hope of independence under every discouragement, waiting only for a favorable moment to rend asunder the chains which fettered their nation. Five years elapsed before anything occurred to fan the spark into a flame. That potent influence, which aroused the feelings of the nation, and quickened into madness their sense of injustice and oppression, was supplied by the revolution of the Three Days in France.

confined in childbed, and who riotic club, which kept alive the from terror miscarried, and for a whole year was in danger of her life from the consequences. This barbarous order of the Grand Duke ruined the fortune of this unhappy man, and the amount of property destroyed may be estimated at least at from 70,000 to 80,000 gilders. Biernacki was imprisoned for a whole year, after which he was dismissed to weep over the sufferings of his wife and his ruined fortune. The poor offender was punished with eight hundred blows of the knot, of which he died in a few days.' Such was the system of administration, which Constantine applied to the Poles.

In France, or England, or any country where public measures are a subject of discussion in public debate and the newspapers, a course of monstrous mal-administration would draw after it the natural consequence of being denounced in the press and the tribune, and the people would be gradually wrought up to the proper pitch of resolution for redressing their grievances, by constitutional or other means. In absolute governments, where freedom of the press does not exist, and freedom of speech is suppressed by means of organized espionage, the same result is reached by the medium of secret conspiracies. Thus was it in Poland in the time of Alexander: -thus it was there again in the time of Nicholas. Two young Poles, Wysocki and Schlegel, stimulated by the example of Soltyk and his associates in 1825, exerted themselves to form a pat

It is inconceivable what extraordinary effect that revolution exercised over the sympathies of other nations. We say sympathies; for it was only through them that the heroism of the Parisian populace operated upon the inhabitants of Warsaw. The Poles and the French had no community of interest, nor any community of cause, except as each aspired after freedom. Warsaw was not stirred up to rebellion by propagandists of liberalism from the revolutionary schools of Paris. Nor was it through French influence, persuasion, inducement, or advice, that Poland took arms against her Tartar tyrant. It was the moral effect of the barricades of Paris, acting upon the sympathetic attachment of the Poles to liberty, which produced commotion in Warsaw. This moral effect was discernible from the very first moment, when intelligence of the events of the three days was received in the north. A great battle had been fought in Paris for freedom, and tyranny had shrunk into congenial obscurity before the majesty of the awakened people. The news

came upon the Poles like a flash gium in behalf of the dethroned of lightning. It roused their en dynasties. Modlin and Warsaw ergies, it kindled their patriotism, were stored with the requisite it excited them to strike a blow military supplies from Russia. themselves in the good cause, The Polish army was destined to when they knew their ancient form the van-guard of the expebrothers in arms to be fighting ditionary forces, in which event once more under the tri-colored Poland would have been occupiflag. But while the revolution of ed immediately by Russian troops, the Three Days filled the patriot- so that Poland and her army beic Poles with enthusiastic joy, it ing separated, neither could act was in the same degree a sound on the other, and each must have of terror to the Russian oppres- become a hostage for the other's sors of Poland. Constantine and fidelity. The plan was an ingehis agents redoubled their vigi- nious one, it must be avowed, lance and their tyranny, in order which should have made the to keep down those rising ener- Poles the instruments for subjugies, which they saw at work in the breasts of the agitated Poles. Arrests became more and more numerous every week; and on a single day, forty students were seized in their beds, and consigned to the prisons.

When the revolutionary spirit was communicated from France to Belgium, the agitation among the Poles acquired new intensity, but the revolution was precipitated in Warsaw less by the effect of the Belgian revolution upon the Poles, than by its effect upon the policy of Nicholas. The Russian despot brought insurrection upon himself by his purpose of interfering to suppress it in remote countries, no wise dependent upon his empire. It is now an authenticated fact, and we trust that France, the Netherlands, and reformed Britain, will remember it as they value their future independence, it is an authenticated fact, that Nicholas had entered into preparations, in concert with Prussia and Austria, to make war on France and Bel

gating themselves, the Belgians, and the French, all by a single effort. The patriotic Poles saw plainly that there was but one way to prevent this, and that no time must be lost in taking their measures, if they would anticipate the departure of the army, as the regiments were all completed, and the orders for marching expected every moment.

