o aid in the general
advancement. The real freedom thus gained, in accordance with the
far-sighted policy of the Polish National Government, opened wide the
door to liberty, trade, commerce, and exchange; a policy which czarism,
even in its most liberal mood, can never admit, because it would condemn
itself, and give the death blow to its own existence. There is another
specialty peculiar to the Rossian Government, never forgotten by those
who live under its rule, viz.: the late emancipation was begun about
three years ago by an ukase of no very decided purport, which was
followed by many others of like uncertain character, according with the
varying views of those by whom they were dictated, by the partisans of
emancipation or by those standing in opposition to it. These ukases are
ranged in their appropriate numerical titles, and there are at least
five hundred thousand of them--whether imperial or senatorial, all
legally binding. What memory could stand such a burden, or what might
legal cavil not find therein?

It is an easy thing to 'speak for Buncombe,' as we say in America; it is
an easy thing to proclaim measures when we take no thought of how they
may be carried out; it is easy to excite the enthusiasm of the popular
lecturer, always in search of novelty with which to feed his hearers; it
may be pleasant to furnish venom to wounded self-esteem or disappointed
and petty ambition--but it will be found an exceedingly difficult task
to reconcile absolutism with freedom, czarism with liberalism, the
division of men into appointed castes and classes with the existence of
liberty and political equality. We are assured, not only by the writer
of the letter in question, but by the sages of New York, that the Polish
peasants were not willing to fight for Poland, that they called their
countrymen now in arms against Rossia 'dogs of nobles,' and 'that it was
really their duty to rise against and denounce their former _masters_ to
Rossia and Austria!'

If these assertions are true, who then filled the ranks of the Polish
insurgents? Who furnished food to those who lived for months in the
depths of forests, the haunts of mountain gorges? How was it possible
that without the connivance of the peasants the insurgents should pass
to and fro, or lie hidden in woods and fields? It was stated
authoritatively that the insurgents, were composed principally of
Hungarian refugees, about ten Frenchmen, a few strangers from other
nati