d gone mad with enthusiasm for the Muscovites! The metropolis of the
freest people on the globe had prostrated herself before the shrine of
semi-Asiatic despotism, had kissed the hands of the knoutbearers of the
czar, had desecrated the holy memory of Washington, by coupling his
name, his bust, with those of an Alexander, nay, of a Nicholas! The woes
of Poland were forgotten, her cause was wantonly assailed, her fair
name defamed by the very same organs of public opinion which for months
and months made people shudder with daily recitals of nameless
atrocities committed by the Russian hangmen, by the Muravieffs and
Aunekoffs, on the defenders of their country and liberty. Unthinking
scribblers and lecturers called Russia and America twin sister empires
of the future, agitated for an alliance defensive and offensive between
them; Poland and her defenders were calumniated. _Vae victis!_

There is an excuse for every folly New York commits and the country
imitates, for she is blessed with papers and politicians more than
others practised to flatter vanity and mislead ignorance. When New York
strews palm leaves before the feet of the Prince of Wales, it is done to
cement the bond of love that links the New World to its venerable
mother; when she runs after the Japanese, it is in search of a
trans-oceanic brother, just discovered, and soon lovingly to be embraced
(witness our doings in the Japanese waters); when she kisses the knout
and collects Russian relics, it is done to inaugurate a sistership of
the future, already dawning upon her in Muscovite smiles of friendship,
in diplomatic hints of the czar, and in the hurrahs for the Union of
Lissoffski's crews! In this case she only pays with American sympathy
for Russian sympathy, and at the same time frowns a rebuke upon England
and France for their un-Russian-like behavior, and insinuates a threat
which may save this country from the perils of European intervention.

But Russian imperial sympathy, with its diplomatic smiles and compulsory
hurrahs, is nothing but a bait; he must be blind who does not see it.
What is the natural tendency that would lead the czar, the upholder of
despotism in the East, to sympathize with the model republic of the
West? the empire which is again and again covered with the blood of
Poland, divided by it and its accomplices, to have, amid its troubles,
so much tender feeling for the indivisibility of this country? Is
Alexander's friendship kindle