UC-NRLF 
 
 B E fi33 735 
 
BERKELEY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
VINDICATION 
 
 RUSSIA AND THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 
 
VINDICATION 
 
 RUSSIA 
 
 THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 
 
 By DAVID K. HITCHCOCK, 
 
 AUTHOR OK FAMILIAR OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRESERVATIOIT 
 OF THE TEETH. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 SAXTON, PETRCE, AND COMPANY. 
 
 1844. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, 
 
 By David K. Hitchcock, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts 
 
 LOAN STACK 
 

 TO 
 
 HER LMPERIAL HIGHNESS, 
 
 MARIA NICOLA.IEVNA, 
 
 THE GRAND DUCHESS OF LEICHTENBERG, 
 
 WHOSE 
 
 PROUD DISTINCTION IT IS TO BE ALIKE ENNOBLED BY 
 
 THE QUALITIES OF HER HEART AND MIND, 
 
 AND BY HER HIGH BIRTH, 
 
 THIS VOLUME, 
 
 IN ADMIRATION OF HER CHARACTER, 
 
 IS MOST RESPECT KDLLY 
 
 DEDICATED. 
 
 842 
 
PREFACE 
 
 We would ask the unbiased attention of the 
 reader to the examination of the following pages. 
 We say unbiased ^ because we think it necessary, 
 in order to judge fairly of their merits, that the mind 
 should be divested of the strong and bitter preju- 
 dices which have been created against Russia. 
 We do not blame any one for forming such opin- 
 ions ; indeed, we do not see how it could have 
 been otherwise. Our country has been flooded 
 with books, pamphlets, and tracts, containing false 
 statements respecting the policy and acts of the 
 Russian government ; and what has been still more 
 effectual, we have had hosts of lecturers, who, for 
 years, have been canvassing almost every town and 
 village, calumniating Russia and vilifying the Em- 
 peror Nicholas. These lecturers, with hardly an 
 exception, have been, and are, natives of Poland, 
 who well know, when speaking to an audience, 
 that, however absurd their statements, and enor- 
 
10 PREFACE. 
 
 mous their falsehoods, may be, it has not been 
 in the power of any one to contradict or refute 
 them. 
 
 It is strange, indeed, that there has never ap- 
 peared a single line, or lecturer, in behalf of Russia 
 and its abused but excellent monarch ; and this 
 work (in the preparation of which we have been 
 assisted by a literary friend) is designed to throw 
 some light upon the subject, — well convinced that 
 our countrymen will never consent to have any 
 one ''condemned unheard;" therefore, it is be- 
 lieved that it will be efficacious in enlightening 
 the minds of the people, and in dissipating those 
 prejudices which have for years existed. 
 
 CouET Street, Sept. 25, 1844. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 Page. 
 
 Introduction 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Absolute Power not necessarily a Curse. — Alexiowitsch . 36 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Early Condition of Poland. — Facts from History ... 58 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Grand Duchy of Warsaw. — The Emperor Alexander. 
 — The Kingdom and Constitution of Poland. — Con- 
 spiracy against Russia. — Abdication of the Grand Duke 
 Constantine 86 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Death of the Emperor Alexander. — Retrospect. — The 
 Military Colonies 112 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Causes of the Polish Ins'.irrection. — Major Tochman's 
 Tract 120 
 
12 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Russia. — Statistics. — Historical Facts. — Russia as it was. 155 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Religious Customs. — Anecdote of Peter the Great — Rus- 
 sian Churches. — The Knout 184 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The Russian Nobility. — Merchants and Burghers. . . . 213 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Slavery in Russia. — Slaves. — Really such. — Serfs. — 
 Licensed Serfs. — Policy of Nicholas 229 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The Emperor Nicholas I. — The Cholera Mutinies. — Let- 
 ter from Dr. Baird 248 
 
VINDICATION 
 
 RUSSIA AND THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 *' Read me any thing but history," said a distin- 
 guished statesman ; "for that I know to be false." 
 There was some ground for his sarcasm ; but we 
 should be disposed to qualify it, and read thus : 
 " Let us read any thing but a book of travels ; for 
 that we know to be worse than false, a perversion 
 of truth ; and nothing, rather than a book of trav- 
 els written by an English man. An Enghsh 
 woman does better. 
 
 Few travellers ever render strict justice, even 
 according to their capacities, to a foreign country 
 or people ; — seldom when there is a difference of 
 religion ; and never, if there is any ground of rivalry 
 between that country and their own. 
 
 There is, naturally, a greater inclination to lie 
 than to speak the truth, when any selfish purpose 
 or feeling is to be served. A lie finds easier and 
 readier belief when spoken of a foreign or hostile 
 people ; and in proportion to their distance and 
 lack of intercourse is the chance of detection or 
 contradiction. 
 
 2 
 
14 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 We do not mean to be understood that all men 
 are liars; but merely that a disposition to lie is 
 inherent in mankind. Men lie without knowing 
 it ; they see through the stained glass of interest, 
 of vanity, of passion, and receive as truth what 
 their exaggerated lenses present. 
 
 It is natural to think well, first, of ourselves, 
 individually ; next, of those we love ; and, lastly, 
 of that society of which we are the integrants. 
 According to these standards we are prone to judge 
 all men and things ; and as what we see abroad 
 agrees with, or varies from, that standard, it re- 
 ceives our approbation or incurs our censure. A 
 disappointment, or a flogging, gives us a mental and 
 intellectual jaundice. 
 
 The Reverend Mr. Fiddler, of the High Church 
 of England, came to this country to teach us 
 natives Sanscrit, or, as he calls it, Hanscrit. As 
 the Sanscrit literature is of little importance to a 
 people who win their daily bread by their daily la- 
 bor, and as there is scarcely the shadow of a shade 
 of a chance that any native of the United States 
 will ever have occasion, or opportunity, to exchange 
 salutations with a priest of Bramah, he found no 
 pupils ; and, in his disappointment, wrote that we 
 had not a scholar among us. If he had found no 
 Episcopal form of worship, he would have set us 
 all down as heathen. 
 
 A German traveller usually writes on given 
 premises as he would on a problem in metaphysics 
 or mathematics, and reasons as fairly as he does 
 phlegmatically. The danger with him is, that he 
 is sometimes mistaken in his premises. 
 
 Provided his national vanity is not oflended, and 
 pourvu quHl s^ainuse^ a Frenchman is ever a good- 
 natured traveller. We do not expect him to do 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 15 
 
 full justice to his neighbor, John Bull. The ri- 
 valry, and consequent prejudices, of eight hundred 
 years, are not to be extinguished in one generation. 
 We do not expect him to like us ; for we are not a 
 fiddUng, a dancing, or a dressing people, and we 
 care very little for la gloire and the spectacle. But 
 our aborigines are exceedingly courteous and po- 
 lite ; they dance, and he makes himself at home 
 among them at once, and speaks of them accord- 
 ingly. There is little malice in your travelled 
 Frenchman ; if he is not a rigid votary of truth, 
 it is not that he loves truth less, but that he loves 
 romance, sentiment, and, above all, eifect, more. 
 He would prefer fact to fiction, if it produced as 
 striking a sensation. 
 
 Of all travellers, John Bull is the least fair, as 
 of all men he is the most disagreeable. The 
 Frenchman is vain, the Yankee boastful ; but the 
 Englishman is both — and arrogant, and intolerant, 
 and, what is worse, ill-natured, into the bargain. 
 He may, possibly, praise the Pitcairn's islanders ; 
 for between Pitcairn's and the omnipotent, omni- 
 scient, omnipresent island, there can be no possible 
 comparison : he will, assuredly, praise the king- 
 doms of Loggun and Bornou, in the centre of 
 Africa ; for he has discovered them ; but of any 
 Christian sovereign power he speaks with a reser- 
 vation of his national dignity, and a proviso that 
 God comes first, then the angels, the English peo- 
 ple next, and all other divisions of the human race 
 afterwards. Not a generous or noble act can he 
 report, without remembering that some Englishman 
 has done a nobler and more generous one ; not a 
 region can he behold that bears any comparison 
 with some little spot in his native land ; not a 
 custom can he notice, without remarking that it 
 
16 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 is otherwise, and better, at home. Thus John 
 Bull boasts of the victory of Waterloo, while all 
 Europe laughs at him ; and he accounts for the ill 
 success of his frigate fights, in his last war with us, 
 by assuming that our ships are manned with Eng- 
 lish seamen. He reproaches us that we have not 
 yet produced a Shakspeare during the half century 
 of our national existence ; just as if Shakspeare 
 did not belong as much to us as to him ; and as if 
 such men as Shakspeare and Bonaparte were the 
 productions of months, not of centuries. He 
 finds fault with us for using steel instead of silver 
 forks, and for mixing eggs in a cup instead of 
 eating them from the shell. It never comes into 
 his Boeotian head that eating eggs from the shell is 
 a hazardous, filthy practice, and that steel forks 
 are better than silver ,* no, for silver is the fashion 
 of England. Just so, he condemns the despotic 
 institutions and the serfdom of Russia ; forgetting 
 that the civilization of Russia is little more than 
 a century old ; that his own Saxon ancestors were, 
 probably, born thralls, or villeins, and that the last 
 of the English Henrys was as bloody and arbitrary 
 a despot as Muley Tsmael of Morocco, or any royal 
 cut-throat that ever lived. And it happens, un- 
 luckily, that we Yankees, we freemen, — we, the 
 most enlightened and most intelligent of all people 
 past, present, and to come, get all our notions of 
 men and things abroad from English writers ; that 
 is, from the worst possible authorities; from men 
 who see a rival, if not an enemy, in every stranger ; 
 who skurry through a country with all the speed 
 of steam and horse power, — as Sheridan descended 
 to the bottom of a coal-pit, — to have it to say that 
 they have been there ; and, in many cases, without 
 knowing enough of its language to ask for food 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 17 
 
 when tliey are hungry. Such, we say, are our 
 sources of information ; for there are few of us, 
 comparatively speaking, who can speak or read 
 any other language than their mother tongue. 
 Europeans are better off: the majority of them, 
 the English excepted, can speak more than one 
 language. 
 
 The sculptor moulded the man conquering the 
 lion : if the lion could have chiseled the marble, it 
 would not have recorded an impossibility ; it would 
 have told the truth ; the stone would have record- 
 ed the defeat of the man. Now, if Englishmen 
 would content themselves with misrepresenting us, 
 and condemning our thinkings and doings, it is 
 little we should care ; for we can understand what 
 they write, and set them right when they go 
 astray ; but wheji they tell us of a distant and 
 unknown land, — such, for example, as Russia, — 
 when we reflect that its inhabitants are unable to 
 defend themselves, inasmuch as not one in a mil- 
 lion of them knows that any thing has been said 
 of him or his, or could understand it if he did, — we 
 are bound, in conscience, to consider that there are 
 two sides to every story, and that those who have 
 slandered America and Americans are capable of 
 calumniating Russia and the Russians as well, or, 
 rather, as ill. 
 
 " Of all the states in the world," says the very 
 lively, very candid, and very agreeable, if not very 
 profound, author of "Letters from the Baltic," (a 
 lady,) Russia is, at this time, most particularly that 
 which requires the application of principles ground- 
 ed equally on the studious knowledge of the past, 
 and a lucid judgment of the future, to render that 
 wholeness and impartiality of opinion which may 
 be comprehensible to others and just to her. Those 
 2* 
 
18 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 who would fairly judge Russia must first strip 
 themselves of those habits of thought which, what- 
 ever their seeming, are only coincident with the 
 age to which they have the accident to belong, 
 and go back to those raw, but stable elements, 
 which are the sole groundwork for a nation's 
 prosperity, and which, in the present turmoil of 
 hasty and changing opinions, have little chance of 
 being comprehended and appreciated, save by some 
 old-fashioned representative of an old-fashioned 
 country, who considers the a, 6, c, of loyalty and 
 obedience the sole basis of any safe knowledge, 
 and of any solid civiHzation. 
 
 " The two species of writers who have hitherto 
 made Russia the subject of their pens, are either 
 the mere tourist, — who sees and judges as the 
 passing traveller, — or those whom public office or 
 private connection has thrown into the highest cir- 
 cles of the capital, and are thus placed where they 
 may, it is true, analyze the froth, but are far from 
 reaching the substance, of the nation. No one has 
 hitherto attempted the philosophy of this country, 
 than which no subject, to reflecting and general- 
 izing minds, can be more interesting ; while those 
 dissertations on its political aspect, which have ap- 
 peared in our periodicals, are so colored with obvious 
 partiality or with obvious invective, as rather to 
 deter the reader from forming any distinct opinion, 
 than to give him any premises whereon to rest. 
 
 "Russia has only two ranks — the highest and 
 the lowest ; consequently, it exhibits all those rude- 
 nesses of social life which must be attendant on 
 these two extreme positions of power and depend- 
 ence. It is in vain, therefore, to look for those 
 qualities which equally restrain the one and pro- 
 tect the other, and which alone take root in that 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 19 
 
 half-way class called forth in the progress of na- 
 tions equally for the interest of both. For in this 
 light it is impossible to view the scanty and broken- 
 linked portion of Russian society, which a sanguine 
 and too hasty policy has forced, not nourished, 
 into existence, and which, at present, rather acts 
 as the depression, and not the foundation, of that 
 most important body denominated the middle ranks 
 of a nation. To study the real destinies of Rus- 
 sia, the philosopher of mankind must descend to a 
 class still in bondage, and not yet ripe for freedom, 
 but where the elements of political stability and 
 commercial energy are already glaringly apparent." 
 What have we learned from all the travellers 
 who have employed their pens on the subject of 
 Russia and Poland ? Sketches of manners, which 
 may be faithful, or not ; descriptions of sights and 
 places, and pictures of towns and scenes ; but 
 nothing that, unless by inference, gives us an in- 
 sight into the character of the people and the gov- 
 ernment of Russia, or its operations ; — not the na- 
 ture of the bondage in which a great class of that 
 people are held, or its comparative magnitude and 
 importance; — not even the important fact that 
 above meets our eye for the first time, that there 
 is no middle class in Russia. The lady, too, we 
 believe, is the first who has hinted that the civili- 
 zation of Russia, defective and imperfect as it is, 
 is the forced creation of a " sanguine and too hasty 
 policy." They, the writers above mentioned, have 
 given us the naked outline of history ; a dry chro- 
 nology of events, without any of the filling, with- 
 out any of the causes, without any of the springs 
 of action, that have moved to or in the course of 
 such events. As well might a person who never 
 saw or heard of a horse form an idea of the struc- 
 
20 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 ture and qualities of the animal from its naked 
 skeleton, as we of the actual condition of Russia, 
 or Poland, from any data yet given to the Eng- 
 lish and American public. 
 
 We read of the exploits and patriotism of Corio- 
 lanus with admiration ; and, but for his subsequent 
 defection and treason, should unhesitatingly set him 
 down as one of Rome's worthiest. Setting aside 
 that treason, was Caius Marcius Coriolanus a patriot ? 
 Did he fight and conquer for his country ? Did he 
 love his country at all ? No ; he loved his own 
 order, the few aristocrats who kept the mass of 
 their countrymen in a bondage more galling than 
 that of the Russian serf; who scorned their just 
 claims, and would have trampled them into yet 
 more servile abjection. He was, excepting his 
 personal virtues, valor, and military talent, the very 
 heau ideal of an aristocrat ; a man who would 
 rather deprive others of their real rights than yield 
 a tittle of his own fancied ones ; who, the moment 
 he felt his pride wounded and his consequence 
 lessened, would have sacrificed even his own order, 
 who did all they could to defend him, on the altar 
 of his selfish revenge. He would have laid Rome 
 in ashes rather than be the mere equal of Ro- 
 mans. His was the very spirit of Satan in Pan- 
 demonium, when he exclaimed, — 
 
 " Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven — 
 Evil, be thou my good ! " 
 
 Yet this man has been held up as a hero and a 
 patriot, by such writers and orators as judge from 
 outside appearances, like the base monarch who 
 hugged his chains because they were of gold. 
 
 Cato plunged the dagger into his vitals, rather 
 than submit to Caesar, exclaiming, 
 
 " O liberty ! O virtue ! O my country ! " 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 21 
 
 But — did he first emancipate a single one of his 
 bondsmen ? The mass of the democracy favored 
 the Roman Bonaparte, because he bettered their 
 condition. Cato, the incarnation of the aristocracy, 
 abhorred him, because he would have reduced his 
 order to their proper level — that of mere men. 
 Cato's death was no loss to the republic, whatever 
 it might have been to the patricians. 
 
 When Brutus and Cassius stabbed Caesar on the 
 steps of the Capitol, did they strike for their coun- 
 try or their class ? Caesar had more benefited his 
 country than the whole then existing patrician 
 order. But Brutus and Cassius were the " last of 
 the Romans." Would it were even so ! Better 
 one able, useful despot, like Caesar, than a thousand 
 Brutuses and Cassiuses. Better one absolute prince 
 than a hundred petty tyrants — bear witness the 
 oligarchy of Venice. 
 
 In like manner, too, Russian Poland rebelled 
 (so scribblers tell us) against the Emperor Nicholas, 
 in 1830. They do not say, however, who rebelled, 
 or why ; whether it was the ever-turbulent nobility, 
 who had crushed the mass and deluged the land 
 with blood for centuries, who revolted, or the down- 
 trodden multitude. They do not inform us wheth- 
 er the constitution granted them by Alexander, in 
 1815, was an improvement on the government, or 
 rather the no-government of Poland before its par- 
 tition ; or why what satisfied them under Alex- 
 ander was insupportable under his brother Nicho- 
 las. They do not tell us whether the leaders of 
 the insurrection were nobles, or men of the people, 
 and they leave us in the dark as to their ultimate 
 designs. For all they tell us, the revolt may 
 have been without aim or object. It does not ap- 
 pear that Prince Czartoryski, or Prince Radzivil, or 
 
22 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 any of the insurgent chiefs, ever so much as dreamed 
 of "the greatest good of the greatest number,'* 
 any more than Cato and the spurious patriots 
 who would not brook the humanizing dictation of 
 Cassar. It is true, their motives may have been 
 purely patriotic ; but this is left to syrnpathizing 
 conjecture. 
 
 '' O Liberty ! how many crimes have been per- 
 petrated in thy name ! " exclaimed the virtuous 
 and accomplished Madame Roland, just before her 
 head rolled on the scaffold. There is magic in the 
 word. Monsters in human form used it to deci- 
 mate France ; with the word liberty^ Cromwell 
 turned England from a limited monarchy into a 
 despotism. The word is a good word, and Stephen 
 Girard's name was a good name ; but it behoves 
 us, when we are called upon to harness ourselves, 
 like horses or asses, to cannon for the oppressed 
 Poles, or to send supplies to the suffering Greeks, 
 to ascertain whether the statue set up by either is 
 the oft-violated virgin Liberty, or a gilded idol, as 
 much as it does the cashier oif a bank to be sure 
 that Girard's own hand wrote his name on a check, 
 before he honors it. 
 
 More keenly, perhaps, is the word liberty felt by 
 an Englishman or an American, than by any other 
 native of the world. We have had our struggles, 
 and, praised be God ! they have been successful ; 
 and any appeal to us, from a people in supposed 
 like circumstances, comes to us with double force. 
 Tell us that a people are oppressed, and we hurl 
 anathemas at the oppressor, without stopping to 
 make the least inquiry ; tell us that any people 
 (provided they be white) are struggling for free- 
 dom, and our blood circulates with a quicker rush. 
 Thus Andrew Jackson, when he was interrupted 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 23 
 
 in driving a chain-gang of negroes through the 
 Choctaw nation, wrote to the war department, 
 *•' Are we slaves, or are we free men ? " Thus we 
 poured our thousands into the territory of Mexico, 
 to fight for the liberty of Texas — the Uberty to 
 establish and perpetuate slavery where it had been 
 abolished. Thus nine tenths of us are at this mo- 
 ment about to vote for one or the other of two men, 
 for our President, who are both known to be favor- 
 able to the permanence of slavery on our own 
 shores, because, forsooth, they are guessed to be 
 favorable to liberal government. As, in the mech- 
 anism of the animal body, there is a great waste 
 of power, so there is a great waste of sympathy in 
 the human, and especially in the American mind. 
 
 The wrongs of which our fathers complained, 
 the objects for which they fought, in the revolution, 
 were clearly defined and set forth in the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. The world knows, now, 
 that our cause was just, and rejoices that it tri- 
 umphed. It might have known so then, if there 
 had been a disposition to inquire and examine ; but 
 neither we, nor the world at large, know any thing 
 concerning the causes of the revolt of the soi-disant 
 patriots in Poland, in 1830, of the condition of the 
 Russian nation, or of the character and intentions 
 of the much-calumniated and everywhere-but-in- 
 Russia-detested emperor, Nicholas the First. 
 
 A dog will whine when a plaintive air is played 
 on a pipe, and a buffalo will shut his eyes and rush 
 headlong at any inoffensive person in a scarlet 
 coat. Just so, and with as little reflection, when 
 the wrongs of Poland and the oppression of Russia 
 are mentioned, our hearts and our purses open, 
 we know not for what ; and when we hear of 
 a riot or a struggle, we pant to be engaged in it 
 
24 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 It is thus that we take the part of a small man 
 chastised by a big one, without asking or caring 
 what insolence or provocation has merited the 
 flagellation. It is a holy feeling that prompts us 
 — pity it is. it is so liable to be abused ! 
 
 At the risk of being ridiculed and hated, we 
 avow that our feelings have been enlisted in favor 
 of the Russian people, and of the Emperor Nicho- 
 las in particular, by the simple fact that, like us, 
 the Russians have been treated by the writers of 
 other nations with rancor and obloquy without 
 stint or measure, and that the emperor is seldom, 
 if ever, mentioned without reproach. Reflection 
 and inquiry have satisfied us, that by far the great- 
 est part of this dislike is equally unfounded and 
 unmerited ; for it is long that we have been con- 
 vinced that America and England do not monopo- 
 lize all the freedom, all the valor, all the learning, 
 and all the intelligence, in the universe. 
 
 Two of the causes, doubtless, that lead to this 
 general abhorrence of Russia, are fear and envy ; a 
 third is distance, which magnifies danger, just as it 
 
 *' lends enchantment to the view, 
 
 And robes the landscape with an azure hue." 
 