The time for action had now arrived: that for deliberation was passed. Most of the students in the civil and military schools were already gained over to the cause of revolution, together with the young Polish officers in garrison at Warsaw. The great body of the citizens, and the principal nobles and men of distinction, were counted upon as friendly to the main object of the conspirators, but do not appear to have been consulted by them previous to the breaking out of the insurrection To have done it, indeed, would have compromitted the safety of the best among the Poles, without accomplishing any useful end

men and students. They assembled on the morning of the 29th to make their final arrangements, and agreed on the hour of seven in the afternoon of that day for commencing the revolution. It was arranged that a wooden house, situated conspicuously near the Vistula, should be set on fire as a signal, a party of about one hun

Still it is evident that all Warsaw must have anticipated the approaching movement, some time before it actually took place; for it was impossible to mistake the signs of the times. The immediate inducement was the arrest of eighty young students under the following circumstances. The patriotic Poles were accustomed to assemble every year for secret dred and twenty cadets being prayer and other religious rites, in posted in the southern part of the commemoration of the melan- city, ready to strike the first blow, choly event of the storming of and others being dispersed in difPraga by Suwarrow in 1796, ferent parts of the city, so as to when that sanguinary and merci- co-operate with their associates. less agent of tyranny put to death When the signal flame was seen 30,000 of the inhabitants, sparing reflected against the sky, parties neither age, sex, nor condition. of students and officers rode The Grand Duke had prohibited all public commemoration of this day of sorrow; but he could not prevent the Poles from mourning in secret over the desolation and abasement of their country. These eighty students were detected in their forbidden devotions, and arrested at the altar, being bound by the Russian soldiers as they knelt; for they disdained to change their position, when the soldiers entered the place of prayer. This outrage filled the measure of endurance among the patriots; for the news of it spread through Warsaw with the quickness of thought, and prompted the conspirators to fix on the day of vengeance without further delay. They resolved to commence the revolution on the 29th of November, because one of the Polish regiments, which comprised many of their number, was then to keep guard in Warsaw.

Most of the active conspirators, it will be remembered, were young

through the streets of the Old
Town as it is called, shouting
'Poles! Brethren! The hour of
vengeance has struck. The time
to avenge the tortures and cruel-
ties of fifteen years is come!
down with the tyrants!-to arms!
to arms! our country forever!'-
At this animating cry, the citizens
rushed together from all quarters
shouting Poland for ever!'-
And this glorious sound was the
opening prologue of the revolu-
tion.

Although the cadets, one hundred and twenty in number, would seem to be a handful only for such a purpose, yet, headed by Wysocki and Schlegel, with the impetuosity and ardor of youth, they resolved to make the barracks of the Russian guards their first point of attack, and the arrest of the Grand Duke their grand aim. Hastily proceeding to the barracks, they found the troops in all the confusion of a sudden alarm, and after increas

ing it by firing a few rounds, they of the Russian troops, killing or rushed to the charge with their taking prisoners a considerable national hurrah, and routed a number of generals and inferior body of infantry, hulans, and officers. -Their ultimate purpose

was to gain possession of the bridge across the Vistula, which unites Warsaw and Praga.

hussars, of more than ten times their number. A detachment then traversed the gardens towards the palace called the BelDuring these movements, othvidere, where the Grand Duke ers of the conspirators had been resided, in order to secure his equally busy and triumphant in person; it being rightly conceived the other quarters of the city.that, if in their possession, he They stormed the prisons, releascould be beneficially employed as ing numerous victims of Russian a hostage or mediator in making tyranny, who had been incarceraterms with the Emperor. But ted on political accusations; and atunfortunately the Grand Duke tacked and defeated the Russian had been apprized of his danger infantry stationed in several barby a domestic, in season to effect his escape; and the cadets were obliged to return into the city without him, fighting their way along through squadrons of Russian guards, among whom the excited Poles produced great havoc by their impetuous courage. Without loosing a single man, the cadets arrived at a part of the city called the Nowy-Swiat, where they found two companies of Polish light infantry, and with them two Polish generals, Stanislaus Potocki and Trembicki, giving orders for arresting the assembled inhabitants. At the salutation of the cadets, the soldiers ranged with the insurgents, deserting their generals, who, after withstanding the most earnest entreaties to act with their countrymen, were torn in pieces by the enraged popuBefore morning the patriots lace. The cadets marched through assembled in the Ulica Dluga or the streets, singing patriotic songs, Long street, to review the proand shouting Poland forever, gress they had made, and to con-a cry, which was everywhere sult on the movements of the comresponded to enthusiastically by ing day. The scene is reprethe citizens, and so gradually sented as having been of the most freed the south parts of the city impressive description. There is

racks, falling upon them with the terrible hurrah, and driving the panic struck officers and soldiers before them in extreme disorder. Thus, by the united efforts of cadets, students, citizens, and a few Polish soldiers, Praga and Warsaw were speedily delivered from the immediate presence of their Russian tyrants, not a few officers of rank, and large numbers of privates falling victims to the first onset of the patriotic Poles. The people obtained an ample supply of arms, in the course of the night, by a successful attack on the arsenal, where they found 80,000 muskets, pistols, and other weapons; and before daylight order was re-established by means of patroles stationed at suitable points all over the city.