Dr. Lardner has commenced a "_Library_," as a kind of succedaneum
to his valuable "Cyclopaedia." Both are styled _Cabinet_, and the
first may be considered an amplification of the second. Two of the
Cabinet Library volumes contain a Retrospect of Public Affairs for
1831--not a chronology of shreds and patches, but a well-digested review
of the great events of the year--and important indeed they are. The work
is the quintessence of an "Annual Register:" it is not so porous and
pursy as the last mentioned book, but is a pleasant volume to put in
one's pocket and read inside a coach, if the passengers will allow you
to do so; and it seems to be a good book for newspaper readers, to
arrange their head-pieces, for they are usually crammed with all kinds
of recollections, and have but few right-set views. We do not content
ourselves with saying the _Retrospect_ is well written, but quote
a proof of equal length and interest--for it relates to a country whose
fate is anxiously watched by all Europe, nay, by all the world. It is
from the author's Chapter on the State of Poland. After some pages on
the oppressed Poles, the writer proceeds:--
"Thus the army, both in its numbers and management, was entirely at
the mercy and under the direction of Muscovite despotism; the resources
of the state were employed, without the legal control of the diet, to
strengthen Russian tyranny, the press was enslaved, that no remonstrance
might be made against Russian oppression; the citizens were arrested,
imprisoned, and punished by a Russian military chieftain, without being
brought to trial before the proper native tribunals; the legislative
chambers were deprived of their just prerogatives; the national customs,
habits, and feelings were hourly insulted; the citizens were beset with
an infamous police, an deprived even of the melancholy consolation of
complaint; thus, in short, every Polish right was violated--every
article of the charter broken--and the whole efforts of an imperial
savage, at the head of a strong military force, directed to efface from
the countrymen of the Sobieskis and Kosciuszkos all the remains of the
Polish character.
"This, it must be allowed, is a picture of tyranny and misgovernment
sufficiently appalling to justify the resistance of any people, but more
especially that of a people which had long been accustomed to even a
licentious freedom, which was proud of its national honour and ancient
renown; which entertained such a veneration for its laws and usages as
to preserve for two centuries the _liberum veto_ and the rights of
elective monarchy, the source of all its calamities; and which had the
positive stipulations of its sovereign for the preservation of its
national rights. But, like most general pictures, its impression may
be diminished by its generality. We shall therefore make no apology for
introducing, on the authority of an Englishman who had been twelve years
in Poland, a few facts to give the character of precision and truth
to the outline. In the fortress of Zamosc twelve state prisoners were
found, some of whom had been incarcerated for six years without having
undergone a trial, and whose names were only known to the commander
of the castle. In the dungeons of Marienanski, in Warsaw, was found a
victim of the Russian police, who had been kept in solitary confinement
for ten years, and whose fate was entirely unknown to his friends and
relatives. Respectable inhabitants of Warsaw were often taken and
flogged before the grand duke without the formality of a trial, or the
specification of a charge. Some were even, in the same unlawful manner,
made to break stones or wheel barrows on the streets or highways like
galley slaves. Persons of rank were frequently taken from their homes,
immured in prison, and dismissed after several weeks' incarceration
without knowing what alleged offence had provoked such a wanton exercise
of power contrary to the charter and the privileges of Poland; state
offenders were carried out of the country to Russian prisons and
attempts were made to give them a journey to Siberia, which were only
prevented by the threat of suicide on the part of the victims. The
resources of the kingdom were squandered entirely for Russian objects;
and the people were oppressed to maintain a Polish and a Russian army.
Peculation and pillage was the order of the day. The president of the
town of Warsaw, with a salary of between 500l. and 600l. contrived
to amass a fortune of 100,000l. in fifteen years, besides living in
splendour and squandering twice his legal income. The same unprincipled
peculation was practised by other municipal or state officers. The
Russian generals were in league with the magistrates and billet-master,
to divide the booty received from the inhabitants as the price of
exemption from the oppressive quartering of troops on their houses.