 Omne ignotum pro magnijico est: — we know 
 that Russia has swallowed a part of Poland, and 
 threatens to swallow Turkey and Persia also, and 
 the learned folly of Europe fears that her gorge is 
 capacious enough for more, forgetting that Poland 
 fell less by Russia's strength than by its own weak- 
 ness, and that large bodies are slow of action. We 
 recollect the remark of an Indian chief, on the power 
 of the United States, on a visit to the navy-yard in 
 Brooklyn. ''You cannot," said he, pointing to 
 the line-of-battle ships, "bring those guns to bear 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 25 
 
 upon US in our distant prairies." In like manner, 
 the colossal power of Russia will and must melt 
 *' like the baseless fabric of a vision," long before it 
 can become dangerous to the civilization of Europe. 
 
 Toward us and England, Russia must neces- 
 sarily be forever impotent and innocuous, till she 
 shall have become a maritime power, which she 
 never can be, with no other practicable outlets but 
 the Gattegat and the Dardanelles. Her navy, seen 
 at a distance, looks formidable, it is true, in ships, 
 men, and guns ; but approach it, and the kraken di- 
 minishes to a skate or flounder. The military marine 
 of Russia consists of fifty line-of-battle ships and 
 twenty-five frigates, with fifteen war-steamers on the 
 Baltic, and seventeen on the Euxine. These ships 
 are managed and fought by fifty thousand men, 
 who, as far as courage goes, are not to be surpassed. 
 Sir Edmund Codrington did not complain of 
 the Russian fleet at Navarino. Thirty thousand 
 of these men are employed in the Baltic, and twen- 
 ty thousand in the Black Sea. But it is one thing 
 to have ships and men, and another to have sailors ; 
 they cannot be made by decrees and ukases. 
 
 To have sailors, a country must have ports. 
 Russia has but a few on the Baltic, (which are 
 locked up five months in the year by ice,) and but 
 one, of any consequence, ( Sebastopol, ) in the Crimea. 
 The service of the Baltic fleet consists of cruising 
 in the brackish water of the Gulf of Finland, be- 
 tween Cronstadt, Riga, and Revel, never out of 
 sight of land. The periodical storms of the Euxine 
 interrupt its navigation, also, for several months 
 of the year ; and, were it otherwise, that sea aff'ords 
 no more facilities for rearing sailors than our great 
 lakes. 
 
 When Peter the Great opened the Baltic to Rus- 
 3 
 
26 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 sia, and determined to create a navy, he no doubt 
 expected that it would be supported by a com- 
 mercial marine ; but, in this, he overlooked the lim- 
 its that Nature herself had put to the commerce of 
 Russia. Ships can be built any where, where there 
 is wood ; but seamen can only be formed by coun- 
 tries with such coasts as those of Great Britain 
 and the United States. There is, consequently, 
 not a really Russian mariner to be found in the 
 Baltic on board a merchantman. It is true that 
 the laws of Russia require every Russian vessel to 
 have a nominal Russian master, who is often a 
 peasant, sleeps in the forecastle, and acts as cook, 
 while the chief mate, a Finn or a foreigner, works 
 the ship. 
 
 The only part of the Russian naval force, who 
 have any claim to be called seamen, are about 
 twenty thousand Finns, and a few Greeks and for- 
 eigners. Over and above these, the navy is re- 
 cruited exactly like the army, and from the same 
 sources. The whole, being confined to their har- 
 bors for half the year, are necessarily employed and 
 equipped as half-sailors, half-soldiers ; and, when at 
 sea, few of them ever get thoroughly over their 
 sea-sickness. 
 
 No country beyond sea, therefore, has aught 
 to fear from the ambition of Russia. We could fill 
 a volume with matter of fact confirmatory of the 
 position we have taken in this regard ; but it needs 
 not. As men cannot train for gymnastic games in 
 shackles, so neither can they learn to swim or be- 
 come mariners without water, and Russia never can 
 become formidable at sea. Talents cannot effect 
 impossibilities. Napoleon could not form seamen 
 in France ; Peter could not, and Nicholas cannot, 
 do it in Russia. They have done all that mere 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 27 
 
 men could do, and the wonder is, not that they 
 have done so little, but that they have accom- 
 plished so much. In another view of the case, it 
 will be found that neither Russia, nor France, nor 
 we, have done half enough for our own defence. 
 
 The invention of shell shot, and the application 
 of steam to the navigation of the ocean, have be- 
 gun, and are destined to achieve, an entire revol- 
 ution in marine warfare, and in the attack and 
 defence of seaboards. The invention of gunpow- 
 der was not fated to effect more important changes. 
 Without entering into a labored argument, let us 
 consider a few facts, and then judge of the future 
 by the past. 
 
 A few French ships battered down the castle of 
 St. Juan de Ulloa, (deemed impregnable before,) 
 with Paixhan shot, in four hours, though gallantly 
 defended ; and reduced Santa Anna and Mexico to 
 submission. 
 
 St. Jean d'Acre was laid in ruins by the com- 
 bined fleets of England, France, and Russia, in 
 fewer hours than it cost Napoleon and his Egyp- 
 tian army weeks ; and the slaughter on the side of 
 Mehemet Ali was prodigious. 
 
 Beyroot was treated in the same way by the 
 allied fleet ; not a tenth of the city remained 
 standing, nor were a third of its defenders left 
 alive. 
 
 Of what avail were the swarming numbers, the 
 devoted courage, and the strong fortifications of 
 the Chinese against steam and shell-shot at Amoy, 
 the Bogue, and elsewhere ? What, but to glut 
 death, and to add to human misery ! 
 
 And what is to insure Russia against the like 
 treatment, but timely preparation to meet force 
 with force, and navy with navy ? Surely, not the 
 
28 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 justice or moderation of Great Britain. Did justice, 
 and the laws of nations and of honor, protect Co- 
 penhagen? VYhat, in the event of a war with 
 England, will save Cronstadt, Riga, Revel, Baltis- 
 port, Nicolaiew, Sebastopol, Odessa, and St. Pe- 
 tersburg itself, from the fate of Beyroot and Amoy, 
 but a navy adequate to the emergency ? That it 
 will not be their fortifications, is as clear as that the 
 shell of a filbert cannot protect the kernel from the 
 hammer. Nor is such a contingency at all im- 
 probable. The writers of the Polish Propaganda 
 are already exciting the cupidity of the British 
 people in the British periodicals, and demonstrating 
 the certainty of their success in a maritime war 
 with Russia. 
 
 What shall save Boston and New York, and our 
 whole seaboard, from the same fearful doom, if — 
 which may God in his goodness avert ! — the advo- 
 cates of Texas and slavery should succeed in pick- 
 ing a quarrel with Great Britain? In our unpro- 
 voked hatred of Mexico, our absurd sympathy with 
 Poland, and our equally unfounded dislike of Nich- 
 olas and Russia, we overlook the real point of dan- 
 ger, though millions cry to us, from their graves in 
 India and China, to take warning. England, not 
 Russia, is the enemy the world has to dread ; Eng- 
 land, on whose territory the sun never sets, whose 
 canvass whitens every wave, whose resources are 
 the purse of Fortunatus tmd the lamp of Aladdin ; 
 England, whose caoutchouc national conscience is 
 matched with the greed of the horseleech, which 
 crieth, " Not enough ! " and for whose ready grasp 
 and capacious gorge a continent is not too great, 
 or a minnow too little. 
 
 If the reader can lay prejudice and sympathy on 
 the shelf for five minutes, we shall assuredly satis- 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 
 
 29 
 
 fy hitn that we are not speaking the exaggerated 
 language of poetry, but the words of truth and so- 
 berness. Here are facts : deny them who can. 
 
 The navy of Great Britain numbers a hundred 
 and twenty sail of the line, and a hundred and for- 
 ty frigates, with the memis of mangling them^ not 
 to speak of what is of more importance — between 
 two and three hundred war-steamers. The united 
 world besides, in 1840, could muster but a hundred 
 and seventy-five line-of-battle ships, and a hundred 
 and ninety-five frigates. 
 
 Of this latter force, at the same time, France, 
 Russia, and the United States, had, collectively, but 
 a hundred and twenty sail of the line, and a hun- 
 dred and seventeen frigates — and how manned ? 
 
 They had, collectively, a mercantile marine 
 not exceeding 1,700,000 tons afloat on salt water. 
 These, and their navies, were manned with two 
 hundred and twenty thousand men. Together 
 with her fishermen, and crews of vessels of under 
 thirty tons, Britain has three hundred and seventy 
 thousand sailors. Moreover, she can at any time 
 send to sea four times as many war-steamers as the 
 combined world ; and she alone, among nations, has 
 the funds to furnish forth such armadas. 
 
 The whole number of people France, Russia, 
 and the United States, employ in aquatic pursuits, 
 does not exceed two hundred and forty thousand 
 men. 
 
 The registered tonnage of the United States, on 
 salt water, is 1,000,000 of tons, and employs about 
 eighty thousand men, of all nations. Moreover, 
 we have but four war-steamers, of which one is 
 literally good for nothing, and almost our entire 
 sea-coast is without defence. 
 
 If, therefore, we should save our ignorant sym- 
 3* 
 
30 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 pathy with Poland, and leave off bewailing the 
 miseries of slavery and despotism in Russia, — if, 
 instead thereof, we should follow the wise and pa- 
 triotic example of the detested despot, Nicholas, in 
 preparing for the contest we are insanely trying to 
 provoke, and which will assuredly be forced on 
 him and us, v/henever it shall seem profitable to 
 British cupidity, — we should show less spurious 
 zeal for freedom, indeed, but we should also evince 
 a little common sense, and some consistency. 
 
 These will be unpalatable truths to the conceit 
 and arrogance of mobs, revolting to the ignorance 
 that must largely abound among a people in a state 
 of transition, like ourselves and Russia ; for igno- 
 rance is the concomitant of mobs, as well as of a 
 despotism. We regret that wars may arise to re- 
 tard the improvement and prosperity either of the 
 United States or Russia. But it is not by fostering 
 prejudice, or by concealing the truth, that the spread 
 of liberal principles is to be promoted ; and the first 
 step toward the knowledge of others is to know 
 ourselves. The more severe our self-examination, 
 the more certain is our amendment, and we will 
 not shun to tell the sick their danger, because the 
 medicine is bitter. 
 
 We have said that Russia is an object of envy, as 
 well as of fear, to the rest of Europe. The armies 
 of France have found their graves in her soil ; her 
 arms have been felt in every part of Europe but 
 Great Britain. Is not this enough to make her an 
 object of fear ? Power is terrible. What nation 
 has more of it than Russia ? and, if population and 
 wealth are power, Nicholas the First has sixty- 
 one millions of subjects, of whom upwards of 
 twenty-two millions are liable to military service ; 
 a standing army of more than a million; and a 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 31 
 
 yearly revenue of fifty-five millions of dollars, at 
 least ; probably more. 
 
 To be convinced that there are many things in 
 barbarous Russia to be envied by civilized Chris- 
 tendom, let the reader turn to the pages of Khol, 
 of any of the encyclopedias, or to any work what- 
 ever on the empire. 
 
 *' Strike, but hear ! " is the legend of a lecture 
 addressed to the members of our several state legis- 
 latures, on the affairs of Poland, by Major G. Toch- 
 man, a Polish exile, and, probably, one of the Polish 
 Propaganda. Albeit no one in this country, we 
 believe, is at all disposed to strike a blow in Po- 
 land, unless in her aid, we fully admit the justice 
 and force of the appeal. If Poland has not already 
 had hearings enough, let her have more. 
 
 Strike Russia, and the Emperor Nicholas, too, as 
 hard as feeling and opinion can strike ; but, in im- 
 partial justice, first hear what can be said in their 
 defence. 
 
 In the first place, there is now established in Eng- 
 land and France a Propaganda, or missionary semina- 
 ry, at the head of which is Prince Adam Czartoryski, 
 president of the provisional government of Poland 
 in 1830 and 1831, who was condemned to death 
 by the imperial ukase, in September, 1834, for the 
 part he took in the insurrection. Prince Adam was 
 the longest-descended, the richest, the most talent- 
 ed and the most influential man in Poland previous 
 to that event. He it is whom the Propaganda ex- 
 pect, and avowedly intend, to place on the throne 
 of Poland, should she ever recover her independ- 
 ence.* His lady is at the head of the female 
 Propaganda, consisting of French and English wo- 
 men, whose object it is, as of the male branch, to 
 
 * Tochraan. 
 
32 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 educate the children not only of Poles, but also of 
 other people, in hatred of Russia. These are the 
 political Jesuits, who maintain and send writers and 
 lecturers to the four corners of the earth, to dissem- 
 inate their views and opinions. The inferior mem- 
 bers of the Propaganda are exiled Poles and their 
 sympathizers ; and it is of his would-be majesty, 
 King Adam, and his subjects, that we receive our 
 political opinions in regard to Russia and Poland. 
 They have one college in England, and another in 
 France, where Polish patriotism and politics, and 
 English, French, and the Polish dialect of the 
 Sclavonian, are taught together. 
 
 AVhile we admire the heroic bravery displayed 
 by the insurgent Poles in the late struggle with 
 Russia, as much as any one can ; while we compas- 
 sionate the misfortunes of such of them as are ex- 
 iles from their native land ; we take the liberty to 
 say, that they have not made any very favorable im- 
 pression of their general character on the people of 
 France and the United States ; * and that they are 
 not the most unexceptionable referees that can be 
 found with regard to facts or doctrine. Neverthe- 
 less, such has been the effect of their labors, that 
 the Propaganda confidently expect to excite an- 
 other rebellion in Poland within eighteen months 
 
 * " Men pretended to regard the Poles as allies of the republi- 
 can party, Tin 1833-34,) without considering that Poland was a re- 
 publican aristocracy. Next, certain classes treated the Poles, who 
 had been deified a few days before, with disdain. "We must forci- 
 bly recall the shifts of Parisian opinion, to understand how the 
 word Polish became a term of derision in 1835, in the centre of in- 
 telligence — in a city that now wields tlie sceptre of literature and 
 the arts. There are, alas ! two orders of Polish refugees — the re- 
 publican Pole, the descendant of Lelewel, and the Polish noble, of 
 the party of which Prince Czartoryski is the head. Without in- 
 tending offence to the exiles, I must be allowed to remark that tlie 
 levity, needlessness, and inconsistency, of the Sarmatian character, 
 gave color to the scandal of the Parisians." — Balzac. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 
 
 33 
 
 from the present date. This we have on the au- 
 thority of one of the patriotic missionaries, and of 
 this it is not to be supposed the Emperor Nicholas 
 is ignorant. Hence the increased vigilance of the 
 Russian government, and the difficuUy of obtaining 
 passports, so generally quoted in the newspapers as 
 illustrations of arbitrary rule. 
 
 Hear, too, what was said by one of the Russian 
 secretaries of the state, and head of the third section 
 of the Chancery, to Leitch Ritchie. 
 
 '' It seems strange to me, that you English should 
 travel in Russia for the avowed purpose of making 
 yourselves acquainted with the manners and char- 
 acter of the people, yet without comprehending a 
 single word of their language. You come here 
 with the grossest prejudices against us as a nation. 
 You see every thing diiferent from what you have 
 been accustomed to at home, except the manners 
 of some dozen families whom you visit. You 
 make no inquiries, no reflections, no allowances. 
 You examine this rude but mighty colossus, 
 through your opera glass, or from the windows of 
 your travelling chariot. In the towns, your valet 
 de place IS your prime authority; in the country, 
 you wander about in utter darkness, unable to un- 
 derstand a single object, or to understand a sin- 
 gle question. You then return home, satisfied 
 with having attained the object of your tour, and 
 sit down, without a single malevolent feeling in 
 your breasts, but out of pure ignorance, to add to 
 the mass of falsehoods and absurdities with which 
 Europe is already inundated." 
 
 It seems, by this, that John Bull will be John 
 Bull, wherever he goes. 
 
 To conclude, the empire of Russia is an anom- 
 aly among nations, and is therefore not to be 
 
34 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 judged by any ordinary rules. Neither can any 
 national character properly be said to belong to a 
 population consisting of nine distinct races — with- 
 out counting other foreign tribes, collectively nu- 
 merous enough to form no insignificant kingdom. 
 The emperor of Russia stands alone among mon- 
 archs, past and present : he is absolute power per- 
 sonified, without check or limitation, bther than 
 the laws of Nature herself impose ; and this abso- 
 lute power he did not achieve, like Napoleon, at 
 the expense of millions of lives, but was born to. 
 If his power has not the extent the Corsican con- 
 queror's at one time had, it is, in recompense, far 
 more perfect where it is acknowledged. No hered- 
 itary monarch or usurper, of times past, ever enjoyed 
 the like. He is checked by no institutions, no 
 laws ; the land, and all that therein is, is his in fee 
 simple : he is undisputed lord and master of the 
 lives, the liberties, and the property, of many mil- 
 lions, from his richest noble to that noble's meanest 
 serf. Other emperors may have had command of 
 greater wealth and numbers ; but never was any 
 other ruler in himself such a concentration of all hu- 
 man authority ; never was any man so completely, 
 and at once, the king, the religion, and the fate, of 
 his subjects. Now, it is an admitted and incontest- 
 able fact, that absolute monarchy would be the best 
 of all possible governments, could it be placed, and 
 always continue, in good hands. The Emperor 
 Nicholas, therefore, is not to be abhorred for being, 
 like all other men, the child of circumstances, which 
 have placed him where he is, as they have placed 
 others in degradation and bondage : he is only 
 accountable to opinion for the use he has made of 
 his power, and we do not fear to subject his char- 
 acter and actions to that test. If it shall appear that 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 35 
 
 he has abused his power, and injured the condition 
 of his subjects, let him be condemned accordingly ; 
 but if, on the contrary, it shall prove that he has 
 acted ably, wisely, and conscientiously, for the 
 greater good of the greater number, we claim for 
 him the highest name and the greenest wreath 
 among the great and good men of the age. All 
 the favor we ask for the Russian monarch is, that 
 the reader, in judging of him, will bear in mind 
 that Nicholas the First, with all his power, is but 
 a man, with the same feelings and passions as other 
 men. 
 
36 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ABSOLUTE POWER NOT NECESSARILY A CURSE.— 
 PETER ALEXIOWITSCH. 
 
 We take it for granted that the great mass of 
 the reading public, in Europe and America, are 
 nearly as ignorant of the social and political con- 
 dition of Poland and the Russias, as they are of 
 the interior of New Holland and Japan. How- 
 should it be otherwise, when all the information 
 we have is derived from superficial observers, who 
 may, indeed, describe the manners and outside of 
 a nation, but are wholly unable to look deeper? 
 Why is it tourists never speak truly of us ? Be- 
 cause they can only see effects, while causes are 
 hidden from them; because they judge of the 
 whole from a part, as the Irish laborer formed his 
 opinion of the house from a brick shown him as a 
 specimen ; because the first things they remark are 
 exceptions, and because they convert the exception 
 into the general rule. We maintain that a travel- 
 ler, or historian, who writes of a foreign country, 
 should have, at least, these qualifications : — 
 
 Candor, if not kindness, and some respect for, 
 if not a love of, truth. 
 
 He should have eyes to see, and ears to hear ; 
 and yet, these will be of little use to him, if he has 
 not brains to understand ; for it does not suffice to 
 tell how a people are clad, or what they eat and 
 what they drink ; nor is it of much importance to 
 describe places, and record distances and dimen- 
 sions. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 37 
 
 He should be able to speak, or at least to read 
 and understand, the language of the country. 
 
 He should be a little acquainted with the leading 
 points, at least, of its history, laws, and institu- 
 tions. 
 
 He should have lived at least ten years in it, 
 and conversed familiarly with all its classes, be- 
 fore he presumes to pronounce, ex cathedra^ on any 
 thing. 
 
 We do not mean to say that nothing useful, or 
 worthy of reliance, has been written concerning 
 Russia ; but we mean to assume that such matter 
 is diffused so sparsely, through so many volumes, 
 in so many languages, that no ordinary reader can 
 be expected to have made himself master of it all. 
 For example — 
 
 Ninety-nine men in a hundred believe, and will 
 maintain, that the regeneration of Russia was an 
 original idea of Peter the First, justly surnamed the 
 Great, and that it began with him. They have 
 never heard of Ivan Vassilievitsch ; it is a chance 
 if they are aware that Peter had a father, or that 
 that father's name was Alexis. They do not know 
 that the Russians were sufficiently civiHzed to 
 build the important cities of Novogorod and Kiow 
 in the fifth and sixth centuries. 
 
 Fear not, reader : we are not going to give you 
 a history of Russia ; but some historical details are 
 absolutely necessary. 
 
 Ivan Vassilievitsch the Great reigned from 1462 
 to 1505. With him properly began the civiliza- 
 tion of Russia, and in his reign it assumed a name 
 and a rank among nations. He it was who freed 
 Russia from the Tartar yoke under which it had 
 groaned for two centuries and a half. Ivan made 
 the indivisibility of the realm a fundamental law, 
 4 
 
38 
 
 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 after adding to it Kasan^ and Tver, and Astrachan. 
 He first introduced fire-arms, and cast cannon, and 
 taught his Scythians to burn bricks, and to build. 
 He set the example of inviting foreigners to Mos- 
 cow, and making use of their superior knowledge. 
 German artists and savans went to receive the pro- 
 tection and encouragement of his son, the second 
 Ivan, and by him was a printing-press first estab- 
 lished, which was preached against by the clergy 
 as necromantic, and destroyed with fire at their 
 instigation. He made a commercial treaty with 
 Elizabeth of England, and established a standing 
 army. In his reign, Siberia was discovered — to 
 be added to Russia by his successor. 
 
 To Alexis, the father of Peter the Great, Russia 
 owes the establishment of the highest posts in the 
 empire, and the first abasement of the clergy. 
 
 Feodor, his son and successor, also did much* to 
 encourage industry, and improve the commerce, 
 organization, and legislation, of Russia. Till his 
 reign, the nobility claimed the highest posts of the 
 empire, by prescriptive right. Feodor put an end 
 to their claims, by burning their pedigrees. 
 
 It will be seen, by what has been stated, that 
 the civilization of Russia was not created, or be- 
 gun, by Peter; but has been slowly progressive 
 from the fifteenth century. We do not detract 
 from the glorious fame of Peter in so saying. 
 Shakspeare wrought not always with his own 
 materials; but he made the materials of others his 
 own, by his fashioning. So the mighty genius 
 of Peter strode over centuries at a step. Needs 
 not to dwell on the ail-but miracles he wrought 
 by his iron will — are they not recorded by the 
 immortal pen of Voltaire? would not the reading of 
 half the volumes already written in commemora- 
 ♦Jnn of them exhaust the life of Methuselah? 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 39 
 
 Every reproach that has been heaped upon the 
 Emperor Nicholas will apply to Peter, of ever- 
 glorious memory, with tenfold force, with two 
 exceptions. Peter's personal character was not im- 
 peccable ; though his faults were the faults of his 
 age — that of Nicholas is above reproach. Peter, 
 who could so ably rule others, could never rule 
 himself — he was a barbarian ; a wonderful one, 
 indeed, but still a barbarian. Nicholas is a gen- 
 tleman, in every sense of the word. 
 
