to the great
dissatisfaction of many.
No one can doubt or deny that the interest of various Governments, and
the sense of justice among nations, gave the Poles a right to expect
foreign aid. The assurances of certain politicians and statesmen even
gave _reasonable expectation_ of such a result. Such aid would of course
neither be rejected nor treated with indifference. But the assertion
that the Poles relied _solely_ on such aid is (in the face of the
manifesto of January 22d and July 31st, 1863) either a proof of ill
will, or of entire ignorance of the resources upon which Poland was
bound to rely, and which could not be intrusted to the discretion of
every volunteer or pretended well-wisher to the Polish nation.
Continuing his imputations, the accuser says he only learned afterward
why seven thousand Parisian workmen, registered at M. d'Harcourt's
committee, 'were not sent forth.' The probable purport of this reproach
is: 'They were not sent for fear of the introduction of liberal
elements--and the _proletariat_--into Poland.' As to the latter, we may
at once confidently answer that, were Poland free to-day, the condition
of the laboring class in Western Europe need not be dreaded for a
hundred years to come. As to the liberal element, does the author indeed
think that Poland has had no Liberalists similar to Voltaire, La
Mennais, Victor Hugo, L. Blanc, Mazzini, or Hertzen? Does he fancy that
Modzewski (in the sixteenth century), Skarga (a Catholic preacher in the
seventeenth), Morsztyn, Jezierski, Andrew Zamoyski, Hugo Kollontay,
Loyko (in the eighteenth), Staszye, Lelewel, Mochnacki, Ostrowski,
Czynski, Mieroslawski, and a host of others, contented with the private
good they did, and forced to shun the jealous watchfulness of suspicious
rulers--does he, we say, fancy that all these needed to be inspired by
the liberality of Parisian workmen, or even that all the aforesaid
workmen would apply themselves to the dissemination of liberal opinions?
It is indeed a great disadvantage to Polish Liberalists, philosophers,
and poets, that they speak and write in a tongue unknown to the noble
philanthropists of the West. A greater amount of knowledge would have
saved hasty tourists, _veracious_ lecturers, and all-knowing
diplomatists many errors in statement and conception, and much aversion
toward a noble people, who, if vanquished, will not be crushed, and will
always reserve the _right_ of _protest_.
At all events, t
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