Spies were employed by the police to watch every man of the least
consequence in society, and the nobility were often driven to the
country to avoid such dangerous intruders. In several instances
members of the diet were banished to their estates, and made to pay
the troops that guarded them, for having ventured in the assembly,
whose discussions ought to have been free, to express a suspicion of
the government, or to hint an opinion contrary to the taste of the
grand duke.
"The following statement of facts on this head, to which we have seen no
allusion made in the public prints, but the authenticity of which may be
relied on, will give a better idea of the system of Russian government
in Poland than any general description could convey. We have received it
from the quarter to which we have above alluded:--
"According to the laws of Poland, a commission, chosen by the citizens,
has the right of examining and auditing the accounts of the town. From
the tyrannical system adopted by the officers who were continually about
the person of the grand duke, they dared not perform their duty from
fear of his displeasure, and probably, at the instigation of the
miscreants around him, being consigned to a prison; remonstrances were,
however, generally made at the half-yearly meeting of the commission;
though, up to the period immediately before the revolution, nothing was
done to check the evil. In the month of September a circumstance
occurred, not important in itself, but of great weight in the future
course of events. _Janiszewski_, a cidevant officer in the army,
had sent several petitions to the president of the town, which were
treated with neglect and insult. He and the president met in the street,
when the latter again insulted him. This was immediately resented by the
former, who inflicted severe corporal chastisement on the latter. The
grand duke refused to interfere in the affair. A trial ensued, in which
some abuses of the president were exposed, and _Janiszewski_
sentenced only to forty days' imprisonment. This affair, and this
decision, created a strong sensation at the time; and emboldened the
commission appointed to investigate the affairs of the town-house to
insist on their rights. The commission, being at length roused by the
numerous abuses that were pressed on their attention, obtained an order
from the minister of the interior to proceed in the execution of their
duties. They immediately formed themselves into branch committees, each
two taking cognizance of a department. The task of investigating the
abuses in the quartering of the officers devolved on two citizens,
called _Schuch_ and _Czarnecki_. They found, on inquiry, that
the owners of large houses were induced to compromise with the
billetmaster for a sum in cash equal to one-fourth, and in some
instances to one half of the amount of rent, in lieu of having a general
or any number of inferior officers quartered on them. In Warsaw many of
the houses contain from fifty to a hundred families; consequently, the
billet-compensation money was a grievous tax. The mass of extortions
were found to exceed in reality any previous estimate. A new scene now
opened to view. Those gentlemen received evidence that the Russian
generals _were participators in the pillage of the town_, and in
league with the president and billet-master. Feeling that they should be
detected in proceedings so disgraceful, they consulted a lawyer
(_Wolinski_,) to know if the researches of the committee could not
be legally prevented. His opinion was given in the negative; but, in
order to divert the public mind from the investigation, he advised
_Czarnecki_ to provoke one of the commission to strike him, when he
should be able to prosecute him for attacking an _employé_ and by
that means get rid of the investigation. _Czarnecki_ used the most
insulting language to Mr. Schuch, and in a fit of desperation seized
hold of his arm, with the intention of putting him out of the room by
force. The committee-man being on his guard, the manoeuvre failed.
_Czarnecki_, seeing himself foiled, his iniquity discovered, and
his ill-gotten wealth likely to be confiscated, committed suicide, and
thus left the president and generals to fight their own battles. The
artillery of Messrs. _Schuch_ and _Czarnecki_ was now directed
against the whole of the Russian and two Polish generals, the notorious
and unprincipled _Raznieki_, the head of the secret police of the
kingdom, and _Kossecki_. Means had in vain been tried to bribe
Messrs. _Schuch_ and _Czarnecki_ through the commissary of the
circle, that the investigations should cease, or that the generals
should not appear to be implicated in the affair. It was ascertained by
the investigation that General _Lewicki,_ Russian commander of the
town, independently of the lodgings he occupied, received payment for
more _than a hundred lodgings_; that General _Gendre_ received
payment of 212l. 10s.; that _Philippeus_, cashier to the grand
duke, received from the same fund 225l. annually, which was sweetened by
a prompt payment of 2,500l., being ten years in advance; and that the
coachmen and lackeys of the grand duke and generals received money from
the same fund, instead of wages from their masters. As the inflexibility
and integrity of those gentlemen were proof against all bribes, the
generals foresaw the impending storm which threatened to break and
overwhelm them. In this critical situation, they conceived one of the
most atrocious plots on record. Its object was to create a disturbance,
by which the town-house should be set on fire, and the documents which
implicated them in the pillage should be consumed. They agreed to
produce this by arming a number of students; and their agent was an
officer in the army, known to belong to the secret societies. The sum of
200 ducats in gold was paid him as a reward for anticipated services,
and 200 stand of arms was provided him. For such a project this man
seemed a fit agent. He took lodgings in the house where the students met
to hold their deliberations, opened to them his revolutionary views,
and represented himself as one qualified to rescue their common country
from the grasp of despotism. He so far ingratiated himself into their
confidence as to obtain some knowledge of the general plan for the
freedom of Poland. Circumstances, however, created distrust of this new
and overzealous auxiliary; and the students refused to act with him,
or to receive the muskets the generals had provided for distribution.