 Thus speaks Leitch Ritchie (a Scotchman) of 
 the much abused autocrat: — 
 
 " The emperor, who is a very tall and very 
 handsome man, is naturally of a very lively 
 disposition. He is always dressed with great pre- 
 cision, and every one understands that it is neces- 
 sary to appear before him both well dressed and 
 with a cheerful countenance. He is easy of ac- 
 cess, and seems to think an appearance of state 
 almost unnecessary. At St. Petersburg, however, 
 at each side of the door which leads to the impe- 
 rial apartments, stands a man gorgeously dressed 
 in Eastern costume. There are twelve of these 
 men, who relieve each other alternately in the 
 duty of opening and shutting the door, and an- 
 nouncing the name of the visitor. 
 
 "After breakfast, the emperor's first care is to 
 go to the nursery to see his children, and ascertain 
 how they have slept. He takes each of them up, 
 kisses them, romps with them ; for he is full of 
 frolic, and glad to be a boy again when the cares 
 of the world will let him. 
 
 "Their majesties dine at three o'clock, (the 
 general hour for the upper classes in Russia,) with 
 great simplicity ; and toward the conclusion of the 
 meal, the Grand Duke Alexander and the younger 
 
40 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 children come in to kiss their parents. When they 
 rise from table, the emperor bestows upon his 
 consort, also, some hearty kisses. He calls her 
 " his wife ; " but the empress, who is a Prussian, 
 never alludes to him but as '' the emperor." She 
 speaks English extremely well ; but Nicholas only 
 indifferently. 
 
 " * The character of the emperor and empress,' 
 writes an English friend, to me, ' is such, that it 
 is difficult to speak of them without exciting in 
 strangers a suspicion that the description is over- 
 charged. It is no exaggeration to say that I never 
 saw a family where more affection and harmony 
 existed ; and I believe the examples to be very 
 rare, indeed, where so much can be discovered. 
 I have frequently seen these illustrious individuals 
 surrounded by their children, and have partaken 
 of the influence every one receives who witnesses 
 the scene ; and I can say that, in their domestic 
 virtues, they are worthy of being held forth as a 
 pattern, not only to all sovereigns, but to all man- 
 kind.' " 
 
 The great charge against Nicholas, as against 
 Peter, is, that he is a despot ; i. e., the one pos- 
 sessed, as the other possesses, arbitrary power. 
 Let us see how Peter employed it. 
 
 In 16S9, the Russians were Scythians ; that is 
 to say, savages, or not very far from it. Peter, by 
 main force, made them civilized men. Having no 
 seaports on the Black Sea, the Baltic, or any where 
 else, excepting Archangel, amidst almost eternal 
 ice, — Russia had no commerce, and was, to all 
 intents and purposes, a part of Asia. By acquiring 
 the present Russian coasts of the Baltic, by build- 
 ing a maritime capital and creating a navy, Peter 
 brought his country into the European family of 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 
 
 41 
 
 nations. It is true, that all this was not done 
 without much violation of individual right, with- 
 out much hardship, or without a great sacrifice 
 of life. 
 
 So there is much hardship, and much invasion 
 of private right, in manning the British navy, the 
 mighty national weapon of defence and offence to 
 which, probably, Britain owes her very existence, 
 and certainly the great rank she holds among na- 
 tions. There was a great waste of British life at 
 Trafalgar and Aboukir Bay. But what have been 
 her loss and her suffering to her gain ? and what 
 were the few thousands sacrificed by Peter to the 
 millions remaining ? He had a power more like a 
 god's than a mere mortal's, and like a god he 
 used it. As the storm, and the earthquake, and 
 the volcano, though they destroy individuals, ben- 
 efit the mass, so Peter's violent measures wrought 
 the greatest good of the greatest number ; the evil 
 he did has passed away ; the good remains ; — 
 a world admires, and sixty-one grateful millions 
 bless his name. As the car of destiny rolls on, 
 the individuals, and thousands, and generations it 
 crushes in its course are but items in the account 
 of general change to be accomplished. Poetical 
 justice is, indeed, a pretty thing to talk about ; 
 but, in the affairs of nations, it is a thing that 
 never has had, and never will have an existence. 
 
 The Strelitzes, or standing army of Russia, con- 
 spired and revolted again and again, without any 
 reasonable pretext. Peter subdued them, and be- 
 headed and broke on the wheel princes, generals, 
 and prelates, involved in their guilt. On the third 
 occasion, he quenched their rebellion in their blood, 
 which he did not scruple to shed with his own 
 
 hand : upwards of two thousand of the conspira- 
 4* 
 
42 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 tors were executed ; and, as this happened in mid- 
 winter, their frozen corpses remained where they 
 had suffered till warm weather, — with their crimes 
 written over their heads. Their houses were razed 
 to the ground, and their very name aboHshed ; while 
 those who were spared were banished to Siberia, 
 with their wives and families. 
 
 Who doubts that, acting thus rigorously, Peter 
 also acted with humanity? For every turbulent 
 rebel who died, Russia counted one malefactor the 
 less ; for every malefactor he slew, he saved, in 
 consequence, the lives of two valuable subjects. 
 Those only who object to the gallows for crim- 
 inals, and ball cartridges for mobs, will blame Pe- 
 ter for destroying the Strelitzes, or Mahmoud for 
 exterminating the Janizaries. 
 
 In the year A. D. 1700, in the art of war, 
 Russia was beneath criticism, — beneath contempt ; 
 it was, then, what China is now. In November of 
 that year, Charles XII., of Sweden, defeated thirty- 
 eight thousand Russians, and took twenty thousand 
 prisoners, with eight thousand Swedes, at Narva. 
 Such was the universal ignorance, then, in Russia, 
 of church and lay, that the defeat was every where 
 attributed to sorcery, and prayers were put up to 
 Saint Nicholas, in all the churches, against the 
 Swedes.* Peter, alone, was not in the least dis- 
 
 * " O thou, our constant comforter in all our adversities, great 
 Saint Nicholas ! infinitely powerful ! how is it that we have sinned 
 against thee in our sacrifices, our genuflections, our salutations, or 
 our thanksgivings, that thou shouldst thus have forsaken us ? We 
 implored thine aid against these terrible, insolenf, frantic, frightful, 
 untamable destroyers, when, like lions, and like bears robbed of 
 their cubs, they attacked, and made us afraid, and wounded, and 
 slew us by thousands ; we, thy people. As this cannot have come 
 to pass without witchcraft and cncliantmcnt, we entreat thee, O 
 mighty Saint Nicholas ! to be our champion and standard-bearer, 
 and to deliver us from this host of sorcerers, and to drive them far, 
 Cut from our borders, with the reward that is due to them ! " 
 
 Voltaire, Histoire de Charles XIL 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 48 
 
 couraged. "I know," said he, "that the Swedes 
 will beat us again and again ; but they will teach 
 us to fight, and our turn will come at last." 
 
 And the Russians were beaten again and again, 
 and thousands of lives were lost, and still they kept 
 learning ; and what have been the consequences ? 
 
 Nine years after the disastrous day of Narva, 
 Peter, with nearly equal numbers, defeated Charles, 
 at whose name all Europe trembled, at Pultowa, 
 destroyed his army, and forced him to fly for refuge 
 into Turkey. Russia has preserved the integrity 
 of her territory ever since ; has baffled even the 
 power and genius of Napoleon ; millions of lives 
 have been saved, that would otherwise have been 
 lost ; and Russia is the first military power in the 
 world. 
 
 Would that China had been governed by a 
 Peter, within the last ten years ! Then might the 
 Chinese, and the English, too, have learned a like 
 lesson, and, ultimately, might would not have over- 
 come right. 
 
 Here an absolute monarch was a Messiah. Under 
 any other form of government, or under a less able 
 czar than Peter, Russia would have disappeared, 
 as a nation, from the map of Europe, as Poland 
 has done. 
 
 The question here arises, whether Peter was a 
 patriot, or not ; whether he was actuated, in the 
 great things he did, by love of country, or by the 
 selfishness of an individual, who, possessing an em- 
 pire in fee simple, merely aimed at enlarging and 
 improving his property. Was he an imperial 
 William Tell, or Washington, or an aristocratic 
 patriot, like the cut-throat conspirators of Rome, 
 before Christ ? 
 
 When, in 1711, Peter was surrounded by the 
 
44 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 Turks at Jassy, on the Pruth, with nothing in pros- 
 pect before him but captivity or death, he wrote to 
 the senate, in Moscow, " If I fall into the hands 
 of the enemy, consider me no longer as your sov- 
 ereign, and obey no command that shall proceed 
 from the place of my confinement, though it should 
 be signed by my own hand. If I perish, choose the 
 worthiest among you to succeed me." 
 
 This certainly looks very little like selfishness. 
 
 We have said, that it is not our intention to write 
 a history of Russia; neither do we think of writing 
 a biography of Peter ; but it is essential to our pur- 
 pose to show, that a despotic government is not, 
 necessarily, the worst evil that can befall a nation ; 
 and we claim the further indulgence of the reader, 
 while we endeavor to prove that, when the sov- 
 ereign is a good and wise man, it may be the 
 greatest of blessings, inasmuch as there are many 
 reforms that an absolute monarch may effect, which 
 a limited one, or a republican government, dares not 
 even attempt. 
 
 Perceiving that the peasants and lower classes 
 were oppressed by the boyarins, or nobles, Peter 
 appointed a board of commissioners to inquire into 
 such abuses ; and the result was, the exile into Si- 
 beria of a great number of civil officers of the three 
 first ranks, and the establishment of strict laws 
 against the like abuses in future. 
 
 We have not yet read that Great Britain ever 
 punished a West India planter for abusing his 
 slaves ; and we do not look to see the day when 
 the general government of free America, or of any 
 of its several sovereignties, will send a Virginian, oi 
 Georgian, or Carolinian boyarin to the state prison, 
 or the penitentiary, even for the murder of one of 
 his serfs ; not but that the despotic Peter set us 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 45 
 
 a worthy example how to act for the greater good 
 of the greater number. 
 
 Peter did not consider it prudent to abolish sla- 
 very in Russia, in his own time, though he gave it 
 his most serious consideration. 
 
 Neither did France consider it prudent to abolish 
 slavery in her colonies, till her own down-trodden 
 masses took the reins of government into their 
 own hands, and, having known the bitterness of 
 thraldom, and tasted the sweets of liberty, them- 
 selves magnanimously said to their slaves, " Be 
 ye free, also!" — and this was not till long after 
 Czar Peter's time. 
 
 Neither did Great Britain consider it prudent to set 
 her slaves free, till ten years ago ; and that class of 
 her citizens and nobles who most feelingly sympa- 
 thize with the Poles, and most malevolently abhor 
 and loudly denounce the Emperor Nicholas, deny 
 the propriety of the measure, to this day. 
 
 Neither do we and our southern brethren think it 
 prudent to liberate our slaves, yet ; and, like patriotic 
 freemen as we are, we quarrel with, and are ready 
 to plunder Mexico for having done so. 
 
 We do not approve of slavery in Russia, or any 
 where else ; but we can conceive some very good 
 reasons why Peter, then, and Nicholas, now, might 
 not think it prudent to abolish slavery. Would to 
 Heaven they were as available in our own justi- 
 fication ! 
 
 First, there are 61,000,000 of people in Russia, 
 of whom more than 22,000,000 are serfs, or slaves. 
 There are, perhaps, 20,000,000 of people in the 
 United States, of whom about 2,500,000 are slaves. 
 We do not pretend to strict accuracy in our com- 
 putation, but it is as near as we have the data for 
 making, and, probably, as nigh the truth in the 
 
46 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 one case as the other. Let us suppose, therefore, 
 (what is not far from the truth,) that one eighth of 
 our population, and rather less than a third of that 
 of Russia, are slaves, or serfs, or whatever the red- 
 dest heat of patriotism, Polish or American, may 
 choose to call them. 
 
 It may not be safe, or easy, at once to emanci- 
 pate 22,000,000 of slaves, in a country menaced 
 on all sides like Russia, from time immemorial, 
 and, in Peter's time, engaged in wars that shook its 
 fabric to its foundation. But there would cer- 
 tainly be no danger to 17,500,000 people, at peace 
 with all the world, or any difficulty, in emancipat- 
 ing 2,500,000 slaves, if they were so minded, and 
 if their boasted love of liberty was aught but base 
 hypocrisy and an empty sound. 
 
 Slavery is scattered all over Russia, and two 
 thirds of the entire people are interested in its con- 
 tinuance. Slavery is confined to less than a third 
 part of our territory, and not a third part of our 
 entire population are interested in its continuance. 
 
 It might be dangerous for even a despotic sov- 
 ereign to attack the interests of the two thirds of 
 his subjects, possessing all the wealth and intel- 
 ligence of his dominions. The free people of the 
 United States might, and, some day, we trust, will, 
 without difficulty or danger, persuade the slave- 
 holding states to give up their slaves; but they 
 are but an eighth of our population. Moreover, 
 we are prepared to prove, and shall, in the proper 
 place, that the system of vassalage in Russia is not 
 unmitigated slavery, and that the need of emanci- 
 pation is not, and never was, half so urgent in 
 Russia as in the United States. 
 
 But this is an enlightened land of liberty, and 
 Russia is a degraded land of slavery j and yet, 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 47 
 
 there is apparently half, and, in reality, twice as 
 much slavery in the United States as there is in 
 Russia. 
 
 At all events, the despotic czar, Peter, did some- 
 thing to ameliorate slavery. Our southern breth- 
 ren, on the contrary, have done all they could to 
 aggravate, and are doing all they can to perpetuate 
 and extend it. 
 
 Whatever may be said of absolute sovereignty 
 in other respects, there is one, in Russia, in which 
 it is synonymous with absolute liberty ; we mean, 
 with regard to religious opinions. It is true that 
 Peter put to death one of the Roskolnicks, or sec- 
 taries of the ancient faith ; but it was not as a 
 heretic that the religionary suffered, or contrary to 
 his own desire to win a crown of martyrdom, which 
 he conceived he might make sure of by an attempt 
 to assassinate the czar. In all other religious mat- 
 ters, Peter acted with the greatest prudence, and 
 practised and enjoined the most unbounded tolera- 
 tion — an example that has been followed by all 
 his successors. 
 
 It needs no ghost from the grave to tell us, that, if 
 the union of church and state be an evil, the separate 
 temporal power of the church is a worse. Peter 
 eflfected its total destruction, without the merciless 
 persecutions and oppressions that have commemo- 
 rated the downfall of hierarchies in other countries. 
 He did not attempt to depose the prelate in posses- 
 sion, though he curbed his ghostly power. When 
 the patriarch remonstrated with him against chan- 
 ging the ancient customs of his subjects, and espe- 
 cially their dress, without their consent and against 
 their will, — 
 
 ^'Father," replied the czar, *''are you not the 
 head of the Russian church ? " 
 
48 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 ^^ Yes, sire, by your favor," rejoined the prelate. 
 
 '' Then why do you turn head and advocate of 
 tailors ? " asked Peter. " I intend to give my sub- 
 jects better proofs of my love and care than what 
 depends on the imaginary consequence of dress." 
 
 When this aged prelate died, Peter declared 
 himself head of the church, and would suffer no 
 successor to be elected. He appointed the learned 
 metropolitan of Rezan, instead, to the administration 
 of affairs, and ordered the chief clergy to degrade 
 one of their number for censuring the measure. 
 On their excuse, that they had no spiritual power 
 to degrade their equal, he appointed a bishop of his 
 own, for the express purpose. There was much 
 grumbling ; but it availed the malcontents nothing. 
 
 One law he made that should alone immortalize 
 him ; a law that many civilized nations may blush 
 to read to this day. He forbade any man in the 
 public service, any settled burgess, and, above all, 
 any minor, to enter a monastery. 
 
 Women have especial reason to bless the despot 
 Peter's name. He first ordained that no couple 
 should be married without their own free consent, 
 or till after an acquaintance of at least six weeks. 
 The consequences have been, that there has been 
 less cruelty on tne part of husbands, and fewer ex- 
 ecutions of wives for the murder of their partners. 
 He also ordered his married nobles to travel, and 
 to take their wives with them, that they might 
 share their opportunities for information and im- 
 provement. 
 
 The Russians began their year in September, 
 because they imagined that the world was created 
 in autumn, when the fruits were ripe. Peter 
 taught them that the wosld had two hemispheres, 
 and reformed their calendar. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 49 
 
 Peter was not omniscient : of course, his judg- 
 ment was not always correct. We cannot see 
 what right he had to enact sumptuary laws, or by 
 what association of ideas he connected them with 
 civilization. We do not see the use or propriety 
 of taking off men's beards by force. Nevertheless, 
 a despotic government is necessarily a military one, 
 and the first principle of law martial is, that orders 
 must be obeyed, right or wrong. The general who 
 suffers the soldier to dispute his commands, has 
 virtually laid down his authority from that mo- 
 ment. Having once ordered his subjects to be 
 shaved, it became matter of necessity with Peter 
 to depilate their chins ; for, from the moment when 
 the ukase of an emperor of Russia shall have been 
 successfully resisted, the empire will date its decay 
 and dissolution. Who, and especially what mili- 
 tary man, can doubt, that, had the Polish insurrec- 
 tion been successful, Lithuania, Finland, Livonia, 
 and all the former Swedish provinces, would also 
 have revolted, and that Russia, in fine, would have 
 been dismembered, and carried back to the political 
 weakness and condition in which Ivan Vassilie- 
 vitsch found it ? 
 
 The rapidity with which Peter achieved his 
 work of improvement justifies his violence, as it 
 was only exerted for good. But for the terror 
 he inspired, St. Petersburg and the Russian navy 
 would not now be in existence. The priesthood 
 powerfully aided him in his undertaking ; not from 
 good-will, or because they comprehended his aims, 
 but because it was unsafe for them to do otherwise. 
 When he commanded the peasantry to shave, as a 
 practice of cleanliness, they, regarding the excres- 
 cence as a sacred relic of nationality, consulted 
 one of the bishops on the propriety of compliance. 
 5 
 
50 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 '^ Death is the penahy of disobedience, my friends," 
 repHed the prelate. '' 1 recommend to you to com- 
 ply with the imperial ukase. Remember, that 
 beards will grow again ; but heads will not." 
 
 The Russian character is more deeply and 
 thoroughly imbued with loyalty than that of any 
 other nation of whom history tells, with the excep- 
 tion, perhaps, of the Chinese and Japanese. Be- 
 fore Peter forbade them, the Russians gloried in 
 calling themselves their prince's slaves. His will 
 they regarded, and regard, as the will of God, and 
 their paramount rule of action. A yoke that, under 
 a bad monarch, would be insupportable, has been 
 rendered easy and natural to the nation by religious 
 feeling and long habit. They tremble or exult at 
 the very sight of the emperor, accordingly as they 
 believe he has reason to be displeased with them, 
 or otherwise. Would he permit it, they would 
 throw themselves at his feet as he passes ; and 
 they confess, with their lips and their lives, that 
 they have nothing of their own, and that they hold 
 their lives and possessions of his bounty, and only 
 during his gracious pleasure. The czar is the 
 head of the church and state, the chief of the army, 
 and the fountain of rewards and honors ; but would 
 all this have sufficed to make Russian loyalty a 
 religion and a fanaticism, if the imperial power had 
 not ever been exerted for the good of the people ? 
 if it had not ever been the barrier between them 
 and oppression ? Would he have ever received the 
 endearing title of "father," from his subjects, if 
 he had not deserved it ? 
 
 When Alexis conspired against his father, Peter 
 the Great, and was by him condemned to death, 
 Prince Menzikoff was charged with the execution 
 of the sentence. At sunset, looking from a win- 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 51 
 
 dow of his palace, Peter thought he saw his son 
 mount the scaffold ; he saw the axe ghtter, and the 
 head fall. He was mistaken ; hoping that he would 
 relent, Menzikoff had deceived him, and the next 
 day informed him that Alexis still lived. Peter 
 renewed the sentence, and, this time, Alexis saved 
 his head by dying a natural death. The reader 
 may suppose that some condemned criminal was 
 executed in the czaro witch's stead. Not so ; it was 
 a young soldier, who, of his own free will, had 
 offered to die for his prince ; and were a substitute 
 for the emperor, or his son, wanted now, there 
 would not be lacking multitudes ready and ea- 
 ger to lay their heads on the block, either in the 
 army or among the people. 
 
 The merit of this devotedness is enhanced by 
 the fact, that few of the great crimes which imply 
 and involve a contempt of life are committed in 
 Russia; murder scarcely ever, though theft and 
 robbery are of daily and hourly occurrence. The 
 Russian depredator is neither ferocious nor cruel. 
 Peter himself has left us his reasons for depriv- 
 ing his son of the succession. After a long list 
 of his causes of complaint against Alexis, he pro- 
 ceeds, — 
 
 "Albeit, our son, by so long a course of dis- 
 obedience against us, his father and lord, and par- 
 ticularly by the dishonor he hath cast upon us in 
 the face of the world, by withdrawing himself and 
 raising calumnies of us, and by opposing his sov- 
 ereign, hath deserved to be punished with death, 
 nevertheless, our paternal affection inclines us to 
 have mercy on him, and we, therefore, pardon his 
 crimes, and exempt him from all punishments of 
 the same ; but, considering his unworthiness, we 
 cannot, in conscience, leave him after us the sue- 
 
62 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 cession of the throne of Russia, foreseeing that he 
 would entirely destroy the glory of our nation and 
 the safety of our dominions, which, through God's 
 assistance, we have acquired and established by an 
 incessant application. 
 
 "As we should pity our faithful subjects if, by 
 such a successor, we should throw them back into 
 a worse condition than they were ever in yet, so, 
 by the paternal authority, in virtue of which, by 
 the laws of our empire, afiy even of our subjects 
 may disinherit a son, and in quality of sovereign 
 prince, we do deprive our son Alexis of the succes- 
 sion, even though there should not remain a single 
 person of our family after us, &c. 
 
