal instalments, and on July 25th it appoint- 

 ed "citizen" Ladislav Czartoryski diplomatic 

 agent-general for Paris and London. It also 

 published a financial report, according to which 

 it had at its disposal thirty-seven millions of 

 rubles. 



Though it was for the interest of the Polish 

 cause to magnify as much as possible the power 

 of the National Government, the latter often 

 showed its secret influence by daring acts. 

 Thus, by its order, 3,700,000 rubles were, on 

 June 9th, abstracted from the Treasury of War- 

 saw, the inspector and the clerks yielding to 

 the demand of the National Government, and 

 disappearing from Warsaw as soon as the 

 money had been secured. In September it 

 prevailed upon a large number of Polish offi- 

 cers, who were still in the employ of the Rus- 

 sian Government, to resign, and caused all the 

 printers of Warsaw to refuse printing the Gov- 

 ernment journals. In November and December, 

 however, the Russian Government succeeded 

 in arresting to some extent the operations of the 

 National Government, as some of its presses 

 and secret journals were discovered and seized. 

 In November a new forced loan of 40 millions 

 of Polish florins was decreed, but it seemed 

 that the exhausted country was no longer able 

 to furnish it. There were indications that dis- 

 sension between an aristocratic and a demo- 

 cratic party in the National Government con- 

 tinued throughout the year ; but the statements 

 concerning this point are vague and contradic- 

 tory. 



The history of the insurrectionary move- 

 ments during the last months of the year is 

 monotonous, and presents hardly any notable 

 features. The Poles did not undertake to or- 

 ganize any considerable army, but confined 

 themselves to the guerilla warfare. Most of 

 their prominent leaders perished in the un- 

 equal struggle ; thus the Italian Nullo (on May 



