all the buildings within it a heap of ruins, and the soil every where ploughed up by shot and shells, indicating alike the skill of the besiegers and the resolution of the garrison. The great object of their expedition being accomplished, the French troops were immediately marched back to their country, leaving King William to digest this decisive step of his good allies, and to ponder upon the measures of coercion still employed by them on the water.

Finally, after four months more of obstinate procrastination, the King of Holland executed, in May, a preliminary treaty with France and Great Britain, indicating his acquiescence at last in the decree of destiny. By this convention, the King of Holland consented to the free navigation of the Scheldt, the navigation of the Maes subject to the tolls provided by a recent treaty for regulating the intercourse of the riverain States on the Rhine, and an armistice between Belgium and Holland until the conditions of a permanent separation could be amicably adjusted. And thus, at the expiration of nearly three years of sullen but helpless opposition to the umpirage of the five Powers, an umpirage which she herself had invited, Holland seems disposed to accept that place in the great republic of European kingdoms, which her more powerful neighbors are willing to accord.

The day is gone by when her voice was potential in the affairs of the world. She no longer possesses the resources to enable her to subsidize great arms on the land, or to balance the power of Britain upon the ocean. She does not possess the requisite resources, and if she did the times are not auspicious for their being called into play; for the full understanding and hearty concurrence of Great Britain and France in the

REMARKS.

measures needful to preserve the peace of Western Europe, deprive her of that fruitful field of national jealousies, where she once reaped so much power, influence, and fame. Something she may have hoped, and with just cause, from the sympathy of Russia and Prussia in the misfortunes of their near domestic ally, and their hatred of all governments founded on the exercise by the people of their intrinsic right of sovereignty; but happily for the repose of Belgium, happily for the repose of the world, the brief but high spirited struggle of the Poles came to serve, in its results, as an atoning sacrifice for the liberty and peace of the rest of Europe.

Certain it is that King William, while possesed of large claims to general reputation for integrity, manliness of character, and anxiety to promote the welfare of his subjects, has not made good his reputation in those contingencies, where his conduct has drawn particular attention in the United States. We have strong sympathies and grateful reminiscences to bestow on the old United Provinces: we have nothing to attach us to the King of Holland. In his refusal to settle our just claim to indemnity for the spoliations on our commerce committed by his predecessors, we discover the reverse of a conscientious regard of right and wrong. His arbitration of the question of boundary litigated between Great Britain and the United States exhibits no trace of directness or decision of temper. And neither the good of his people nor his own reputation has been consulted in the long series of shifts, by which, for more than two years, he has endeavored to stave off the separation of Belgium and Holland, when he knew that it was an event inevitable, and as desirable for Holland as it was for Belgium.

CHAPTER III.

North-eastern Europe.--Partition of Poland.--Political Changes.-Effects of the Partition.-Policy of Napoleon.The Polish Legions.-The Duchy of Warsaw.-Congress of Vienna.--Poland subjected to Russia-Alexander's Charter.-Tyranny of the Russians.-Conspiracy of 1825. -Oppressions of Nicholas.-New Conspiracy.--Three Days.--Designs of Nicholas.-The Revolution.

WESTERN Europe retains, in the general outline, the same subdivisions, into which it settled down subsequently to the dismemberment of the Roman Empire. A multitude of changes, undoubtedly, have taken place in Italy, Spain, France, Britain, the Netherlands, in their governments, their dynasties, and their component parts; but still the grand features of nationality remain, as they stood on the revival of letters and improvement in modern times. Not so, with the Germanic and Sclavonian races, the inhabitants of the vast region, which stretches from the Rhine to the boundaries of Asia. Austria, Prussia, and Russia are new governments, which, from being simple dukedoms, owing allegiance to some paramount authority, and this but a few centuries back, have now grown to be among the most formidable powers of Europe. And it is from the spoils of Poland that much of their strength and consequence has been acquired.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Brandenburg was a poor German electoral House, and in barbarian Muscovy no man could see the germ of the now mighty Empire of Russia, at that time Poland was one of the largest kingdoms of Europe. Ruled for seven hundred years, from the middle of the ninth until towards the close of the sixteenth century, by the heredi

PARTITION OF POLAND.

73

tary dynasties of the Piasts and the Jagellons, Poland rapidly rose into greatness, notwithstanding its frequent collisions with the Muscovites, Hungarians, and Turks. Its fall was signal, in proportion to its elevation. On the death of Sigismund Augustus, the last of the Jagellons, in 1571, the crown of Poland became purely elective; and the Poles exhibited the example of a great people becoming gradually demoralized and disorganized by reason of the instability of their government, until the dependant weakness of their elective kings, and the fierce independence of their democracy of nobles, rendered them the easy prey of their ancient enemies, who continually interfered in their internal affairs, either by corruption or arms, and at last, when the anarchy of Poland was complete, partitioned out its provinces among themselves, and expunged it from the map of Europe.

The first partition took place in 1772. Warned by this event, the Poles proceeded, in 1783, to reform the vices of their government, by declaring the throne hereditary in the House of Saxony, abolishing the liberum veto, making provision for the affranchisement of serfs, extending the privileges of the cities, and newly organizing_the military forces of the Kingdom. Hereupon Russia and Prussia, apprehensive that Poland would become regenerated, and thus defeat their schemes of aggrandisement, hastened to make a second • partition of her provinces, which they effected, but not without encountering the desperate opposition of the Poles headed by the brave Kosciuszko. Finally, in 1795, all the residue of Poland was absorbed by its rapacious invaders, and the Kingdom ceased to exist.*

* The history of the partition, and its causes, may be read in Lord Dover's Frederic,' v. 2; Mrs. Jameson's 'Lives of

The present generation has grown familiar with the dismemberment of kingdoms, and the forcible disposition of states and provinces according to the caprice of selfish alliances or irresponsible conquerors. We have seen Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, conquered or annexed to France; Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, Prussia, and half the principalities and kingdoms of Germany, subjugated by Napoleon; Finland torn from Sweden, and Norway joined to it, by the fiat of others; and all continental Europe prostrate at the feet of a mere soldier of fortune. Again we have seen the tide of conquest driven back; France stripped of her acquisitions, and these arbitrarily distributed here and there just as sundry great allies considered meet; Belgium and Holland tied together in Mezentian bonds; Prussia once more superior on the Rhine and the Elbe; Lombardy engorged again by the successor of Frederic Barbarossa; France and Naples restored by a dash of the pen to the dynasties they hated and despised; and unhappy Poland yielded up anew to the tender mercies of the Czar. still, the invasion of Savoy and Naples by the Austrians, of Spain by the French, and of Portugal by the English, in order to give ascendancy to particular parties, and to sustain some internal modification of government agreeable to the will of their officious ally, have borne further testimony to the nature and qualities of European independence. The Sultan, again, has been obliged Female Sovereigns,' v. 2; Fletcher's 'History of Poland'; and the Encyclopædia Americana,' among works of a popular form accessible to all readers;-- and more fully in the 'Histoire des Révolutions de Pologne depuis la Mort d'Auguste III,' printed at Warsaw in 1775, tom. ii, ch. 6; in Oginski's 'Memoires sur la Pologne et les Polonais'; in Maleszewski's Essai Historique et Politique sur la Pologne'; and in Rulhière's 'Anarchie dela Pologne.'

Later