 '' We lay upon our said son Alexis our paternal 
 curse, if ever he pretends to, or reclaims, the suc- 
 cession ; and all those who shall ever, at any time, 
 oppose this our will, and shall dare to consider our 
 son Alexis as our successor, or to assist him in 
 that purpose, we declare traitors to us and their 
 country." i 
 
 From what is positively known of the character 
 of Alexis, it appears, that, in so much as is here set 
 down, Peter acted justly, wisely, and patriotically. 
 This young man, by his own showing, was per- 
 verted and corrupted by priests and flatterers. 
 
 In 1717, Peter again instituted an investigation 
 into abuses and oppressions of the people. Prince 
 Wolkonski, the governor of Archangel, was shot, 
 and Peter did not spare even his favorites, Menzi- 
 koff and Apraxin. He endeavored to regulate the 
 administration of justice, by instituting the colleges 
 of the governments, and a legislative committee, 
 taking the code of his father, Alexis, for the basis 
 of his new system. He also erected a commercial 
 college, and treated the commercial class with dis- 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 53 
 
 tinction. He sent the sons of his principal boyarins 
 to different parts of Europe, to learn ; taking him- 
 self the pains to ascertain their several peculiar 
 talents, and recommending their several studies ; 
 and this he did without putting their parents to 
 charges, paying their expenses from the public 
 treasury. He forbade his subjects to write them- 
 selves his slaves. What did he not do, to refine 
 and elevate his people ? Not the least, or the least 
 worthy, of his doings, was the banishment of the 
 Jesuits from the soil of Russia. 
 
 The death of his son and heir had well nigh 
 cost Peter his life ; but one of his first acts, after 
 his recovery, was for the benefit of his country, 
 and the best interests of religion. It was the in- 
 stitution of the '' Holy Directing Synod," designed 
 to put an end to the hierarchy. In 1721, he con- 
 cluded the peace of Nystadt, by which Livonia, 
 Esthonia, and Ingria, with Wiburg and Kexholm, 
 were added to Russia ; and its power was fixed on 
 a basis that has not yet been, and is not likely soon 
 to be shaken. This great event was celebrated 
 by an act of mercy ; a general pardon of offenders, 
 (murderers and incorrigible robbers excepted,) and a 
 remission of all claims of the crown prior to 1717. 
 
 The holy synod and the senate prayed Peter, in 
 the name of the nation, to accept the titles of 
 " Father of his country, and Emperor of all the 
 Russias, with the surname of the Great." 
 
 If what a man creates with his own hands is his 
 property, Peter had earned a better right to treat 
 Russia as his own than any other monarch that 
 ever lived. But his views went farther than his 
 own benefit ; they reached to posterity. To pre- 
 vent his great creation from falling into incompe- 
 tent hands, and his work from stopping short of its 
 5* 
 
54 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 accomplishment, he decreed that the sovereign 
 should have full power to appoint his successor, 
 and to change the appointment, should he think fit. 
 
 He separated the legislative from the judicial 
 function, by ordering that no senator should sit in 
 a court of justice, and that no president of a court 
 of justice should hold a seat in the senate. 
 
 In 1722, he instituted new investigations for 
 maladministration, and condemned his favorite, the 
 Vice-Chancellor Schaffiroff, to death. His sen- 
 tence, however, was, on the scaffold, commuted to 
 banishment. MenzikofF was amerced in a fine of 
 twenty thousand rubles, and severely flogged by 
 the emperor's own hand. Many other nobles were 
 punished in like manner. 
 
 The remainder of Peter's life was employed 
 in continuing the Ladoga canal, and protecting St. 
 Petersburg against inundations ; in the erection of 
 an academy of arts and sciences ; the trials of 
 state criminals, the promotion of the labors of the 
 legislature, the reformation and improvement of the 
 clergy, the retrenchment of their exorbitant rev- 
 enues ; and in the formation of commercial treaties. 
 
 He died at the age of fifty-three, in February, 
 1725, and the last thing on his lips was an act of 
 mercy, viz., the general pardon of all offenders ; 
 even conspirators against his person and govern- 
 ment. 
 
 It may not be amiss, here, briefly to recapitulate 
 what was done, by the most arbitrary sovereign on 
 earth, for the advancement of the welfare of his 
 subjects, over and above what has already been 
 stated. 
 
 Augustus boasted that he had found Rome a city 
 of brick, and left it one of marble. Peter the Great 
 found the delta of the Neva a trackless swamp, and 
 left — St. Petersburg. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 55 
 
 He found the Russian army a mob ; he left it a 
 body of a hundred thousand infantry, as effective 
 as any in Europe. Want of horses, only, hindered 
 him from creating as good a cavalry. 
 
 At the beginning of his reign, Russia had not so 
 much as a gun-boat, and was as little a maritime 
 country as Paraguay. Peter left a navy of forty 
 ships of the line, two hundred galleys, and several 
 excellent harbors, seaport towns, and cities. 
 
 He established excellent municipal regulations 
 in all the cities of Russia, once as unsafe as 
 Hounslow Heath, or the roads of Calabria. 
 
 He left a naval and maritime college, to which 
 the nobility were obliged to send their children — 
 
 Colleges in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kiow, 
 where the languages and sciences were taught, and 
 schools in all the towns and villages, where the 
 children of the peasantry learned — what even the 
 nobility and clergy were ignorant of before — to read 
 and write. Till then, the use of the numeral ci- 
 phers was unknown in Russia ; a kind of tally, 
 made with beads strung on wire, was employed in- 
 stead, even in the czar's treasury. Nay, when the 
 Patriarch Micon would have established two pro- 
 fessorships of Latin and Greek, at Moscow, in the 
 reign of Alexis Michaelowitz, he was disgraced for 
 the mere intention. So great was the difference 
 between Peter and his father ! It was common 
 among the Russians, till Peter's time, to say, when 
 speaking of any thing hard to be comprehended, 
 that '' God and the czar only knew it " — 
 
 A college of physicians, an excellent dispensa- 
 tory, at Moscow. Before Peter's time, the czar's 
 own physician was usually the only one in Russia. 
 
 He had instituted public lectures in anatomy, a 
 science whose very name was till then unknown. 
 
56 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 For this purpose he had bought M. Ruisch's excel- 
 lent cabinet, in itself a perpetual lecture. The .dis- 
 contented monks used his own printing-presses, to 
 prove that Peter was Antichrist ; for, they argued, 
 he shaved the living, and dissected the dead in his 
 anatomical college ; moreover, the number 666 
 was not in his name. The author of this libel 
 himself furnished a practical subject for a lecture 
 on anatomy, being broken on the wheel for his 
 ingenuity. 
 
 Not long before Peter's time, there was a surgeon 
 in Moscow, who had a skeleton hung up in his 
 chamber, near the window. One day, certain 
 Strelitzes, passing by, saw the skeleton swinging 
 in the wind, and at the same time heard the sur- 
 geon playing on the flute. Forthwith they re- 
 ported that the dead bones had danced to the doc- 
 tor's music, which was confirmed by others, who 
 were sent to inquire into the truth, and the man of 
 science only saved his life by flight from the coun- 
 try. The populace, however, dragged the skeleton 
 about the streets and burned it, as they would have 
 done its owner, if they could have laid hands on 
 him. 
 
 Peter left a botanical garden, collected, not only 
 from all parts of Europe, but from Persia, and all 
 accessible parts of Asia, not excepting China ; a 
 very extensive royal library, collected from Eng- 
 land, Holstein, and Germany ; and a flourishing 
 trade, for the encouragement of which he had built 
 new towns, dug canals, and made roads, including 
 that from Moscow to St. Petersburg, a distance of 
 about four hundred and fifty miles. 
 
 He had caused the orthography of the Sclavo- 
 nian tongue to be reformed, and improved the form 
 of the types. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. B7 
 
 He had caused the Bible to be printed, and 
 obhged every father of a family to take, at least, 
 one copy ; and it was therefore sold very cheap. 
 Moreover, he commanded the clergy to preach only 
 from the Scriptures. 
 
 He left an observatory where, in the beginning 
 of the seventeenth century, the secretary of a Per- 
 sian ambassador, on his way through Russia to 
 Denmark, very narrowly escaped being burned 
 alive, by the ignorant and superstitious populace, 
 for having calculated and predicted an eclipse of 
 the sun. The prediction was at first scouted, as 
 such knowledge appeared impossible without sor- 
 cery ; but, when the sun grew dim, it was not 
 without difficulty that the secretary was rescued by 
 the guards. 
 
 The eulogists of Petei* the Great have left uS 
 nothing more to say in his praise ; he needs nothing ; 
 his works are his best eulogium, and to them we 
 have left it. The rest of the works of Peter Alex- 
 iowitsch, and what he did, and how he warred, and 
 all his might, are they not written in all the chroni- 
 cles of all the nations of Europe, and all the books 
 of the kings of Persia and Turkey ? We have said 
 enough, however, to show that absolute monarchy 
 may be favorable to improvement, and, in conse- 
 quence, ultimately, to liberty. If the Almighty, in 
 his infinite goodness and wisdom, ever chose a hu- 
 man instrument to work out a people's regenera- 
 tion, Peter was that man. To his inspiration, the 
 wisdom of all other reformers appears as folly, and 
 their works, compared with his, look like ant-hills 
 beside the eternal pyramids. 
 
58 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EARLY CONDITION OF POLAND. — FACTS FROM 
 HISTORY. 
 
 As we have not pretended to give a history of 
 Russia, the reader will doubtless not expect one 
 from us of Poland. There are abundance of his- 
 tories, geographies, and patriotic tracts, to which he 
 may refer for any particular information he may 
 need. Our business with Poland is merely to con- 
 sider its relations with Russia. 
 
 The disjointed fragments of this unhappy king- 
 dom, then, are supposed to contain about 20,000,000 
 of people, of whom 4,298,962, including up- 
 wards of 213,000 Jews, are natives of Russian 
 Poland. The state of cultivation is extremely 
 wretched, though the soil is productive and the 
 climate regular. The peasantry are poor, dirty, 
 improvident, lazy, and, like the same class of Rus- 
 sians, given to drunkenness. Of course, the aspect 
 of the country is rude and backward, the roads 
 wretched, and the inns miserable.* Once, previous 
 to A. D. 1667, the present kingdom of Poland is 
 said to have contained 16,000,000 of inhabitants. 
 This is, we believe, a very great exaggeration ; but, 
 considering the distracted state of the country, and 
 the turmoils in which it has been involved, the de- 
 crease must have been very great. 
 
 Before the year 1772, Poland, the most ex- 
 tensive level country in Europe, contained, to- 
 gether with Lithuania, 11,500,000 inhabitants, 
 
 * Encyclopedia Americana, and a hundred other authorities. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 59 
 
 at the iitmostj who, under upwards of 200,000 
 petty masters, derived as little advantage from 
 the nominal freedom of the miscalled republic as 
 from the fertility of the soil. Industry was torpid ; 
 the whip of the Polish noble, as of every other 
 slave-driver, was its only stimulus; Jew and Gen- 
 tile drowned sorrow in aqua vitcB, together ; for 
 their common sentiment and saying was, '' Only 
 what I drink is mine." Wolves and wild beasts, 
 though fierce and many, were the least of the na- 
 tion's nuisances. 
 
 An able writer observes of this people that, in 
 their struggles, without beginning or end, with the 
 Goths, and Huns, and Germans, and in their inter- 
 nal broils, they had acquired a wonderful elasticity 
 of character, compounded of obstinacy and pliancy, 
 of defiance and submission, of servility and national 
 pride. They received Christianity and letters late 
 in the tenth century, and were then first called 
 Poles. They were ever at war with their neigh- 
 bors, and with each other, with no other bond of 
 union among them than a common reigning family 
 (the Piasts) and a common name. Broken into 
 petty principalities, like all tribes of barbarians, 
 without laws or freedom, their history is not worth 
 tracing ; and, the pretended civilization and learn- 
 ing of both nations to the contrary notwithstanding, 
 Poland was in a no more respectable condition 
 than Ireland under Rory O'Connor and Dermot 
 McMurrough. The tree of liberty stood without 
 roots, till it was overthrown. There could be no 
 more real freedom in an elective monarchy or re- 
 public, call it by what name we may, where the 
 noble only was a citizen, than in Russia, where 
 noble and serf were alike slaves ; or in Georgia and 
 South Carolina, where a like barbarous and unnat^ 
 
60 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 ural state of society prevails. Such a many-headed 
 monster as such a state, never can live long without 
 external support. 
 
 Successively deprived of the Oder, Silesia, the 
 Baltic, the Dnieper and the Carpathian range, — its 
 natural defences, — and devoid of the self-contained 
 strength of cohesion, Poland has always been a 
 prey to foreigners. We should as soon think of 
 recording the squabbles of kites and crows as the 
 early history of its early convulsions, which neu- 
 tralized even the effect of Christianity. The line 
 of the Piasts expired with its last and best prince, 
 Casimir, surnamed, by the descendants of his sub- 
 jects, — if such a term, as applied to them, is not a 
 misnomer, — for his wise endeavors to create social 
 order, ''the Great." Even he was compelled to 
 yield portions of his territory to the Germans. 
 
 The patriots of Poland then began to barter their 
 votes, as they have continued to do ever since, for 
 personal privileges and advantages, at the expense 
 of their country. Who were the bidders, and what 
 were the bids for the Polish crown, it were need- 
 less and, useless to say ; suffice it, that it passed to 
 the Jagellons, dukes of Lithuania, by election and 
 marriage. United with Lithuania, a country speak- 
 ing a different language and professing a different 
 religion, (not Christianity,) the nobility of both 
 states, with that of Great and Little Poland, con- 
 stituted one diet, and became the most powerful 
 state in the north. Still, the succession was matter 
 of bargain and sale, and -the nobles engrossed the 
 entire representation, to the exclusion of the peo- 
 ple. They appeared at the diet by nuncios or 
 deputies from the several districts ; without whose 
 consent no change could be made in the constitu- 
 tion of the state. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 61 
 
 The era of the Jagellons was the palmiest day 
 of Poland. There being no such thing in the 
 kingdom as a people, or third class, to hold the 
 balance of power between the king and the nobles, 
 the monarch had no alternative, but to do as all 
 kings, of all nations, have done, or tried to do, in 
 like circumstances — to make the government a per- 
 fect despotism. Need we ask the reader to recur 
 to the despotism of Nadir Shah, of the Tudors and 
 the Capets ? Need we speak of the struggles of the 
 monarchs of Spain with their nobles, to show that 
 such is the inevitable condition of a land where 
 the people have no rights? Many kings of Poland, 
 in after times, attempted to reduce the nobles ; but 
 there was no Henry Tudor, no Peter Alexiowitsch, 
 among them. Moreover, they lacked the only arms 
 by which a powerful aristocracy can be effectually 
 subdued — wealth and a standing army. Then, as 
 in the late insurrection, the aristocracy was the 
 army, and the army was the aristocracy ; and it 
 disposed of the revenues at its pleasure. •' The 
 king was a puppet, and the people ciphers." 
 
 After the last of the Jagellons, Poland again be- 
 came an elective — what shall we call it ? a mon- 
 archy, where the crown was a bought bauble? or 
 a republic, where the great mass of the people had 
 no representation, and no portion in the common- 
 wealth but air, water, and servitude ? The nobles 
 convened in mass, and conferred the crown on 
 Henry of Anjou, of the blood royal of France, who 
 accepted it with regret, at the command of his 
 brother, Charles IX. Whether it was obtained for 
 him by bribery, or whether jealousy of each other 
 prompted the nobles in their choice, we shall not 
 inquire ; either cause has seated foreigners on the 
 throne of Poland, a score of times. Nay, it seems 
 6 
 
62 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 very probable that a less wealthy Jew than either 
 of the Rothschilds might have bought the nobility 
 almost at any time. Henry first swore to the pac- 
 ta conventa, or magna charta, of the Polish nobility, 
 at his coronation — nearly the same coronation oath 
 that was administered down to the triple partition. 
 It made the crown elective, required the convoca- 
 tion of the diet once in two years, and deprived 
 the king of all active power. It contained one 
 good thing, however ; it bound him to perfect tol- 
 eration in religion. Henry absconded from Poland 
 within the year, to escape the degrading honor 
 thrust upon him. 
 
 The attempts of the Swede Sigismund, the next 
 foreigner called to the throne, to unite the two 
 kingdoms of the north, procured Poland the advan- 
 tages of thirty years' foreign and civil war, and of 
 a law (enacted by the diet in 1609) authorizing 
 and legalizing rebellion and insurrection, the great 
 available pretext of Polish patriotism to this day. 
 
 The very pretexts of a bond of Polish union, and 
 a Polish form of government, were renounced in 
 1614, in the reign of John Casimir, when the 
 nobles willed themselves the liherum veto, by 
 which an individual deputy could negative the 
 votes of all the rest ; equivalent to making Judge 
 Lynch speaker and dictator of the diet, in which a 
 deputy could only vote (sometimes literally) sword 
 in hand, and at the peril of his life. Intimidation 
 was the settled policy of the majority. 
 
 It is related, in illustration of the freedom of de- 
 bate, and the personal sanctity conferred on the 
 members of the diet by the liherum veto, that, on 
 one occasion, a stubborn deputy concealed himself 
 in the large empty Russian stove that stood in the 
 representative hall, to veto a contemplated law. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 63 
 
 Had he appeared openly, he might have been si- 
 lenced before he had an opportunity to utter a 
 syllable. As it was, he thrust out his head ; but it 
 left his body before the words had time to leave his 
 lips, obedient to the ready sabre's edge of a brother 
 deputy. 
 
 After the death of the great Sobieski, whose 
 wisdom and valor for a while delayed its downfall, 
 the crown of Poland was openly sold to the high- 
 est bidder. When Augustus II., elector of Saxony, 
 and king, by purchase and force, of Poland, was 
 compelled to seek protection from his own nobles, 
 in the arms of Russia, the fate of Poland was de- 
 cided. It is impossible to imagine a class of men 
 more unredeemedly corrupt than the Polish oligar- 
 chy of that period. The Swedes did then, and 
 without in the least exciting the sympathy of other 
 nations in favor of Poland, what the Russians did 
 afterwards ; they disposed of the Polish crown. 
 
 At the diets of 1733 and 1736, the Lutheran dis- 
 sidents were made personally incapable of the office 
 of deputy, deprived of access to all courts of justice, 
 excluded from all civil offices, and put on a footing 
 with the privileged Jews ; at the same time it was 
 made high treason for them to seek foreign protec- 
 tion. Corruption was universal and absolute, and, 
 moreover, in a high state of fermentation when the 
 weak Poniatowski came to the throne. This man 
 (king he can scarcely be called) sought the pro- 
 tection of Russia against the rebellious pride of his 
 nobles, and thereby, it is to be hoped for the benefit 
 of liberty and humanity, extinguished the oligarchy 
 forever ; for it is sarcasm to call it either a kingdom 
 or a republic. 
 
 To illustrate the condition of Poland down to 
 the reign of Stanislas Augustus Poniatowski, we 
 
64 
 
 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 cannot do better than quote the undenied and 
 undeniable account of Voltaire ; — though even that 
 most concise and nervous of historians gives us 
 but a faint idea of the misery and abjection of 
 that unhappy land. 
 
 " Poland is a little larger, but less populous, than 
 France. Its inhabitants have been Christians only 
 about seven hundred years.* This great country 
 is very fertile ; but its people are, therefore, only 
 the lazier. The mechanics and traders to be found 
 in Poland are Scotch, Frenchmen, and, above 
 all, Jews, who have about three hundred syna- 
 gogues, and will be driven thence on account of 
 their multiplication, as they have been from Spain. 
 They buy the com, cattle, and provisions, of the 
 country at a low rate, to barter at Dantzic, and ia 
 Germany ; and sell dearly to the nobles the means 
 of such luxury as they love and are acquainted 
 with. Thus this country, watered by the noblest 
 rivers, rich in pasturage and salt mines, and clothed 
 with harvests, remains poor, in spite of its abun- 
 dance, because the people are slaves, and the nobles 
 are proud and ignorant. 
 
 *'Its government is the most faithful copy of 
 the old Gothic and Celtic governments, corrupted, 
 or corrected, throughout, however. It is the only 
 state that has retained the name of a republic to- 
 gether with the royal dignity. 
 
 " Every gentleman has a vote in the election of 
 the king, and may be king himself. This most 
 precious of rights is coupled with the greatest 
 abuses; the throne is almost always at auction, 
 and, as a Pole is rarely rich enough to buy it, it 
 has often been sold to foreigners. The nobles 
 
 * Voltaire wrote a century ago. * 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 65 
 
 and clergy defend their liberty from the king, and 
 deprive the rest of the nation of thei«s. The 
 people are all slaves ; so true is it that it is every 
 where the fate of man, that, in one way or another, 
 the greater number shall be subjugated by the less. 
 There, the peasant sows not for himself, but for 
 a lord, to whom he, and his grounds, and the labor 
 of his hands belong, and who may sell or slaughter 
 him with the beasts of the field. Every one of 
 noble birth is accountable only to the nobility : 
 an entire assembly of the nation is requisite to try 
 him on a criminal charge ; he cannot be ap- 
 prehended till after condemnation, and, therefore, 
 punishment seldom or never takes place. There 
 are many poor nobles, who enter the service of the 
 more powerful, receive their wages, and perform 
 the lowest offices — preferring to serve their equals 
 to enriching themselves by trade ; and they style 
 themselves electors of kings and destroyers of ty- 
 rants, while they curry their masters' horses ! * 
 
 " He who should behold a king of Poland in the 
 pomp of his regal majesty, would take him for the 
 most absolute prince in Europe ; and yet he is the 
 least so. The Poles, indeed, enter with him into 
 the contract that is supposed to exist between 
 prince and subject in other countries. Even at 
 his coronation, while swearing to the pacta con- 
 venta^ he absolves his subjects of their oath of 
 allegiance, in case he should break the laws of 
 the republic. 
 
 " He nominates all officers, and confers all hon- 
 ors. Nothing is hereditary in Poland, but lands 
 and the rank of noble. The son of a king, or a 
 palatine, has no claim to the dignity of his father ; 
 but there is this great difference between the king 
 
 * Does not this account for the ease with which a Polish army 
 is raised, or an insurrection got up ? 
 
 6* 
 
66 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 and the republic ; the king can take away no office 
 after having conferred it; whereas the republic can 
 take away his crown, if he transgresses the laws 
 of the state. 
 
 " The nobles, jealous of their liberty, often sell 
 their votes; — but their love, rarely. Scarcely 
 have they elected a king, when they dread his 
 ambition, and oppose him with their cabals. The 
 men he has made great, and cannot unmake, often 
 become his enemies, instead of remaining his crea- 
 tures. Those attached to the court are hated by 
 the rest of the nobility ; and thus there are always 
 two parties — the inevitable, and, indeed, necessary 
 division of a country that will have liberty and 
 kings too. 
 
