the Balkan, Zabalkanski. If the Poles had assumed the offensive at the first moment of the Revolution, they might have carried on the war in the territory of Russia, or at least in the Polish provinces of the Empire, where the diffusion of the revolutionary movement could have been promoted, at the same time that the war made progress. By acting on the defensive, the Poles suffered the war to be brought home into their own territory, and to the very neighborhood of Warsaw. This was found to be the inevitable necessity of the crisis; and Prince Radziwill made his preparations accordingly. We have seen what number of troops the Dictator had proposed to raise. Owing to his want of heartiness in effecting the levies, the Poles saw the vast armies of their enemy approaching before things were in a ripe state for the struggle. At the beginning of the campaign, which was about to open, they mustered the following troops. The whole infantry consisted of 32,600 men, in four nearly equal divisions, commanded by Generals Krukowiecki, Zymirski, Skrzynecki, and Szembek. The cavalry amounted to 13,200 men. Generals Uminski, Stryinski, Lubinski, and Pac commanded each a division of cavalry; and four squadrons were attached to a corps commanded by General Dwernicki. It was with these comparatively insignificant forces, of 45,800 men and 96 pieces of cannon, that the Poles took the field, against a force of more than 111,000 men and 396 pieces of artillery; many of the Poles, also, being new recruits under new officers, while the Russians were veteran troops commanded by men, who had grown grey in victory.

The Polish troops left Warsaw towards the end of January, it having been decided to concentrate them at points in the line of march of the

PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT.

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shot fired on our side shall be the signal for the destruction of Poland, all hope of obtaining the reparation of so many injuries is at an end, and nothing remains to us but to obey the dictates of a noble despair.

The Polish Nation, represented by the two Chambers, declares itself an independent people, and invested with the right of conferring the crown upon whomsoever it should deem worthy to wear it, upon one, above all, whom it shall deem incapable of violating the faith he shall swear,- and with the right to defend all the national liberties.'

This act was unanimously adopted and subscribed by the members of the Diet, who, with that noble self dedication which has distinguished the Poles, in drawing the sword threw away the scabbard, like Hernan Cortes on the shores of Mexico,cutting of all hope of retreat and all ground of indecision by setting fire to the ships of his fleet. Bold as the measure was, it was what the people and the army expected and demanded; and it was greeted with universal applause, and celebrated by spontaneous illuminations of the city. It was so fully in accordance with the views of the party of movement, that the journals in their interest, and the Patriotic Society, whose ordinary meetings had been resumed, manifested a degree of exultation, which excited great alarm among the friends of order, and influenced the organization of the government.

In establishing the provisional government, a contest arose between one party, which desired to maintain the monarchical principle by conferring the civil power on an individual or individuals irresponsible in their own persons, and the other, which sought to introduce the republican principle of universal responsibility. A conviction of the necessity of giving the utmost degree of energy to the government, so as to make sure of avoiding anarchy, prevailed. A Commission of Government was constituted, to comprise five ir

position as London and Southwark, or Boston and Charlestown. Through the scene of the Polish war the Vistula flows from the southeast, until it meets the Bug coming from the northeast, after the river has received the Narew descending by a circuitous route also from the northeast, but considerably to the north of the Bug. Previously, however, to its uniting with the Narew, the Bug forms an abrupt curve, having commenced its progress far to the south towards the Carpathian mountains, and flowing northwardly to the town of Brzesc, when it assumes more of a westerly direction, until it makes the sudden bend before mentioned, and thus continues on southwesterly to the Vistula. Opposite to the most abrupt and marked portion of this curvature is found the small river Lieviec, which nearly joins together the two extremities of the curvature, and thus forms a marshy tract of land between the two rivers. Bialystok is on a small branch of the Narew near where it enters Poland, and Wlodawa is on the Bug to the south of Brzesc, and it was along the line of frontier from Wlodawa on the south to Bialystok on the north, that the great body of the Russian forces entered Poland; it being understood that the extreme right under Szachoffskoi approached from Grodno, and the extreme left under Kreutz from Wlodzimierz, the opposite extremities of the frontier line of the Kingdom.

The line of the Poles was directly in front of that of the Russians, their left wing being at Pultusk on the Narew above its junction with the Bug, and their centre and right wing extending across the Bug, and along the marshes of the Lieviec, to the south of Siedlce on the latter stream. Supposing Warsaw to be at the apex or top of a triangle having its two sides equal, the Russian

army might be considered as forming the base of the triangle, while the Polish would be a shorter line drawn across the triangle near to its apex, so as to be fairly interposed between Warsaw and the enemy; and by forming or conceiving a diagram of this kind, the system of operations on both sides will be readily apprehended.

The first encounter occurred on the 10th of February, it being a skirmish of outposts at Mendzyrzec in advance of the right wing of the Poles, and the latter having the advantage. Other skirmishes took place on the 11th near Siedlce, between the Polish outposts, and the advancing centre of the Russians under Diebitsch himself. On the 14th a more serious engagement took place in the same quarter. General Dwernicki had been posted with his corps beyond the right wing of the Poles, as a covering force. His small corps of 3,800 men was attacked, near Stoczek, by General Kreutz with 15,000 Russians, and gained a complete victory, the enemy losing nearly a third part of their number and being driven back in great disorder. It being then requisite that Dwernicki should retire upon the Vistula, in order to prevent the advance in that direction of a Russian corps under the Prince of Wurtemberg, the Polish right was also drawn back to prevent its being outflanked; and the consequence was the battle of Boimie on the 15th, between the Polish right under General Zymirski, and the Russian centre still commanded by Diebitsch in person. This affair consisted of multiplied but unsuccessful attempts of the Russians to force the passage of a dyke, which the Poles held until the Russians had retired, when the former withdrew to a new position in the rear. Meanwhile the Polish centre, under General Skrzynecki, had successfully executed a similar evolution, so that on the 17th

the other missions by the Poles themselves, and on the face of things sufficiently plausible.

Agents were despatched to Vienna and Berlin, who, of course, accomplished nothing at the Austrian or Prussian courts, and could have entertained little hope of moving them in the cause of revolution. There was room, however, to hope for aid in London and Paris, where popular rights were somewhat more in vogue than at Vienna or Berlin. Wielopolski was sent to Great Britain, Wolycki to France. As to the general question, the views of Lord Palmerston and of Comte Sébastiäni, who at that time had the immediate direction of foreign affairs in their respective countries, were substantially similar, because they were suggested by all the circumstances of the case. The Poles, it will be recollected, and especially Chlopicki, began with demanding only the execution of the Constitution conceded by Alexander. They stood in the attitude of subjects pleading with their sovereign for the redress of alleged grievances. They had not, like Belgium, at once assumed the ground of national independence. Of course, the English and French Ministers dared not venture to volunteer effective aid in behalf of the Poles as insurgent subjects of powerful Russia. All they could do to encourage the Poles, in the existing state of things, was to claim of Nicholas the observance of the stipulations made by Russia at the Congress of Vienna, which, as parties thereto, they were entitled to demand. But this would be very different from giving independence to the present Kingdom of Poland, or breathing life anew into the dismembered limbs of ancient Poland.

England, indeed, was more backward on the subject than France. The British Ministers were unsteadily seated in office, and occupied with the