Communication having now ceased between Petrikowski and the students, he
took lodgings in the next room to that in which they met to hold their
deliberations; what he overheard was communicated to the generals; and
ten students were in consequence denounced, arrested, and severely
flogged (by an arbitrary order of the grand duke,) to make them divulge
their associates. Though writhing under the whip of the executioner,
not a word escaped their lips to inculpate their friends, or impart
a knowledge of the schemes that had so long engrossed their thoughts.
The severity of the punishment may be conceived by the fact, that one
of the number died soon after its infliction. The students were kept in
solitary confinement, and their punishment remained uncertain; universal
sympathy was felt for their sufferings by their comrades, coupled with
an ardent desire to relieve them; but by this time danger threatened to
implicate a great part of their body, and it was ascertained that an
order to arrest a great number was to take place on the 30th November.
On the 27th November, an order arrived in Warsaw from the emperor, to
send to Riga with all possible despatch 42,000,000 of florins, equal
to 1,050,000l. sterling, of which 2,000,000 were to be furnished from
the treasury of the minister of war, 28,000,000 from the government
treasury, and 12,000,000 from the bank. These two circumstances
concurring, created great activity in all persons connected with the
overthrow of despotism and the freedom of their country; and it was
determined only on the memorable morning of the 29th to commence their
patriotic work in the evening."
The Editor's Conclusion, or Summary of the Year is likewise worthy of
extract:
"The curtain of the year 1830 dropped on Europe in a state of ferment
and agitation, of which it was impossible to check the progress or to
foretell the result. The masses of the population had been stirred up
from the bottom by the concussion of the French and Belgic revolutions,
and could not be expected for a long time to subside into order,
or resume a determinate arrangement according to their weight and
affinities. The partition wall of privilege, rank, or subordination,
interposed between different classes of the European community, had
in some cases been forcibly broken down, and in others had been more
silently undermined. Antiquity, custom, usage, or legitimacy, which
formerly became a shelter to abuses, could not now protect justice and
right from threatened innovation. Everywhere power was challenged on its
rounds, and compelled to give the popular watchword before it could be
allowed to pass. Whether it was a nation that demanded its independence
from a foreign power, as in Belgium and Poland; or a people that
cashiered their dynasty, as in France and Saxony; or a parliament that
changed its administration for a more popular party, as in England; or
republics that liberalized their institutions, as in Switzerland,--all
was movement and change. The breath of revolution sometimes blew from
the suburbs of a capital, as in France; sometimes from the cottages of
the peasant, as in the Swiss mountains; but it was every where powerful.
No institution was held venerable, no authority sacred, that stood in
the way of the popular will. The people had every where got a purchase
against their rulers, and had fixed their engines for a further pull.
The power of domestic military protection had diminished, in proportion
as rulers required its aid; while, at the same time, all Europe seemed
arming for a general trial of strength, or a recommencement of conquest.
Every kind of reform was the order of the day; financial reform, legal
reform, ecclesiastical reform, and parliamentary reform. The year that
has just commenced must resolve the character of many of those vague
tendencies to change, to war, and confusion, which alarmed some and
inspired hope into others at the close of 1830."
* * * * *