 " Whatever concerns the nation is settled in the 
 assembly of the general estates, called the diet 
 These estates are constituted of the senate and a 
 number of gentlemen. The senators are palatines 
 and bishops : the second order is composed of dep- 
 uties from the several palatine diets. The arch- 
 bishop of Gnesne, primate of Poland, vicar of the 
 kingdom in case of interregnum, and first person in 
 it next to the king, presides in these great assem- 
 blies. It is seldom that there is another cardinal 
 in Poland ; because, as the Roman purple gives no 
 precedence in the senate, a cardinal-bishop would 
 be obliged either to sit in his place as senator, 
 or to renounce the solid privileges of his dignity 
 in his own country, to maintain the pretensions of 
 a foreign rank. 
 
 " By the laws of the kingdom, these diets should 
 be alternately held in Poland and Lithuania. The 
 deputies often settle their affairs in them sabre in 
 hand,* like the ancient Sarmatians, their fore- 
 
 • This pugnacity may account for the sympatliies of our mem> 
 bers of Congress with the Poles 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 67 
 
 fathers ; and sometimes even in the midst of drunk- 
 enness, a vice of which the Sarmatians were igno- 
 rant. Every gentleman deputed to these general 
 estates enjoys the right the tribunes of the people 
 had, in Rome, of opposing the laws of the senate. 
 By saying, I protest ^ a single gentleman frustrates 
 the unanimous resolutions of all the rest, and, if 
 he leaves the place where the diet is held, it must 
 then separate. 
 
 " The remedy applied to the evils that arise 
 from this law is more dangerous still. Rarely is 
 Poland without two factions. Unanimity in diets 
 being, therefore, impossible, each party forms a 
 confederation, in which questions are carried by 
 the plurality of voices, without regard to the re- 
 monstrances of the minority. These assemblies, 
 illegal by the laws, but sanctioned by custom, are 
 held in the king's name, though often against his 
 will, and contrary to his interests ; much as the 
 League in France made use of the name of Henry 
 III. to overwhelm him, and as the Parliament of 
 England, who beheaded Charles I. upon a scaf- 
 fold, began by putting his name to every reso- 
 lution they made for his destruction. When the 
 troubles are over, it belongs to the general diets to 
 confirm, or annul, the acts of these confederations. 
 A diet may even change all that the diet preceding 
 has done, for the same reason by which, in a mo- 
 narchical state, a king may abolish the laws of his 
 predecessor, and his own. 
 
 " The nobility, who make the laws of the repub- 
 lic, also constitute its force. They take horse on 
 great occasions, and may compose a body of more 
 than a hundred thousand men. This great army, 
 called the pospolite, moves with difficulty, and is 
 ill governed. The difficulty of procuring subsist- 
 
68 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 ence and forage makes it impossible for it to hold 
 long together ; an^ discipline, subordination, and 
 experience, are lacking ; but the love of liberty 
 (liberty !) that animates it renders it always for- 
 midable. 
 
 '' It may be beaten, or dispersed, or, for a while, 
 enslaved ; but it soon shakes off the yoke. The 
 pospolite compare themselves to reeds, bowed down 
 by the tempest, that rise as soon as the wind ceases 
 to blow. For that reason it is, that they have no 
 fortified places ; they desire to be the only ramparts 
 of their republic ; they never suffer their king to 
 build fortresses, for fear he should use them, less to 
 defend, than to oppress them. Their country is 
 every where open, with the exception of two or 
 three frontier places, — so that if, in their civil or for- 
 eign wars, they ever persist in standing a siege, 
 they are obliged to throw up earthen fortifications 
 in a hurry, to repair old, half-ruined walls, to deepen 
 ditches almost filled up ; and the city is taken be- 
 fore the intrenchments are completed. 
 
 " The pospolite are not constantly mounted in 
 defence of the country ; they get to horse only by 
 command of the diet, or, in extreme dangers, some- 
 times at the king's simple order. 
 
 '' The ordinary defence of Poland is an army 
 always to be kept on foot at the expense of the re- 
 public. It consists of two bodies, under two differ- 
 ent grand generals. The first corps is the army of 
 Poland, and should consist of thirty-six thousand 
 men ; the second, to the number of twelve thou- 
 sand, is the army of Lithuania. The two grand 
 generals are independent of each other. Albeit 
 appointed by the king, they render an account of 
 their operations only to the republic, and their au- 
 thority over their trooj^s is supreme. The colonels 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 69 
 
 are absolute masters of their regiments : it is their 
 business to maintain them as they can, and to pay 
 them ; but, being rarely paid themselves, they rav- 
 age the country, and ruin the cultivators, to gratify 
 their own rapacity and their soldiers'. The Polish 
 lords live more magnificently with these armies 
 than in the cities ; their tents are handsomer than 
 their houses. The cavalry, which constitutes two 
 thirds of the army, consists almost wholly of gen- 
 tlemen, and is remarkable for the beauty of its 
 horses and the richness of its dresses and harnesses. 
 
 ''The gendarmes, above all, who are distin- 
 guished as hussars and pancernes, never stir unac- 
 companied by several valets with led horses, deco- 
 rated with silver, plated, and studded bridles, em- 
 broidered saddles, gilded saddlebows and stirrups, 
 and sometimes solid silver ones, and wide, trailing 
 housings, after the fashion of the Turks, whose 
 splendor the Poles imitate as much as they can. 
 
 " The infantry is as ill appointed, ill clad, and ill 
 armed, as the cavalry is ornate and superb ; without 
 regular uniform, or aught else ; such, at least, it 
 was till about the year 1710. These foot-soldiers, 
 who resemble vagabond Tartars, endure cold, hun- 
 ger, fatigue, and all the weight of the war, with 
 incredible fortitude. 
 
 " The character of the ancient Sarmatians, their 
 ancestors, may still be observed in the Polish sol- 
 diers — the same fury in attack, the same prompti- 
 tude in flight and return to battle, the same rage of 
 slaughter when victorious." 
 
 Such was, in brief, the history, such the govern- 
 ment, condition, and character, such the liberty of 
 a people whom the world pities for having been 
 conquered, by no means for the first time, and for 
 having lost their freedom by coming under the 
 
70 VliifDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 three strong and settled governments of Russia, 
 Austria, and Prussia ! We contend that such pity 
 and such sympathy are misplaced and wasted ; as 
 much so as our pity for Texas, when deprived by 
 Mexico of the privilege, or liberty, to perpetuate 
 and extend negro slavery. None of their wars, or 
 their rebellions, have been for national freedom ; on 
 the contrary, they have almost always been for the 
 slavery of the many, and the tyranny of the few. 
 The people, properly so called, took no part in them ; 
 and, as one master, however despotic and arbitrary, 
 is preferable to a hundred thousand, we maintain 
 that Poland is far better off under Nicholas, and 
 would be, under any government strong enough to 
 hold her quiet, than she ever was under any of her 
 own kings. She was not robbed of freedom ; for 
 she never had it ; and, at the time of the second par- 
 tition, her condition had come to that pass that no 
 change could have made it worse. We cannot 
 imagine a more deplorable state of affairs, in a coun- 
 try professing civilization and Christianity, than that 
 of Poland when she was a nation. Where was 
 there ever seen, elsewhere, a country of slaves ; a 
 prey to anarchy, murder, and misrule : where God 
 was not feared or man regarded ; without laws, or, 
 worse, with only such laws as were neither respect- 
 ed nor enforced ; where life was not safe, and prop- 
 erty was of no value ; without any one thing that 
 makes fatherland dear to man ; too weak to defend 
 itself, and owing its separate existence only to the 
 quarrels of its neighbors, and to the equal barbarism 
 of another nation, whose regenerated existence has, 
 at last, swallowed it up ? Never, since the creation 
 of the world, was misery seen equal to Poland's ; 
 not even in Morocco, in the reign of Muley Ismael ; 
 for he, at least, had a monopoly of oppression 
 and murder. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 71 
 
 We do not say that all this is to be taken with- 
 out any qualification. We know that there was 
 learning among the Polish aristocracy, and valor, 
 and such patriotism as abhors the idea of submis- 
 sion to foreign dictation ; such patriotic indignation 
 as the Thugs felt, when suppressed by the British, 
 in India. We know that there were brilliant peri- 
 ods in Polish history, — as, for example, when the 
 great genius of John Sobieski would have redeemed 
 his country from contempt and barbarism, had 
 it been redeemable. We know that the yoke of 
 Poland was, at different periods, felt by other na- 
 tions, when they were shrouded in a night as dark 
 as her own. But we advise all sympathizers whom 
 the Polish Propaganda have deluded with fairy 
 tales of the old-world glories and freedom of Po- 
 land, just as Irish antiquarians babble of the civili- 
 zation of Ireland in the times of Brian Boroihme 
 and Milesius, to read history, and bless God that 
 they are not the inheritors from Polish fathers. 
 Happy had it been for Poland had she produced a 
 Peter Alexiowitsch, or even a Nadir Shah, ten centu- 
 ries ago ; happier is it for her that she has a Nicho- 
 las now, instead of a King Adam Czartoryski and a 
 revived oligarchy ! 
 
 During the thirty years' peaceful reign of Augus- 
 tus III., the pospolite almost wholly lost what effi- 
 cacy it ever had. It neglected all military exercises, 
 and became a mere inert mass, without arms, dis- 
 cipline, or subordination, and alike incapable of obe- 
 dience or command. In this reign arose the con- 
 spiracy, or plot, or whatever it may be called, that 
 has never since been abandoned, of the Czartorys- 
 kis, to overthrow the republic and establish mon- 
 archy.* It was frustrated by the real patriot- 
 
 * Rulhiere. 
 
72 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 ism of Grand General Count Branicki, the most 
 powerful person in Poland, who very justly pre- 
 ferred peace under one form of government, bad as 
 it was, to any change likely to be brought about by 
 English intrigue and private Polish ambition. 
 
 Stanislas Poniatowski, — the Manuel Godoy of 
 Poland, — by God's blessing the last of the Polish 
 kings, on whose fate so much ink and so many 
 tears have been expended, was as much a patriot 
 and hero as Miss Porter's " Thaddeus of Warsaw " 
 was an historical personage. He was a mere ele- 
 gant, weak, selfish sensualist and voluptuary, the 
 creature of the Czartoryskis, and the favorite of 
 Catherine II., whose favor he won by his personal 
 accomplishments, and was raised by her power and 
 influence to the throne. Nor are Catherine's am- 
 bitious views on Poland so much to be blamed as 
 they usually are. She may be in some degree ex- 
 cused for giving away what did not belong to her, 
 viz., the Polish crown, when we consider that 
 Prince Czartoryski first sent his emissary to her, 
 for such Poniatowski then was, to beg it as a fief. 
 Catherine must have been more disinterested and 
 conscientious than any other European monarch, 
 excepting Charles XII., has ever been, to disclaim a 
 supremacy so admitted. And it is the son and rep- 
 resentative of this very Czartoryski, who laid down 
 his country's national independence on the altar of 
 personal ambition, who now calls on Christendom to 
 help him to shake off the yoke his father voluntarily 
 put on, and to restore what that father threw away.* 
 
 * Augustus Czartoryski was palatine of Polish Russia; had ac- 
 quired great wealth by marriage, and had thousands of followers, 
 who looked up to him as their sovereign. He had all the power, 
 and none of the virtues or talents, of Warwick, the English king- 
 maker. 
 
 His brother Michael was a designing statesman, and con- 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 
 
 73 
 
 The conduct of Catherine is by no means with- 
 out a precedent in European history. It has a 
 perfect parallel in the course taken by Edward I., 
 of whom John Baliol offered to hold the crown of 
 Scotland as a fief. Edward did not hesitate to 
 accept it ; but there was this difference in the two 
 eases. The Scottish nation were not Poles. A 
 man of the people raised the people in resistance j 
 that people were vassals, but not slaves ; and Ed- 
 ward, as able, and, comparatively speaking, as pow- 
 erful a prince as Catherine, died at Burgh upoa 
 Sands, without having effected his object. 
 
 An idea of the character of the last king of this 
 unfortunate republic, as it is strangely called, may 
 be gathered from a single historical fact. Cathe- 
 rine's letter, announcing her husband's death and her 
 own accession, found him in bed. The messenger 
 also brought him a picture, representing the em- 
 press on both sides of him, painted as Bellona and 
 Minerva. Frantic with delight, Poniatovvski sprang 
 from his couch, and alternately poured forth his 
 thanksgiving to Heaven and the pictures. Such a 
 man was a fit sovereign for a people who, as an 
 historian by no means inimical to them remarks, 
 '^ had too long degraded themselves in the scale of 
 nations, to be able much to resent an insult." 
 
 When the first Russian army was obliged, by 
 Prince Radzivil, and the khan of the Tartars of 
 the Crimea, to retire from the territory of Poland, 
 the unfortunate royal patriot, Stanislas Poniatow- 
 ski, wept that his traitorous designs were frustrated. 
 " Your ambition misleads you," said the venerable 
 
 summate intriguer, and grand chancellor of Lithuania. It is re- 
 corded that he numbered upwards of a hundred thousand nobles on 
 his list of friends and partisans. The Czartoryskis were a branch 
 of the Jagellons. 
 
 7 
 
/ 4 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 Branicki ; "it is conducting you to slavery; and 
 perhaps your greatest success will only serve to 
 mark the epoch of the entire destruction of your 
 country.'^ Poniatowski answered only with tears, 
 and invectives against his opponents, and Branicki 
 never spoke to him again. 
 
 A question here arises : Did Catherine grasp 
 the crown of Poland as a fief of her own motion, 
 or did she act at the instigation of the Czar- 
 toryskis, who thought to use her as a tool, and 
 did so, at the expense of their own fingers ? We 
 shall see. 
 
 When the diet opened to elect a king, in 1764, 
 Poniatowski came into the senate with a Russian 
 guard ; the chamber was filled with Catherine's 
 soldiers. But eight senators out of fifty were 
 there ; and the Marshal Mokranowski, whose duty 
 it was, as marshal of the previous diet, to open the 
 session, did not make his appearance till he had 
 registered, in the very building thus occupied, a pro- 
 test against the legality of the overawed diet. He 
 entered the chamber only officially to suspend the 
 authority of the diet, as being under Russian 
 duress; whereupon several of the soldiers made a 
 rush at the bold patriot, to cut him down, and 
 he was obliged to draw his sword in his own de- 
 fence. " What, gentlemen ! " said he to the depu- 
 ties who wore the Czartoryski badge, "do the 
 deputies of the country wear the livery of a 
 family ? 
 
 " Gentlemen, since liberty no longer exists among 
 us," said the old marshal, then over eighty, " I car- 
 ry away this staff, and I will never raise it till the 
 republic is delivered from her troubles."* Again 
 
 * Raising the staff was the sign that the diet was opened. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 75 
 
 the weapons of the soldiers were raised. " Strike," 
 shouted he, throwing himself before the old man, 
 '^ strike ! I shall die free, and in the cause of 
 liberty ! " His enemies paused, and commanded 
 the marshal to resign the staff. " You may cut 
 off my hand, or take my life," he replied ; '' but I 
 am marshal, elected by a free people, and I can 
 only be deposed by a free people. I shall retire." 
 It was with the utmost difficulty and peril that he 
 was enabled to do so. 
 
 Eighty nobles, then, of the three hundred who 
 should have been present, constituted themselves a 
 diet, and elected Prince Adam Czartoryski marshal, 
 in defiance of law, custom, patriotism, right, and jus- 
 tice, and proceeded to proscribe all the leading con- 
 stitutionalists. It was then that the independence 
 of Poland was, not crushed by Russia, but basely 
 trampled on and cast away by Poles. The ex- 
 tinction of Poland dates from that day, not from 
 the triple partition ; and who shall say that Cath- 
 erine was the prime author of the wrong, if wrong 
 there were? 
 
 We reverence the character of such Poles as 
 Mokranowski and Branicki ; we admire the enthu- 
 siastic valor they displayed in their unavailing 
 struggles ; but — the truth must out — it was not 
 for the people they fought ; the mass had no inter- 
 est in the quarrel ; we never hear, in Polish history, 
 of a rising of the laboring classes. 
 
 In 1764, four thousand nobles only, out of the 
 usual number of eighty thousand, consummated the 
 election of Stanislas Poniatowski. The coronation 
 diet, by the direction of the Czartoryskis, made the 
 constitution virtually monarchical, and decreed two 
 statues to Augustus and Michael Czartoryski. On 
 
t b VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 the same night placards were posted with this 
 inscription — 
 
 ''erect two gibbets, THEIR FIT MONUMENTS.'"* 
 
 Upwards of twenty thousand Russian troops were 
 scattered over Poland to maintain Stanislas upon 
 the throne. 
 
 The Roman Catholic was the predominant re- 
 ligion in Poland. We have already seen that the 
 dissident nobles had been deprived of all personal 
 share in the government, though they could still 
 send deputies to the diet. They applied to the 
 election and coronation diets for redress ; but their 
 petition was treated with contempt, and their con- 
 dition rendered worse than before. They then in- 
 voked, and obtained, the protection of Catherine. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of the propriety of her 
 interference, there can be but one opinion of the 
 justice of her sentiments. 
 
 The Northern States of the Union complain of 
 the " gag law." 
 
 " It would be shutting one^s eyes to proofs, not 
 to admit as a principle, that the constant refusal 
 to listen to their representations, and to do justice 
 to their grievances, must necessarily produce the 
 effect of freeing them from their ties to an associa- 
 tion in whose advantages they would no longer 
 participate ; and that, restored fully to the condition 
 of the community of freemen, they will be author- 
 ized (without any law, divine or human, forbidding 
 such a step in their case) to choose among their 
 neighbors judges between them and their equals, 
 and to avail themselves of their alliance if they 
 cannot in any other way defend themselves from 
 persecution." 
 
 Here we once more see arbitrary power enlisted 
 
 * Solignac. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 77 
 
 in favor of indestructible rights. Stanislas, after a 
 great deal of hesitation, declared that he "was de- 
 termined to defend his holy religion^^^ which was 
 not attacked ; and the Polish nobles, so dead to the 
 honor and interest of their country, were, heart and 
 hand, unanimous in the cause of oppression and in- 
 tolerance. 
 
 On this occasion, and for the first time, we 
 find mention made, in Polish history, of peasants 
 and artisans counting for any thing in the scale of 
 society, and now only because the dissenting no- 
 bles were too few to form a party by themselves. 
 
 The war broke out. Catherine had used the 
 Poniatowski, or rather the Czartoryski party, as her 
 tools ; and now that they had become useless, she 
 broke and flung them away. She sided with the 
 constitutionalists. On the other hand, France 
 supported the traitorous party. Foreigners laid 
 waste the land, and the lawless conduct of the Po- 
 lish chiefs themselves excited such contempt of 
 the real rights of the Poles among their neighbors, 
 that, as Catherine said, they deemed Poland " a 
 country where it was only necessary to stoop, to 
 pick up something." On this feeling was founded 
 the triple partition of 1773, the death-blow of Po- 
 lish independence. When the Polish bishop of 
 Kamieniac applied to the grand vizier, Mahomet 
 Emin, for aid against the Russians, through the 
 ambassador Polocki, he replied with equal truth 
 and good sense, " He thinks we are not acquainted 
 with our own history. Tell him that the Porte 
 remembers how often it has had reason to complain 
 of the Poles. He imagines that he is treating here 
 with a Christian power, accustomed to sport with 
 truth and falsehood. Do you know," he added, 
 turning to his officers, '^ what these people call their 
 liberty? It is the right of living without laws." 
 7* 
 
78 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 It seems to us as if the Almighty, to demon- 
 strate the evils of oligarchy to Poland and the 
 world, had suffered the great hulk of the Polish 
 aristocracy to attain the lowest depth of political 
 corruption and debasement, and then, to cap the 
 climax, and to show that there was a lower deep 
 still, had, in his wrath, created the Czartoryski party 
 to make it contemptible and odious ; the whole to 
 be swept away, at last, by his instruments, the 
 Russians, who spared the Polish people^ because 
 they had suffered, not sinned. 
 
 Thus that abominable people, the ancient Israel- 
 ites, were chosen to externiinate the Midianites, 
 and Amalekites, and other offending tribes, in Ca- 
 naan ; and, probably, a ferocious, sanguinary race 
 were made executioners, as the better fitted for the 
 work ; 
 
 Thus Attila punished the degeneracy of the 
 Roman empire ; 
 
 Thus Tarik and Muza ben Noseir chastised the 
 Goths, and renovated Spain ; 
 
 And, as there is more honey made when the 
 drones and vermin are driven from the hive ; as, 
 when the taller weeds are moAved, the grass gets 
 more light and air ; so Poland, now that her aris- 
 tocracy are driven away, or deprived of their pow- 
 er to do injury, may in time awaken from the 
 debasement of ages ; 
 
 Just as awakened Russia, when the Emperor 
 Nicholas, or his successor, shall have accomplished 
 the design nearest his heart, and the grand object 
 of his life, (viz., the abolition of slavery in his do- 
 minions.) will rank with the most favored country 
 God's smile ever lighted and warmed. 
 
 If we could, as the world has hitherto done, con- 
 found the aristocratic Polish party, who W2u:red 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 79 
 
 against Catherine in the last, and Nicholas in the 
 present century, with the Polish nation ; if we could 
 delude ourself into the belief that they warred for 
 their country, and not exclusively for their order ; no 
 heart would more deeply feel for their misfortunes, 
 no voice would praise their patriotism, more warmly 
 than ours ; but it was not so. They sought an ac- 
 complice in Catherine, and they found a mistress. 
 Their downfall was the commencement of the 
 preparation of Poland for liberty ; their w^ar, in its 
 best aspect, was not for freedom, but only for inde- 
 pendence ; their patriotism was the patriotism of 
 the barons who, little dreaming of its consequences 
 to their vassals and villeins, extorted Magna Char- 
 ta from King John, on the 19th of June, 1215 ; the 
 patriotism of the Douglasses, the Scotts, and the 
 Gordons, when they made their king a puppet, and 
 his kingdom one wide battle-field and grave-yard 
 for each to maintain his own unjust pretensions, or 
 to bury those of his rivals in. 
 
 We are sensible that, whatever the faults or dis- 
 organization of Poland may have been, it affords 
 no justification of its partition. We offer no ex- 
 cuse or apology for it ; for it admits of none. No 
 man has the right to assume the guardianship of 
 another, on the score of that other's general bad 
 character, though the guardianship may be a bene- 
 fit to the individual and to society at large. The 
 same reasoning will apply to nations. But we 
 deny that an individual, or nation, whose condition 
 is compulsorily changed for the better, or who is 
 forcibly rendered incapable of injuring him or it- 
 self, and others, is entitled to any sympathy or pity. 
 The Polish aristocracy had sufficient warning of 
 their danger, arising from causes within their own 
 control ; but they took no measures to avert or 
 
80 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 meet it while it was yet time. They were deaf 
 to the experience of centuries, speaking trumpet- 
 tongued. " Suspension of the Hberty of the diets, 
 foreign encroachments, and the seizure of the prin- 
 cipal men of the nation," are the three principal 
 complaints set forth in their manifestoes. Did 
 they ever have a free diet ? What use did they 
 make of such liberty, when they had it? How 
 often did they invite foreign encroachment, that of 
 Russia in particular ? How many, and what pro- 
 portion of their principal men, deserved to be suf- 
 fered to go at large ? Pity them ! — as well may 
 we pity the (Quaker who is beaten and robbed be- 
 cause he will not defend himself. The Polish 
 aristocracy were not rebels ; no ! they owed no alle- 
 giance to Russia, Prussia, or Austria. Neither are 
 robbers and rioters rebels; but we do not pity them 
 when overtaken by the consequences of their mis- 
 conduct, folly, or crimes. Pity them! as well may 
 we pity France for her loss of life and property in 
 St. Domingo ; or the planters of Jamaica for the 
 compelled emancipation of their slaves ; or Great 
 Britain for the loss of her thirteen colonies. Rather 
 let us rejoice that they are now constrained to live 
 by their own exertions, instead of the labors of 
 their serfs. 
 
 Before John Casimir gave up the Polish crown 
 for a cowl, he uttered this prophecy before the 
 diet : " 1 hope I may be a false prophet in stating 
 that you have to fear the dismemberment of the 
 republic. The Russians will attempt to seize the 
 grand duchy of Lithuania, as far as the rivers Bug 
 and Narew, and almost to the Vistula. The elec- 
 tor of Brandelburg will have a design on Greater 
 Poland and the neighboring palatinates, and will 
 contend for the aggrandizement of both Prussias. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 81 
 
 The house of Austria will turn its attention to 
 Cracow, and the adjacent palatinates." 
 
 Wearied and worn out by the everlasting annoy- 
 ance of his factious nobles, the great Sobieski 
 thus addressed the senate : " Believe me, all your 
 tribunitial eloquence would be better employed 
 against those who, by their factions, invoke upon 
 our country that cry of the prophet which I 
 seem, alas ! already to hear resounding over our 
 heads : ' Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be de- 
 stroyed ! ' " 
 
 Stanislas Leszczynski, who had himself been 
 their king, exhorted the nobility to open their eyes, 
 in vain. " 1 reflect with dread upon the perils 
 that surround us," said the dethroned philosopher. 
 ''What force have we to resist our neighbors? 
 what foundation for this extreme confidence, that 
 keeps us chained, and, as it were, slumbering in 
 disgraceful repose ? Do we trust to the faith of 
 treaties ? How many examples have we of the 
 frequent neglect of even the most solemn agree- 
 ments ! We imagine that our neighbors are inter- 
 ested in our preservation, by their mutual jealousy 
 — a vain prejudice, that deceives us ; ridiculous 
 infatuation, that formerly cost the Hungarians their 
 liberty ; and which will surely deprive us of ours, if, 
 depending on such a frivolous hope, we continue 
 unarmed. Our turn will come, no doubt. Either 
 we shall become the prey of some famous con- 
 queror, or, perhaps, even the neighboring powers 
 will combine to divide our states. ^^ 
 
 The confederate Poles awoke too late to their 
 past folly and their true policy, and undertook to 
 form a new constitution, by which the elective 
 republican monarchy and the liberum veto were 
 abolished, and the third estate admitted to a share 
 
82 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 of the national representation ; but the serfs were 
 not emancipated, though their bondage was made 
 lighter. This was the basis of the constitution of 
 May 3, 1791, approved by Prussia, and rejected by 
 Russia — why? Because the kingdom of Poland 
 had become, de facto, part and parcel of Russia, 
 by the right of the strongest ; because to have 
 granted it would have been granting to an acqui- 
 sition of the empire what had never been, and 
 could not well be, granted to the empire itself; be- 
 cause it would have been conceding a right denied 
 to the empire, which was not ripe for it ; and because 
 it would have been a dangerous precedent, at the 
 time of the French revolution. 
 
 How comes it that Austria and Prussia, though 
 equally concerned with Russia in the partition of 
 Poland, and much more shamefully, too, (inasmuch 
 as they were not invited by any Polish party to 
 meddle with the affairs of the nation,) are almost 
 overlooked by sympathizers, while Russia engrosses 
 the whole volume of their indignation ? How comes 
 it that Russia alone is reproached with all the ca- 
 lamities of the war that ensued after this constitu- 
 tion was framed, though that war is wholly attribu- 
 table to the perfidy of Frederic William ? If he had 
 not approved that constitution, and promised to sup- 
 port it, its framers never would have risked the 
 step. He abandoned them to their fate the next 
 year, saying that they had done wrong to adopt a 
 constitution he had never intended to support, with- 
 out his knowledge and cooperation ; and this after 
 instructing his ambassador at Warsaw to present 
 '* to the king, the marshals of the diet, and all those 
 who had contributed to such an important work, 
 his sincere congratulations, in the most solemn man- 
 ner, on the important step he admired, applauded, 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 83 
 
 and considered essential to consolidate the nation's 
 welfare." 
 
 " O, bloodiest picture in the book of time ! 
 Sarmatia fell unwept, without a crime. 
 Hope for a moment bade the world farewell, 
 And Freedom shrieked, when Kosciusco fell." 
 
 So sings the poet, with some poetry and no 
 truth. It would be difficult to say, it would re- 
 quire a fervid imagination to guess, what political 
 crime Sarmatia had not been in the habit of com- 
 mittmg, or what reason any man, who loves his 
 kind, had to weep for her. Freedom would have, 
 indeed, shrieked her death-note, in Poland, and 
 Hope might have bade its people farewell, forever, 
 had Kosciusco and his party prevailed. In 1780, 
 the really patriotic chancellor, Zamoyski, laid be- 
 fore the diet the code he had been instructed to 
 prepare. It recommended the abolition of the 
 kingly election, and the liberum veto; and, far 
 more important, the emancipation of the serfs, and 
 the elevation of the trading classes to the elective 
 franchise. The chancellor set the example him- 
 self, by emancipating his own serfs, and was fol- 
 lowed by Stanislas Poniatowski, the king's nephew, 
 and a few other nobles ; but the rest of the patri- 
 otic champions of freedom, at whose defeat Hope 
 bade the world farewell, scouted the proposal, and 
 pronounced Zamoyski a traitor. He might as well 
 have counselled our southern brethren to give their 
 slaves an interest in the welfare of their country. 
 
 Deprived of his kingdom, Stanislas Poniatowski 
 was sent to Grodno, and compelled to abdicate. 
 Even he has found the sympathizing commisera- 
 tion he by no one act of his worse than useless life 
 deserved. He received an annual pension of two 
 hundred thousand ducats, and his debts were paid ; 
 
84 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 had justice been done him, they would have been 
 quitted with a halter. 
 
 Catherine's successor, Paul, treated the defeated 
 Poles with distinguished clemency. He set Kosci- 
 usco at liberty, offered him a high rank in his army, 
 and gave him twelve thousand rubles and fifteen 
 hundred serfs. All the other Poles whom Cath- 
 erine had left in prison were freed, and those who 
 had been sent to Siberia were permitted to return 
 to their homes, to the number of twelve thousand. 
 Frederic William followed Paul's example in Prus- 
 sia. Austria, on the contrary, treated the exiles 
 with great severity ; whence their eagerness to join 
 the French army of Italy under Bonaparte. 
 
 It is not true, as Alison asserts, that Poland owed 
 her decline and fall to having " retained the equality 
 and independence of savage life." Poland never 
 knew aught like equality. Her government has ever 
 been that anomaly, an unmitigated oligarchy, the 
 members of which constituted a wild democracy, 
 in the most licentious sense of the word, among 
 themselves ; of such fierce and stubborn republi- 
 cans, as, in our Southern States, lord it over 
 helots. It was a nation without a people, a 
 government of checks to power without any power 
 to be checked. The Poles, that is, the Po- 
 lish nobility, were a brave and warlike people, — 
 all semi-savages are, — but their false equality pro- 
 duced its natural results ; they were the only war- 
 like nation, engaged in perpetual civil and foreign 
 strife, to whom victory never added strength, peace, 
 or increase. Their democracy was as pernicious as 
 their domestic tyranny : they knew no liberty but 
 licentiousness, and nothing of government but its 
 weakness. They drank the bitter consequences of 
 a pitiless aristocracy, and a senseless, insane equal- 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 
 
 85 
 
 ity, to the dregs, and it was right that they should — 
 humanity is the better for it. Even Alison, with 
 all his sympathy, all his efforts to make out a jus- 
 tification, or apology, for Poland, gives up the case 
 in despair. 
 
 After the battle of Jena, where Prussia was laid 
 prostrate. Napoleon availed himself of the hatred of 
 the Poles to Russia to call on them to shake off the 
 yoke ; and with considerable success. The pospo- 
 lite took the field with the French troops, and the 
 allies were subdued at Friedland ; but the only re- 
 sult of the war, so far as it concerned Poland, was, 
 that that part of her territory which had been under 
 the dominion of Prussia was erected into an inde- 
 pendent government by the treaty of Tilsit, with 
 the title of grand duchy of Warsaw, and with the 
 king of Saxony for its grand duke. The popula- 
 tion of the grand duchy was about four millions. 
 A commission was appointed by Napoleon to frame 
 a constitution for it, which he approved. It did 
 more for the people of Prussian Poland than they 
 had ever thought of doing for themselves. It abol-» 
 ished slavery, instituted a diet of two legislative 
 chambers, and vested the executive power in the 
 king. The diet raised an army, and introduced the 
 code of Napoleon. 
 8 
 
86 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE GRAND DUCHY OF WARSAW. — THE EMPE- 
 ROR ALEXANDER. — THE KINGDOM AND CONSTI- 
 TUTION OF POLAND. — CONSPIRACY AGAINST 
 RUSSIA.— ABDICATION OF THE GRAND DUKE 
 CONSTANTINE. 
 
 In the war which immediately followed with 
 Austria, the Poles of the duchy, under Poniatowski, 
 drove the Austrians out of Gallicia ; but, at the 
 treaty of Vienna, after the battle of Wagram, only 
 four of the departments of the conquest were added 
 to the duchy, while the circles of Tarnapol and 
 Zbazaz were ceded to Russia. 
 
 From this time to 1812, the grand duchy of 
 Warsaw, notwithstanding its accession of territory, 
 was by no means an independent state. The grand 
 duke was a vassal of Napoleon, and the duchy, 
 too weak to defend itself, was therefore a depend- 
 ency on France. " Nothing," says M. De Pradt, 
 " could exceed the misery of all classes. The army 
 was not paid, the officers were in rags, the best 
 houses were in ruins, and the greatest lords were 
 obliged to leave Warsaw for want of money to pro- 
 vide for their tables." Still, the Poles hoped on, 
 believing that Napoleon meant to restore their an- 
 cient kingdom ; and the duchy of Warsaw raised 
 seventy thousand men for the Russian campaign. 
 
 While such was the enthusiasm in what had been 
 Prussian and Austrian Poland, far different was the 
 feeling that had been created by Russian rule in 
 Lithuania. Alexander treated the Lithuanians as 
 subjects, not slaves. They were not deprived of 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 87 
 
 their privileges, nor were their taxes raised ; their 
 laws underwent little change, and they had the ap- 
 pointment of most of their own officers. Alexander 
 evinced the utmost anxiety for their welfare, pre- 
 pared a liberal frame of government for them, and 
 even proposed to erect Lithuania into a separate 
 kingdom. "Do not forget the peasants," he said 
 to the officer whom he had instructed to prepare a 
 code of laws ; " they are the most useful class, and 
 your serfs have always been treated like helots," 
 
 " These words," says a sympathetic English 
 historical writer,* " sound strangely in a Russian 
 despot's mouth, particularly when we remember the 
 state of the Russian serfs." 
 
 Why so ? This Russian, though he had the good 
 or evil fortune, as the reader may deem it, to be born 
 to the awful responsibility of absolute authority 
 over more than sixty millions of people, — this despot 
 was a man of the mildest, most amiable, and most 
 humane character, even by the showing of his most 
 inveterate enemies, the aristocratic Poles. " Poland 
 may have suftered under Alexander," says Hordyn- 
 ski, a Pole, and one of the most passionate and 
 prejudiced writers who ever put pen to paper ; "yet 
 he loved the nation as a friend, which every one of 
 my countrymen will allow. When he was mis- 
 taken in his measures, the reason was that, sur- 
 rounded by bad men and enemies of our nation, he 
 was prevented from knowing the truth. Poland 
 forgave him all his faults, in the grateful recollec- 
 tion that he had restored her to a separate existence, 
 and respected the constitution." Alexander, with a 
 benignant countenance, permitted every one freely 
 
 * Fletcher, of whose compilation the Harpers' History of Poland 
 is a mere abridgment. 
 
88 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 to approach him, and his features were never dis- 
 torted with passion. 
 
 This despot, according to the same patriotic 
 writer, ''in the first moments after entering upon 
 the government of the kingdom, seemed disposed 
 to load Poland with benefits. He was received by 
 the inhabitants of Warsaw with the most unfeigned 
 good-will, and his stay in that city was distin- 
 guished by acts of beneficence. The words with 
 which he then addressed the representatives of the 
 nation are still in the memory of every Pole." 
 
 Yet, in the same breath, this querulous chronicler 
 complains that the emperor appointed the veteran 
 General Zajaczek, a Pole, and the companion in 
 arms of Kosciusco and Poniatowski, viceroy, and 
 the Grand Duke Constantino general of the army, 
 though he has nothing to object against Zajaczek 
 but that his advanced age might make him a tool 
 in the hands of Russia. Moreover, whatever might 
 have been the fitness of the Grand Duke Constan- 
 tine for a civil ruler, he had approved himself a sol- 
 dier fit to command an army under Suwarrow, and 
 he was the emperor's own brother. 
 
 Why does Alexander's language sound strangely 
 in a Russian despot's mouth, when we remember 
 the state of the Russian serfs ? On mounting the 
 throne, he recalled a multitude of exiles from Si- 
 beria, and manifested a continual desire to abolish 
 slavery. After the peace of Luneville, that despot 
 devoted himself to the internal improvement of his 
 dominions — of Russia proper, especially : he appoint- 
 ed a committee, under Prince Lapuchin, to revise the 
 laws; constituted the senate an intermediate body 
 between himself and the people, and mitigated the 
 rigor of bondage, particularly in the crown villages 
 and the German provinces. He introduced vacci- 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 89 
 
 nation, and paid two thousand physicians to care 
 for the pubhc health. Under him, agriculture was 
 much improved, and the Nogay Tartars, and other 
 wandering tribes, betook themselves to husbandry. 
 Science was fostered, Krasenstern circumnavigated 
 the globe, and schools and universities were es- 
 tablished. 
 
 Why does any thing generous and humane sound 
 strangely from Alexander's mouth? In 1815, he 
 gave the Poles the privilege of trial by jury, within 
 six months after his return from Paris. The con- 
 gress of Vienna had united the duchy of Warsaw 
 with Russia, '' irrevocably, by its oivn constitution, 
 to be enjoyed by his majesty, his heirs and succes- 
 sors, forever." " If," wrote Alexander himself to 
 Count Ostrowski, the president of the Polish senate, 
 — " if the great interests involved in general tran- 
 quillity have not permitted all the Poles to be 
 united under one sceptre, I have at least endeav- 
 ored, to the utmost of my power, to soften the 
 hardships of their separation j and every where to 
 obtain for them, as far as practicable, the enjoy- 
 ment of their nationality." This was published 
 by the emperor's authority ; and thus the inde- 
 pendence and separate existence of the kingdom 
 were preserved, to the satisfaction of the Poles 
 themselves, as even Hordynski admits. 
 
 In 1816, he abolished servitude in Livonia, Es- 
 thonia, and Courland ; and declared that he would 
 no longer transfer, with the crown lands, the boors 
 who cultivated them. He forbade the advertising 
 of human beings for sale ; and gave leave to a num- 
 ber of boors, the bondmen of the deceased Chancel- 
 lor RomanzofF, to ransom themselves from their 
 master. 
 
 He said to Madame de Stael, — '' You will be 
 8* 
 
90 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 offended with the sight of servitude in this land. 
 It is not my fault ; I have set the example of eman- 
 cipation ; but I cannot employ force. I must re- 
 spect the rights of others, as much as if they were 
 protected by a constitution ; which, unhappily, 
 does not exist." 
 
 The lady replied, ''Sire, your character is a 
 constitution." True; the character of an arbitrary 
 sovereign is a constitution ; but there are limits to 
 the power of every constitution. Slaveholders will 
 rebel against any violation of their supposed rights, 
 as readily as at the invasion of their real ones. Past 
 history shows that it is unsafe, even for a sovereign 
 of Russia, to follow a course of conduct generally 
 disliked by the nation. 
 
 In 1819, he said to a deputation of the Livonian 
 nobility, who requested his ratification of the new 
 constitution, made for the benefit of the Livonian 
 peasantry, — "You have acted in the spirit of our 
 age, in which liberal ideas afford the true basis of 
 the happiness of nations." 
 
 A Russian noble asked the grant of an estate. 
 The autograph answer of Alexander is still pre- 
 served : — '"The peasants of Russia are, for the 
 most part, in a state of slavery. I need not ex- 
 patiate on the degradation and misery of that 
 condition ; but I have resolved not to add to the 
 number of those who are doomed to suffer it. I 
 have, therefore, laid it down as a principle, not to 
 make peasants objects of property. You shall have 
 the estate ; but on one condition, viz., that the 
 peasants shall not be sold or transferred like cattle." 
 This letter is a Bunker Hill monument to Alex- 
 ander's honor. 
 
 Napoleon did not, therefore, find sixteen millions 
 of Poles in arms to receive him, as he had expected 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 9t 
 
 and boasted he should. The Russian campaign 
 sealed the fate of Poland, which, by the congress 
 of Vienna, was allotted to Russia, with the exception 
 of Cracow and its territory, which became an in- 
 dependent republic, governed by its own laws. 
 
 The country on the right bank of the Vistula, 
 and the circle of Tarnopola, which reverted to 
 Austria ; Dantzic and its territory ; Thorn and its 
 territory ; the greater part of the department of 
 Posen, and the department of Kalisch, as far as 
 the Prozna, with the city and circle of that name, 
 were allotted to Prussia, and erected into the Grand 
 duchy of Posen. 
 
 All the rest became the kingdom of Poland, 
 with a separate government, and with such an or- 
 ganization as the treaties of Vienna secured to all 
 Poles, under either of the partitioning governments, 
 tending to preserve their national existence. 
 
 The constitution that the despot Alexander, this 
 " accident and mere creature of circumstances," as 
 Madame de Stael foolishly calls him, gave to Po- 
 land, primarily vested the executive power in the 
 emperor of Russia, as king. It was exercised by a 
 council of state, consisting of a governor and five 
 ministers. The diet was to be convoked by the 
 king every other year, for thirty days, and was to 
 consist of the senate, chosen by the king, (consist- 
 ing of ten bishops, ten waywodes, and ten castel- 
 lans ;) the chamber of nuncios, or representatives, or 
 deputies, appointed by the seventy-seven assemblies 
 of the seventy-seven electoral districts; together 
 with eight deputies from the city of Warsaw, and 
 forty-three from the rest of the nation. The mem- 
 bers of the council of state had a seat and vote in 
 the diet. 
 
 In the chamber of nuncios, the five ministers, and 
 
92 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 the members of the three committees on financial, 
 civil, and criminal laws, could alone speak ; the 
 other nuncios voted by ballot. 
 
 All laws devised by the council of state were 
 submitted to, and examined by, the diet. 
 
 The constitution made all religious and political 
 privileges equal. 
 
 The liberty of the press was established on the 
 broadest basis. 
 
 The members of the council of state were made 
 personally responsible for their acts. 
 
 The bishop of Warsaw was declared primate of 
 the kingdom. 
 
 The governor was to be a native Pole, unless 
 one of the imperial princes should be appointed 
 viceroy ; and all employments, civil and military, 
 were to be given to Poles. 
 
 Under this constitution, the diet assembled, for 
 the first time in twenty-three years, in 1818, and 
 continued to assemble till 1830. 
 
 Thus, it seems, this accidental creature of cir- 
 cumstances, who was, like his successor, adored by 
 the Russians, and who is praised even by the 
 Poles, gave the people of Poland — what they never 
 had, and never so much as had reason to hope 
 before — peace, order, and a form of government 
 as nearly like our own as circumstances would 
 admit. It is not every ruler by an accident who 
 has done as well. We think we could point to 
 one or two creatures of circumstances, who have 
 borne rule in the United States^ who were fitter to 
 be compared with Alexander's court fool, if he had 
 one, than with himself Heaven grant that such 
 an ''accident" as this despot may befall our own 
 country, at the next election ! Thinking very fa- 
 vorably of Alexander's benevolence, we do not 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 93 
 
 deem very highly of his wisdom, in granting the 
 Poles such a charter. It was giving edge-tools to 
 children, rum to drunkards ; and, had he lived a year 
 longer, he might have learned, to his cost, what it 
 is to tame wolves by moderation, and to cast pearls 
 before swine. The Poles knew just as much and 
 as little of self-government, as the Highlander did 
 of the watch that he took for an animal, and 
 dashed to pieces, when it ran down, supposing it 
 was dead! 
 
 The sympathetic writers tell us, that the hun- 
 dred and sixty-five articles of the Polish charter 
 were all violated. "These promises," says Herr 
 Von Lieber, "were kept only to the ear: — restric- 
 tions on the press ; arbitrary imprisonment ; arbitrary 
 and cruel punishments ; insults added to injuries ; a 
 solemn mockery of a diet, which was not allowed 
 to exercise any real authority ; peculation and ex- 
 tortion, practised by the inferior officers; — these 
 were some of the features of the Russian govern- 
 ment of Poland." So sing the Polish chroniclers, 
 and the burden is taken up by the encyclopedist. 
 Did it never occur to him that no man, and no 
 men, were ever yet at a loss for an excuse or 
 a coloring for their own misdoings and imprudence, 
 and that there are two sides to every story ? When- 
 ever an interested narrator ascribes effects to causes 
 inadequate to produce them, his hearers may be 
 sure that he is trying to disguise or conceal the 
 truth, and that the position he takes is too weak 
 to be tenable, if seriously attacked. His state- 
 ments are like the (Quaker guns of merchant vessels, 
 which, the greater the distance at which they are 
 seen, produce the higher estimate of a force that 
 exists only in imagination. 
 
 The liberty of the press was abolished in 1819 ; 
 
94 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 the sympathizers all tell us that ; but not one of 
 them tells us why, or by whom, whether by the 
 diet or the emperor. Yet there never was an act 
 of arbitrary power without, at least, a pretext. We 
 should like a little light on this subject. None 
 comes from Russia, and what we get from Poland 
 comes through distorted prisms. The press is not 
 suffered to preach rebellion and bloodshed here. 
 
 There were arbitrary imprisonments. 
 
 Every imprisonment on the presentment of a 
 grand jury, every arrest made on suspicion, is 
 arbitrary, supposing the prisoner to be innocent. 
 Without arrests and imprisonments, there could be 
 no trials. To know whether the Poles were im- 
 prisoned unjustly or not, we ought to know what 
 the charges were ; and the fact that the complain- 
 ants and sympathizers confine themselves to invec- 
 tive and general terms, is pregnant reason to be- 
 lieve that little injustice was done. 
 
 " What thief e'er felt the halter draw, 
 With good opinion of the law? " 
 
 We shall have occasion to speak of the conspira- 
 cy that broke out in December, 1825, against the 
 emperor's crown and life, (which extended its rami- 
 fications equally through Russia and Poland,) in 
 another place. Numerous arrests, indeed, took 
 place in both countries ; for it is not usual, in any 
 land, to tamper with open, armed rebellion, accom- 
 panied with murder. " The same justice," says 
 the Emperor Nicholas, in his proclamation of the 
 2d of January, 1826, " that commands us to spare 
 the innocent, forbids us to spare the guilty. All 
 those against whom proceedings shall be instituted, 
 and who shall be convicted, will undergo a pun- 
 ishment proportioned to their crimes. From the 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 95^ 
 
 measures already taken in the proceedings, the 
 punishment will embrace in its extent, in all its 
 ramifications, an evil, the germ of which is of the 
 growth of years ; and I am confident they will 
 destroy it to the very root ; they will purge the 
 sacred soil of Russia of this foreign contagion." 
 
 Freedom of debate was abolished. 
 
 There is no measure so extreme, as no circum- 
 stances will justify. It was a public blessing that 
 Oliver Cromwell put an end to the debates of the 
 Long Parliament. It would have been a blessing 
 to France had freedom of debate been suppressed 
 during the Reign of Terror. Abuse of the free- 
 dom of debate brought king stork upon the frogs. 
 To cite a hackneyed proverb, the tyranny of a mob 
 is the worst of tyrannies, and nothing but wrong 
 results from its councils. We have nothing to 
 oppose to these sympathizers, in this instance, but 
 analogy and the plain truth. A Polish diet had 
 never been any thing but a mob, down to the year 
 1818. We make no vague assertions ; we merely 
 ask some one, better informed, whether it was 
 aught better after. 
 
 Leaving speculation to others, we come to the 
 plain facts, as far as known. 
 
 " Senators and deputies," said the Emperor 
 Alexander, in his proclamation to the third diet, 
 *' two diets have already been held. That of 
 1818, guided by a spirit of concord and harmony, 
 promoted the welfare of the kingdom by wise laws. 
 That of 1820, which spent its valuable time in 
 useless disputes, has hardly left a trace of its labors. 
 This will teach you to avoid the consequences of 
 discord, and the delusion of mistaken self-love." 
 
 In another proclamation, dated the 13th of Feb- 
 ruary, he was more explicit. " Being desirous," 
 
96 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 he said, ''of removing the danger that the abuse 
 of one article in the charter has already caused, 
 and may cause again — considering that the pub- 
 licity of the debates in both chambers has induced 
 the speakers to think rather of an ephemeral popu- 
 larity than of the public good, by which the 
 debates degenerated into empty declamations, cal- 
 culated to destroy the expected unanimity, and to 
 banish the tranquillity and deconim that should 
 prevail in every important deliberation, — desiring 
 to cure the evil in its source, and to cause our sub- 
 jects of the kingdom of Poland to enjoy all the 
 benefits which the charter accords to them, — we 
 have resolved to fortify our work, by altering, by 
 means of an additional article, one point of the reg- 
 ulations, that experience has proved to us to be 
 highly detrimental.'' 
 
 He therefore decreed that the sittings at the 
 opening and close of the diet, and those in which 
 the royal sanction of projects of law was declared, 
 should be public, as in time past ; but that, in the 
 election of committees, and in every discussion and 
 debate in the two chambers, they should always 
 form themselves into a special committee. This 
 regulation was declared to form an inseparable part 
 of the charter. 
 
 Peculation, extortion, and abuse of authority, 
 have ever existed in all countries; especially in 
 Poland, in the time of its independence. It would 
 be a miracle, indeed, if they had not prevailed after 
 Its subjugation ; and, considering that almost all 
 the civil and military officers of the kingdom were 
 Poles it is not a little strange that Poles should lay 
 the faults of their own countrymen to the Russian 
 government. 
 
 But we have better reason still for believing that 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 
 
 97 
 
 s* 
 
 the complaints of the Poles were grossly-exaggerated 
 pretexts to pick a quarrel with Russia — reason that 
 no man can resist. We shall presently prove that 
 these suffering patriots, the Poles, not only endeav- 
 ored to shake off the rule of Russia in Poland, but 
 also plotted with traitors to subvert the throne of 
 Russia, and conspired against their benefactor's 
 personal liberty, and, consequently, his life ; for 
 there is usually but a step from a throne to a grave. 
 If the mild Alexander had lived longer, it is proba- 
 ble that his severity would at least have equalled 
 that of Nicholas. It is not likely that he would 
 tamely have seen the work of his predecessors, for 
 a century, wantonly destroyed. 
 
 " On the death of Alexander, 1825," says Lieber, 
 still partial, though an encyclopedist, '•' a conspir- 
 acy broke out in Russia ; and, on pretence that it 
 extended to Warsaw, several hundred persons were 
 arrested in Poland, and a commission was consti- 
 tuted, contrary to the provisions of the charter, to 
 inquire into the affair. The only discovery of this 
 inquisitorial tribunal was, that secret societies had 
 existed in Poland since 1821." 
 
 A pretence ! a commission contrary to the char- 
 ter ! Hear Hordynski, certainly the best authority, 
 in this instance. 
 
 While certain patriots, (all Poles are patriots,) 
 whose names we do not write, simply because no 
 tongue but a Russian's or a Pole's can pronounce 
 them, were concerting the plan of a revolution, 
 *' they were most agreeably surprised by receiving 
 information, in 1824, of a similar patriotic union 
 in Russia for throwing off the yoke of despotism. 
 Their joy was increased when they received a 
 summons from this patriotic union in Russia, at the 
 head of which were — , (a jumble of consonants ! J to 
 9 
 
98 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 join hands with them. This junction was effected 
 in Kiow% when Prince Jablonowski became ac- 
 quainted with some of their members, and was ini- 
 tiated into their plans. The invitation was received 
 by the Poles with delight. They offered, with 
 their whole hearts, their aid in the redemption of 
 the Sarmatic nation from the chains by which they 
 had been so long bowed down. 
 
 " Soon after this, it was agreed to meet in the 
 town of Orla, in the province of Little Russia, 
 where solemn oaths were sworn to sacrifice life and 
 property in the cause. Resolutions were taken, and 
 the means of their execution were devised. The 
 Russians promised to the Poles, in the case of suc- 
 cess, the surrender of all the provinces as far as the 
 frontiers which Boleslaw Chrobry had established. 
 This promise, as well as that of eternal friendship 
 between the two brother-nations, was sanctioned 
 by the solemnity of oaths. The day fixed upon 
 for the breaking out of the revolution was the 
 twenty-fifth anniversary of the accession of Alex- 
 ander, in the month of May, 1826 ; and Biala Cer- 
 kiew, inVolhynia, was the place selected for the 
 first blow. The reason for choosing this place 
 was, that the whole imperial family, and the greater 
 part of the army, were to assemble there, to cele- 
 brate the anniversary of the coronation. This oc- 
 casion was to be improved to gain over all the well- 
 disposed generals, aiid at the same time to secure 
 the imperial family.^'' 
 
 It is to be mentioned here, to the honor of the 
 Polish conspirators, that they refused to put the 
 Grand Duke Constantine to death, as required by 
 their Russian complotters. '' But," said they, " we 
 promise you to secure his person, and, as he belongs 
 to you, we sliall deliver hi?n into your handsJ'^ 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 99 
 
 The Scotch Presbyterians would not themselves 
 decapitate Charles I. ; but they bound the victim 
 for the slaughter, and sold him to the less con- 
 scientious Independents for a price. 
 
 '' The patriotic associations on both sides en- 
 deavored to increase their party by the initiation 
 of many brave men in the army, and in civil life. 
 In Lithuania, the respectable president of the no- 
 bles, Downarowicz, and the noble Kukiewicz of 
 the Lithuanian corps, with many other officers, 
 were admitted into the conspiracy ; and, among oth- 
 ers, Jgelstrom, Wigielin, Hoffman, and Wielkniec. 
 All the means and plans for the approaching rev- 
 olution were arranged with the utmost circumspec- 
 tion, and every circumstance seemed to promise 
 success, when the sudden death of the Emperor 
 Alexander darkened those bright hopes." 
 
 We think this settles the point, that the concern 
 of the Poles was no mere pretext, as a thousand 
 writers, Polish, French, German, and English, 
 would have us believe. Now let us see of what 
 importance the conspiracy really was ; but first, an 
 act of justice must be done to one whose name is 
 never mentioned in this country, or England, but 
 with unmitigated obloquy. 
 
 The Grand Duke Constantine has been stigma- 
 tized as ''a tyrant, publicly declared unfit even for 
 a Russian throne." It has been intimated, not 
 once, nor twice, but a thousand times, that there 
 was a dispute between him and his brother, the 
 present emperor, concerning the succession, of 
 which the conspirators took advantage. The fact 
 is, that the complotters, not comprehending the 
 possibility that the grand duke could be sincere in 
 his intention to abdicate, wished that there might 
 be a division between the brothers, and believed 
 what they wished, as all men are apt to do. 
 
100 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 The charitable author of '' Travels in Russia," 
 and " A Residence in St. Petersburg," after scanning 
 all the evil motives that can be imagined forConstan- 
 tine's abdication, gravely comes to the conclusion 
 that he resigned the crown to escape assassination ! 
 And yet this man lived years in Warsaw without 
 guards, and died at last in his bed. 
 
 The death of the emperor Alexander, loved and 
 revered as he was by his subjects, caused great 
 anxiety in Russia. On the 9th of December, 
 1825, public prayers were put up in the churches 
 for his recovery. The chief nobility, the minis- 
 ters, the civil and military officers, and a great 
 mixed multitude, assembled in the church of the 
 convent of Alexander Nevskoi. Before the service 
 was ended, the chief of the staff of the guards, 
 General Niedhart, entered the church, and an- 
 nounced the emperor's death. The news was re- 
 ceived by all present with loud lamentations. 
 
 The Grand Duke Nicholas, as soon as he heard 
 of the event, announced it to the empress mother, 
 assembled the palace guard, and at once took the 
 oath of gillegiance to Constantine I. The guard, 
 all the commanders of corps, and the general staff, 
 followed his example immediately afterwards. 
 
 The senate now announced to the Grand Duke 
 Nicholas, what had long been believed, viz., that 
 his brother Constantine had renounced the right of 
 succession. He had been divorced from his first 
 wife, a princess of the house of Coburg, by an im- 
 perial ukase, in 1820, and had married a Polish 
 lady of no very exalted rank. It had been decreed 
 before this, that no child of any of the princes of 
 the imperial family should succeed to the throne, 
 unless related to some reigning family by the 
 mother's side. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 101 
 
 The senate informed Nicholas that, in 1823, the 
 late emperor had deposited with them a sealed pac- 
 ket, which they were directed to open, in case of 
 his death, before they proceeded to any other act. 
 This command they had obeyed, and found that 
 the packet contained a letter of Constantino, dated 
 the 14th of January, 1822, renouncing the succes- 
 sion ; and also a manifesto of Alexander, dated the 
 16th of January, 1823, ratifying this renunciation, 
 and declaring Nicholas heir to the throne. 
 
 What puts the idea of aught like trick or collu- 
 sion out of the question, is the fact, that documents 
 of the same tenor were found to have been depos- 
 ited with the directing senate, with the holy synod, 
 and in the cathedral Church of the Ascension at 
 Moscow. 
 
 But Nicholas refused to avail himself of these 
 instruments ; and the directing senate, after having 
 taken the oath of fealty to Constantine, ordered the 
 event to be promulgated every where by printed 
 ukases. They likewise ordered that the form of 
 the oath they were to take, as faithful subjects of 
 Constantine L, should be sent to all the authorities, 
 civil and miUtary ; and commanded them to cause 
 it to be administered to all his majesty's male sub- 
 jects, excepting the crown peasants, the peasants 
 of the seigniorial domains, and the serfs ; and that 
 they should send their official reports of the taking 
 of the oath to the senate, with the signatures of 
 those who had taken it appended. 
 
 All this was done while Constantine was yet in 
 Warsaw ; though Alexander's death was known 
 there two days before the tidings reached St. 
 Petersburg. 
 
 Instead of assuming any of the insignia of roy- 
 alty, however, Constantine continued to live as a 
 9* 
 
102 
 
 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 private individual. On the day after the news was 
 received, he despatched his brother, the Grand 
 Duke Michael, with two letters, to his mother and 
 his brother Nicholas, in both of which he declared 
 his adherence to his abdication. 
 
 When he had been formally notified that the 
 oath of allegiance had been taken to him, he still 
 solemnly persisted in his purpose, and refused to re- 
 ceive the official documents transmitted to him as 
 emperor. The following is his answer to the 
 minister of justice : — 
 
 " The counsellor of the college of the section of 
 the procurators-general of the directing senate has 
 remitted to me a despatch from your highness with 
 this address — ' To his Imperial Majesty Constan- 
 tino Paulowitsch, a very submissive report of the 
 minister of justice.' 
 
 ''As I do not think myself entitled to accept it, 
 (because, according to this direction, it is not sent to 
 me,) I send it back to your highness by the same 
 oflicer. By my letter of the 1 5th of December to 
 his excellency the president of the senate, the 
 privy counsellor of the first class. Prince Lapou- 
 chin, your highness must have been exactly in- 
 formed of the reasons which do not permit me 
 to accept the imperial dignity. I have, in conse- 
 quence, only to repeat to you, in a few words, that, 
 according to the oath taken by all the subjects of 
 his majesty, the Emperor Alexander, of glorious 
 memory, in which, among other things, it is ex- 
 pressly said that every subject is faithfully to serve 
 and to obey, in all things, not only his majesty, 
 the Emperor Alexander Paulowitsch, but also the 
 successor to the throne of his imperial majesty who 
 should be designated ; and as it appears, from the 
 documents opened in the council of state, which 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 103 
 
 are entirely conformable to those deposited with the 
 directing senate, that, by the supreme will of his 
 late majesty, the Grand Duke Nicholas has been 
 designated as successor to the throne, the directing 
 senate, as conservator of the will of his late majesty, 
 the Emperor Alexander Paulowitsch, of glorious 
 memory, ought to have carried it, and will carry it, 
 into execution. 
 
 '' While acknowledging with gratitude the at- 
 tachment which the directing senate has shown to 
 my person, I request your highness to express to 
 that noble body all my gratitude, adding that, the 
 more deeply I feel the value of this attachment, the 
 more I am penetrated with the duty of conforming 
 unalterably to the will manifested by his late 
 imperial majesty." 
 
 After receiving his brother's letter, and not till 
 then, Nicholas consented to mount the throne. 
 
 He issued a manifesto, announcing his accession, 
 on the 24th of December, and communicated the 
 instruments, on which his claim to the crown was 
 founded, to the empire, viz. : — 
 
 The letter from Constantine to the late em- 
 peror, declaratory of his intent to abdicate the right 
 of succession, stating that he "does not lay claim 
 to the spiritj the abilities, or the strength, that 
 would be required to exercise the high dignity "' at- 
 taching to his right of primogeniture, and professing 
 himself content with a private station; 
 
 Alexander's answer, approving Constantine's 
 renunciation. 
 
 A manifesto by Alexander, settling the crown 
 on Nicholas, in conformity with Constantine's 
 renunciation ; 
 
 The letters from Constantine to Nicholas and 
 the empress mother. 
 
104 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 At the same time, the new emperor wrote to 
 Constaiitine to announce his accession, and received 
 the following affectionate answer : — 
 
 " Most Gracious Sovereign : With deep emo- 
 tion I have had the happiness to receive the most 
 gracious rescript of your imperial majesty, announ- 
 cing your happy accession to the ancient throne of 
 our beloved Russia. The supreme law of Russia, 
 the sacred law, which the stability of the existing 
 order of things renders a blessing of Heaven, is the 
 will of the sovereign whom Providence gives us. 
 
 " By executing this will, your imperial majesty 
 has executed that of the King of kings, who so 
 evidently inspires the monarchs of the earth in 
 affairs of such high importance. 
 
 " The decrees of God are accomplished. If I 
 have in any thing cooperated in their accomplish- 
 ment, I have only done my duty ; the duty of a 
 faithful subject, of a devoted brother; in short, of a 
 Russian, who is proud of the happiness of obeying 
 God and his sovereign. 
 
 " The Almighty, who protects the destiny of 
 Russia and the majesty of the throne ; who lav- 
 ishes his benediction on the people whom he finds 
 faithful to his laws ; the Almighty, in his mercy, will 
 be your guide, sire, and will guide you by his light. 
 
 " If my most ardent efforts can contribute to 
 lighten the burden that God has imposed on you, 
 I hasten to lay at the foot of your throne the hom- 
 age of my unlimited devotedness, of my fidelity, of 
 my submission, and of my zeal in executing the 
 will of your imperial majesty. 
 
 '* I implore the Most High, that his holy and in- 
 scrutable providence may watch over the precious 
 health of your majesty, that he may prolong your 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 105 
 
 days, and that your glory, sire, the glory of your 
 crown, may be transmitted from generation to 
 generation. 
 
 " I am, sire, 
 " Your imperial majesty's most faithful subject, 
 
 " CONSTANTINE. 
 
 « ^T^r S Dec. 20, 1825, (O. S.) 
 
 The manifesto was dated on the 24th of 
 December; on the 25th, his brother's renun- 
 ciation was read by Nicholas to the senate. 
 Then he declared his acceptance of the crown, 
 and was immediately proclaimed emperor. The 
 manifesto was published the next day, on the 
 morning of which all the regiments of guards 
 were to take the oath of allegiance to Nicholas I. 
 
 We can see nothing in all this that looks at all 
 like pride, or ambition, in either of the imperial 
 brothers ; nothing that argues that Nicholas, or 
 the Russian people, thought Constantino unfit for 
 a sovereign of Russia ; nothing that is not highly 
 honorable to the hearts of both ; nothing in which 
 even the political rancor of a Pole, or the inflamed 
 ignorance of an English sympathizer, could detect 
 a fault. Hence we infer that ignorance of facts 
 alone has caused Constantino's name to be held in 
 detestation. 
 
 At noon, on the 26th of January, 1826, the 
 general of the guards and staflT reported that the 
 oath of allegiance had been taken by six regi- 
 ments. No account had been received from the 
 other regiments ; but no importance was attached 
 to the fact, till it was reported that four artillery 
 oflicers had made opposition, and had been put 
 under arrest ; also, that the remainder of the ar- 
 
106 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 tillery had taken the oath. Then came the news 
 that three or four hundred men of the Moscow 
 regiment had left their barracks, and proclaimed 
 Constantino I., with colors flying. These men 
 marched to the great square of Isaac, where they 
 were soon joined by a great many of the people, 
 and by many of the body-grenadier regiment and 
 marine guards. No other corps took part in the 
 sedition. The whole number was but about two 
 thousand — whence, it seems, the conspirators had 
 miscalculated the military as well as the popular 
 feeling. 
 
 The distinguished General Miloradovitsch, the 
 aged survivor of fifty battles, went to the square 
 to address the rebels ; but, in the act of so doing, 
 was assassinated by a man in a citizen's dress, 
 who shot him, mortally, with a pistol : he died 
 a few hours after. Count Sturler, chief of the 
 grenadiers of the body-guard, and two major-gen- 
 erals, were also slain, and many other officers were 
 wounded. Undismayed by the fate of his faithful 
 generals, the emperor himself repaired to the spot, 
 unarmed ; but his eflbrts to appease the mutineers, 
 and bring' them back to duty, were unsuccessful. 
 It was in vain that he appealed : in vain that he 
 explained to them his brother's magnanimous re- 
 nunciation ; there were among them those whose 
 interest, or at least intention, it was, not to be con- 
 vinced or persuaded ; there are none so deaf as 
 those who will not hear ; and the emperor was, at 
 last, obliged to order the artillery and the loyal 
 guards to advance. The rebels threw themselves 
 into a hollow square, and first delivered their fire, 
 but were soon dispersed, with a loss of two hun- 
 dred slain. Order was restored by six o'clock. 
 
 The troops remained faithful, and bivouacked 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 107 
 
 all night round the palace. The Grand Duke 
 Michael, who had arrived in the capital during the 
 tuniuh, succeeded in bringing six companies of 
 the Moscow regiment back to their duty. These 
 companies, however, had taken no part in the re- 
 volt ; they had merely refused to take the oath. 
 
 It is in vain, now, to inquire what were the 
 designs of the conspirators. Their motive could 
 not have been any predilection in favor of Con- 
 stantino, inasmuch as they required their Polish 
 accomplices, as a primary condition, to put him to 
 death at the outset, as Hordynski informs us, hav- 
 ing full knowledge of the facts. Neither could it 
 have been any great general grievance, for they 
 had complained of none ; or any personal repug- 
 nance to Nicholas, for the conspiracy originated, 
 and was to have been carried into execution, in the 
 lifetime of Alexander. Though the premature 
 explosion was hastened by his death, it took place 
 before Nicholas had afforded any pretext for it by 
 any act of his own. For all these reasons, there- 
 fore, we conclude that it arose from the resent- 
 ment of the nobles at the settled policy of the 
 Russian government, which originated in Ivan 
 Vassilievitsch I. and was continued by all his 
 successors, down to Nicholas I. — a policy that 
 steadily aimed at the humiliation of the great and 
 the exaltation of the small. This has been the 
 natural course of things in all feudal nations ; no 
 aristocracy ever yet surrendered their privileges 
 without a struggle. 
 
 Whatever the motive of the conspiracy may have 
 been, it is very certain that one of its objects was 
 to seize the royal family ; whether to murder or 
 make tools of them, One alone knoweth. It took 
 the shape of a military mutiny, and was quelled, 
 
108 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 as all mutinies should be, as the laws of war 
 allow; and there was neither cruelty nor injus- 
 tice in the matter. It was to have been expected 
 that the sufferers would complain, and that they 
 would find sympathy ; criminals, of every grade, 
 always do. It is quite probable, as the govern- 
 ment alleged, that the assassination of the whole 
 imperial family, and the massacre of all their ad- 
 herents, were contemplated. What change could 
 the conspirators have expected to effect while Nich- 
 olas lived — a monarch for whom no labor was too 
 great, and whose courage no danger could daunt ? 
 
 A special committee was immediately organized 
 to investigate this rebellion, consisting of the Grand 
 Duke Michael, the minister of war, privy council- 
 lor Prince Galitzin, and Generals Berkendorff, Le- 
 wascheff, and Palapoff. It is stated, and is more 
 than probable, that they speedily obtained infor- 
 mation of the extent of the plot and the names of 
 the conspirators. Numerous arrests, especially of 
 military officers, took place in various provinces 
 of the empire, as well as in the capital. The 
 extent and particulars of the plot were not, how- 
 ever, made public. The general belief and report 
 was, that the conspirators intended, as a prelimi- 
 nary to establishing a constitution, to have mur- 
 dered the whole imperial family, when they should 
 have assembled, according to custom, on the 12th 
 of January, in the chapel of the castle, to participate 
 in a religious ceremony in memory of the Emperor 
 Paul. The victims were to have been shut up in 
 the chapel, and there murdered ; after which, the 
 castle was to have been seized, all foreigners mas- 
 sacred, and the city given up to the soldiers for 
 pillage, for three days. 
 
 In consequence of discoveries made by the commit- 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 109 
 
 tee of investigation, orders were sent to Lieutenant 
 Colonel Gebel, commanding the Tchernigoff regi- 
 ment of infantry, to arrest Lieutenant-Colonel 
 MouraviefF Apostol, of the same regiment ; but 
 Apostol resisted his commanding officer, wounded 
 him in several places, and then instigated six com- 
 panies of the regiment to revolt, by urging the 
 oath of allegiance they had taken to Constantine. 
 He next arrested the courier and gendarmes sent 
 to convey him to St. Petersburg, plundered the 
 regimental chest, set the malefactors in the prison 
 of VassilikofF at liberty, and gave the town up to 
 rapine and pillage. Three companies of the regi- 
 ment, however, remained steadfast in their duty, un- 
 der Major Trouchin, and separated from the rebels. 
 
 As soon as the commander-in-chief of the first 
 army received advice of this mutiny, he ordered 
 Prince Scherbatoff to march instantly, with a 
 sufficient force, to exterminate the rebels. Lest 
 they should escape the prince's pursuit, the Grand 
 Duke Constantine himself — whose name and sup- 
 posed claims were the pretext of their rebellion — 
 .was directed to cooperate with Scherbatoff, with 
 another corps of infantry. 
 
 This fact is, of itself, sufficient proof, that, as 
 Nicholas said, in his manifesto of the 2d of Jan- 
 uary, '' the sacred words fidelity^ oath^ legitimate 
 order, even the names of the czarowitsch and 
 the Grand Duke Constantine, were for them only a 
 pretext for treason. They wished to profit by the 
 moment, to accomplish their criminal designs — 
 designs long contrived, long meditated, long ma- 
 tured in darkness, and the mystery of which the 
 government had penetrated only in part. They 
 intended to cast down the throne and the laws ; to 
 overturn the empire, to produce anarchy." 
 10 
 
110 
 
 VINDICATION or RUSSIA AND 
 
 Mouravieff Apostol seems to have intended, at 
 first, to march to Bronssiloflf, by Yastoff ; but the 
 motions of his pursuers made him change his plan, 
 and he was proceeding to Biala Tcherkiov, in hopes 
 of getting possession of a treasure in the house 
 of the Countess Branicki, when he found himself 
 surrounded on all sides. On the morning of the 
 15th of January, General Rath came up with him 
 on the heights of Oustinovka, near the village of 
 Pologoff, in the district of VassilikofF. 
 
 Seeing escape imprEieticable, Apostol advanced in 
 column on the imperial artillery ; but his column 
 was instantly broken by grape-shot, and then 
 charged by cavalry ; upon which the rebels threw 
 down their arms. Seven hundred were made pris- 
 oners, including Apostol himself, who was wounded 
 by a grape-shot and a sabre-cut. Baron Solovieff, 
 the second captain, two lieutenants, and a brother 
 of Apostol, (who was a colonel on half pay,) were 
 also taken. Two lieutenants, and another brother 
 of Apostol, were among the slain, not to speak of 
 the privates killed and wounded. Not a drop of 
 blood was lost on the imperial side. 
 
 Mouravieff Apostol, the martyr of liberty, as 
 Hordynski calls him, who made use of one broth- 
 er's name to dethrone the other, was hanged on a 
 gallows at St. Petersburg. 
 
 This base conspiracy has greatly retarded the 
 progress of liberty among the nobility, and has 
 been advantageous in the same degree to the myr- 
 iads of the true people. The severity of the re- 
 strictions on travel, which has of late been doubled, 
 and the censorship of the press, are part of the 
 punishment brought on the many by the miscon- 
 duct of the few. It was time to close and watch 
 the roads when every noble traveller carried a dis- 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. Ill 
 
 ease more dangerous than small-pox or cholera, in 
 his own person ; it was time to stop the press when 
 it fulminated murder and rebellion. The relative 
 condition of the two countries considered, and 
 the character of the Russo-Polish conspiracy, the 
 course of the emperor was not half so harsh as the 
 laws shortly after promulgated in France, against 
 the liberty of the press, on account of the attempt 
 of a single, obscure scoundrel. In no other coun- 
 try would such a conspiracy have been so leniently 
 punished throughout. Peter the Great was not 
 nigh so merciful with the Strelitzes. 
 
 Against whom, but the factious nobility, is the 
 censorship of the press directed? Not the lower 
 classes; for they do not read. The Rev. Mr. 
 Venables, an English clergyman, certainly not 
 prepossessed in favor of Russia, in his '' Domestic 
 Scenes," treats the charges against Nicholas of 
 tyranny, cruelty, &c., in this matter, with con- 
 tempt ; and unhesitatingly asserts that the emperor 
 has secured the warm personal attachment of his 
 subjects by his conduct, and saved his country 
 from anarchy and bloodshed. 
 
112 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DEATH OF THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER. — RETRO- 
 SPECT.— THE MILITARY COLONIES. 
 
 The death of Alexander caused general inqui- 
 etude throughout Europe ; for it was an event 
 that, it was supposed, would endanger the tran- 
 quillity of his vast empire, and might wholly change 
 the tenor of its foreign policy. This uneasiness 
 was augmented hy certain absurd rumors, that he 
 had come to his death by foul means — rumors 
 which, even now, are not entirely dissipated, and 
 which, therefore, we think it fit to refute by a 
 simple statement of facts. 
 
 Alexander spent much of the year 1S25 in visit- 
 ing different parts of his dominions. Toward the 
 end of autumn, he visited the Crimea. His health 
 had for some time been giving way ; but, partly 
 on account of his moving from place to place, and 
 partly because there was little communication be- 
 tween Etirope and the parts of Russia where he 
 spent his time, the failure of his constitution was 
 little known, nor did the reports concerning his 
 health excite much attention. 
 
 He left the port of Sebastopol on the 10th of 
 November, after a minute inspection of every thing 
 connected with his fleet on the Black Sea. On his 
 way to Bachtchiserai, he felt a slight pain in his 
 head, which he attributed to a cold; and, on his 
 return, he made arrangements to travel along the 
 shore of the Sea of Azof on horseback. He stopped 
 at Taganrog, a town situated on the brink of a very 
 lofty promontory, which commands an extensive 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 113 
 
 prospect of that sea, and of the European coast, to 
 the mouths of the Don. On his arrival there, he 
 felt too ill to proceed, and wrote so to the empress 
 mother. He told her, however, that he had noth- 
 ing to fear from his illness, and would take care 
 of himself. The Empress Elizabeth, his wife, was 
 with him. 
 
 He had feverish symptoms, and a kind of ery- 
 sipelas in the leg. The erysipelas suddenly dis- 
 appeared, and the fever assumed a dangerous as- 
 pect. '' I shall share the fate of my sister," said he, 
 *' who died of an erysipelas driven in." The phy- 
 sicians thought, however, that this was but a sub- 
 ordinate symptom, and that the emperor's disease 
 was a gastric bilious fever, of the same character 
 as that which often rages in those regions. 
 
 On the 18th, he was better; but soon sank 
 again. He became delirious on the 27th ; and, 
 though the medical treatment he received was 
 apparently successful for the next two days, the 
 appearance proved fallacious. He died, calmly 
 and without pain, on the 1st of December. 
 
 A few hours before his last, he had the blinds 
 of his window opened, and exclaimed, as he 
 looked on the cloudless sky of the Crimea, " What 
 a lovely day ! " 
 
 The empress seldom left his pillow during his 
 illness. When he had breathed his last, she washed 
 his face and hands, closed his eyes, crossed his 
 hands on his bosom, and then fainted. While his 
 fate was yet doubtful, she wrote as follows to the 
 empress mother : — 
 
 " Dear Mother : — I was not in a state to write 
 to you by the courier of yesterday. To-day, a 
 thousand and a thousand thanks to the Supreme 
 10* 
 
114 VINDICATION or RUSSIA AND 
 
 Being! — there is decidedly a very great improve- 
 ment in the health of the emperor — of that angel 
 of benevolence in the midst of his sufferings. For 
 whom should God manifest his infinite mercy, if 
 not for him? O my God, what moments of afflic- 
 tion have I passed! and you, dear mother, I can 
 picture to myself your uneasiness. You receive 
 the bulletins. You have, therefore, seen to what 
 a state we were yesterday reduced, and still more 
 last night; but Wylie, (an English physician,) to- 
 day, says himself that the state of our dear patient 
 is satisfactory. He is exceedingly weak. Dear 
 mother, I confess to you that I am not myself, and 
 that I can say no more. Pray with us — with fifty 
 millions of men — that God may deign to com- 
 plete the cure of our well-beloved patient. 
 
 "Elizabeth." 
 
 Thus died, in the forty-eighth year of his age, 
 a sovereign whom the world ranks among the best 
 of princes, both as regards his public and private 
 character. He had accomplishments that would 
 have distinguished any man in common life ; his 
 temper was equable, and he was, therefore, beloved 
 in social intercourse. He was a most dutiful and 
 affectionate son. The empress enjoyed his confi- 
 dence, and he always treated her with kindness and 
 respect. He was, like his successor, indefatigable 
 in business, and honestly and diligently zealous for 
 the improvement of his people. In the most try- 
 ing situations, (and he was often placed in them,) he 
 always conducted with firmness, prudence, and mod- 
 eration. No man was ever intrusted with greater 
 power ; and by no man was power ever less abused. 
 
 " The evil that men do lives after them," says 
 the inspired poet. Alexander reversed the prover- 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 115 
 
 bial line ; the good he did lives after him, and will, 
 while Russia and Poland remain parts of terra firma. 
 We have already recorded his noblest panegyric, 
 his efforts to emancipate the bondsmen of Russia ; 
 but that is not all the good he did. 
 
 He founded, or remodelled, seven universities, 
 two hundred and four academies, many seminaries 
 for the instruction of teachers, and upwards of two 
 thousand schools on the Lancasterian plan. 
 
 He gave important aid to the Bible societies, and 
 granted important privileges to Jews who became 
 Christians. 
 
 He abolished the custom of branding, and slitting 
 the nostrils, connected with the knout. Knouted 
 criminals are now branded with a cold iron. 
 
 He also abolished the secret court, as it was 
 called, to which political criminals were brought, 
 and compelled, by hunger and thirst, to confess. 
 
 He extended the privilege of the nobles — that 
 their estates could not be forfeited from their inno- 
 cent families for their crimes — to all his subjects. 
 
 He gave efficient aid to manufactures and com- 
 merce, by introducing a more judicious tariff ; and 
 he improved the currency and finances, after the 
 establishment of a sinking fund, by the erection of 
 the bank of the imperial chamber, by making Odes- 
 sa a free port and granting it other privileges, and 
 by providing continually for the construction of 
 roads and canals. 
 
 He banished the Jesuits from his dominions, be- 
 cause they interfered with the affairs of the govern- 
 ment and disturbed the peace of families. 
 
 He granted to all peasants the right of estab- 
 lishing manufactories — aright confined, before, to 
 the nobility and merchants of the first and second 
 classes. 
 
116 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 He abolished the tax upon income derived from 
 landed property. 
 
 It would require a larger volume than this to re- 
 cord the tenth part of what Alexander did for the 
 good of Russia and mankind ; but there is one of 
 his acts that merits more than a passing notice, 
 though it has failed of the whole of its intended 
 effect ; we mean his gigantic plan of consolidating 
 and amalgamating the two classes on which such a 
 throne as the emperor of Russia's rests for support, — 
 the peasantry and the army. 
 
 After the war with Napoleon, the immense ex- 
 pense of the standing army of Russia became a 
 prime subject of the emperor's meditations. To 
 obviate this difficulty, Count Araktschejeff coun- 
 selled the emperor to quarter the soldiery among the 
 crown peasants ; to build military villages, and to 
 frame a code of regulations for their government. 
 To each house so many acres of land were to be 
 attached. In a word, the crown peasant was to 
 become a soldier, and the soldier a crown peasant ; 
 both were to aid in supporting themselves by culti- 
 vating the soil, and both were to be drilled, disci- 
 plined, and kept in readiness, as parts of an army of 
 reserve. The recruits levied from the remote gov- 
 ernments, before this, had been taken from their 
 homes for an indefinite time, sometimes for twenty- 
 five years, and often forgot all local attachments, and 
 even that they had a country. By this new insti- 
 tution the soldier had a home and abiding-place, 
 a point of departure and return ; in time of peace 
 he was provided for, and so were his family during 
 his absence in active service. 
 
 The experiment was first tried at Novogorod, in 
 such manner that, in case the quartered soldier 
 should fall sick or die, the crown peasant could im- 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 117 
 
 mediately take his place. Each chief colonist was 
 clad in uniform, and put in possession of a house 
 and fifteen desatines of land, (forty-five acres,) for 
 which he was to maintain one soldier, and his horse 
 if the quartered troops were cavalry. He was also 
 provided with stock and farming implements, bound 
 to use them, and to labor forty-four days in the 
 year for the crown, in keeping up the roads and 
 contributing to the common magazine ; after which, 
 the surplus produce was at his disposal. The quar- 
 tered soldier is called an agricultural soldier and as- 
 sistant, and is required to assist in the labors of the 
 farm. He also selects one of his family, his son or 
 brother, as a second assistant, who, with the con- 
 sent of the colonel of his regiment, (which depends 
 on his good behavior,) inherits his real estate at his 
 decease. The second son, or some other relation, 
 belongs to the reserve, and also dwells in the house ; 
 the third is likewise an agricultural soldier ; the 
 other members of the family are called cantonists. 
 
 The boys remain with their parents till they are 
 eight years old, when they are sent to the military 
 schools, to be prepared for their future vocation. 
 At thirteen they become cantonists, and are at the 
 same time educated and trained as soldiers and 
 cultivators. They become agricultural soldiers at 
 seventeen, and members of the colony. 
 
 Each colony has its court of justice, in which the 
 senior officer presides. 
 
 The girls are bred in separate schools, and very 
 seldom marry any other than a soldier. No person 
 is allowed to come within the military district with- 
 out a pass from the military authorities. The 
 peasants' houses are committed to the care of the 
 soldiers. 
 
 After spending from twenty to twenty-five years 
 
118 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 in service, the agricultural soldier may retire from 
 his double duty, or become an invalid, when his 
 place is taken by one of the reserve. 
 
 We have no data from which to determine to 
 what extent this system now is or will be carried. 
 In 1824, the mihtary colonies formed a chain of de- 
 fence across the western frontier of Russia, her only 
 assailable side, from the Black Sea to the Baltic, 
 in which all male children were born soldiers, and 
 so remained from seventeen to sixty. The colo- 
 nists were duly divided and officered as regiments 
 and companies ; a part of the crown lands is set 
 apart for their maintenance, and on it they support 
 themselves during peace. In active service, they 
 receive pay. It was calculated then (in 1824) that 
 the military colonists numbered three hundred thou- 
 sand men, of which one half were at all times ready 
 and fit for active service — probably an over-estimate. 
 
 In the same year, Russia had a standing army of 
 three hundred and sixty thousand infantry and 
 artillery, and forty thousand cavalry. General Arak- 
 tschejefF remained commander-in-chief till his death, 
 and all the cantonists in the preparatory schools 
 were made subordinate to him. 
 
 Under this system, the old system of recruiting the 
 army by conscription must necessarily fall somewhat 
 into disuse. A considerable number of cantonists en- 
 ter the service every year, in place of those of the re- 
 serve who have been drafted to fill the places of the 
 agricultural soldiers, and the boys of the schools take 
 the places vacated by the cantonists. The money 
 obtained from the several governments for the re- 
 lease of recruits is applied to the education and sup- 
 port of the boys and cantonists. The proprietors 
 of ten governments were released from the obliga- 
 tion of furnishing recruits, in 1823, on payment of 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 119 
 
 stated sums. Thirty-five hundred of these re- 
 leases, at 2000 rubles each, produced 7,000,000 
 of rubles. In 1822, the expenditure on the mili- 
 tary colonies was 4,962,775 rubles, and the total 
 cost, from the time of their organization to 1824, 
 amounted to 115,780,115. Four of the six millions 
 of crown peasants were then sufficient to provide 
 quarters for the whole army, and the result of the 
 whole arrangement was, that, beside six or seven 
 hundred thousand regular troops, Russia, in case of 
 need, would have had a considerable army of reserve 
 ready for service, disciplined in the best possible 
 manner. Such was the state of things in 1824. 
 It has been greatly improved by the Emperor 
 Nicholas. 
 
 The experiment, as a whole, has proved a failure. 
 No man can work well at two trades at once. In 
 proportion as a soldier becomes attached to home 
 and family, he is unwilling to leave them, and im- 
 patient of control. Discontent has always prevailed, 
 to a greater or less extent, in the military colonies, 
 and mutiny has not been unknown in them. 
 
120 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 CAUSES OF THE POLISH INSURRECTION. — MAJOR 
 TOCHMAN'S TRACT. 
 
 We ask what caused the Polish insurrection of 
 1830, and the universal reply is — the tyrannical 
 grand duke and the despot Nicholas. We ask 
 for the grievances of the Poles ; and one writer 
 tells us of arbitrary arrests and punishments ; 
 another talks of the restriction of the press ; and 
 a third gravely informs us that the system of es- 
 pionage was intolerable ; — just as if we had lost 
 our memories, and had never heard of Fouche 
 and Marion de I'Orme, of Savary, and Sartines, 
 and D'Argenson. Hear, now, what one of these 
 sympathetic mourners says on this head. 
 
 " When a fundamental change has taken place 
 in the government of a country, and a numerous 
 party exists, not constituting what is called, in free 
 governments, an opposition, but actually striving to 
 overthrow the established order, — under such cir- 
 cumstances, a secret police may, perhaps, be ad- 
 missible, as poisons are prescribed in some dreadful 
 diseases, producing bad effects, undoubtedly, but 
 preventing worse." 
 
 Was not this precisely the condition of Poland ? 
 Where, and by what sovereign, was a secret police 
 ever needed, if not by the Emperor Nicholas, when 
 a conspiracy had broken out in both his kingdoms, 
 extending to thousands, and affecting, not only his 
 authority, but his liberty, and his very life ? To 
 complain that he used the means in his power to 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 121 
 
 detect and destroy the ringleaders of a sedition 
 that threatened the destruction of peace and order 
 among sixty-one millions of people, and of his 
 own family, is to suppose him more purely brutish 
 than the porcupine: even he erects his quills when 
 assailed. Arbitrary arrests and punishments ! Who 
 — we do not say what sovereign — stops to con- 
 sider whether the man who holds a dagger to his 
 breast means innocently or not, or whether he acts 
 most lawfully himself in knocking him down with 
 his fist or an iron bar ? '^ Warsaw was made one 
 vast prison ! " What wonder, when almost every 
 noble in it was a disturber of the peace or a con- 
 spirator ! 
 
 ''The news of Alexander's death," says Hor- 
 dynski, " stunned, at first, the patriotic club in 
 Petersburg. Nevertheless, they resolved to act. 
 They hoped to profit by the troubles, between 
 Nicholas and Constantine, about the succession. 
 On the 18th of December of the same year, the 
 signal for revolt was given in Petersburg. Some 
 regiments of the guard were on the side of the 
 patriots, and with them assembled great numbers 
 of the people, ready to fight for liberty. Yet all 
 this was done without sufiicient energy, and with- 
 out good leaders. It was unfortunate that, at the 
 time. Colonel Pestel — acknowledged by all to be 
 a man of great talents and energy — happened to 
 be absent in Moscow. 
 
 " The people assembled in their holy cause ; 
 but, being without leaders, began to fall into dis- 
 order, and a few discharges of cannon were suffi- 
 cient to disperse them. As the Grand Duke 
 Constantine, on account of his marriage with a 
 noble Polish lady, Grudzinska, in 1823, was 
 obliged to renounce the throne of Russia, the im- 
 11 
 
122 
 
 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 perial power was, by a written document, given to 
 the Grand Duke Nicholas, as the eldest in succes- 
 sion after him." 
 
 Some companies of the guard, wrought upon, we 
 may be sure, by the conspirators, had taken the 
 oath of allegiance to Constantine immediately after 
 the death of Alexander, and were now required to 
 take it to Nicholas. They refused ; and the mu- 
 tiny was blended with the rebellion, — or rather 
 riot, — which lasted an entire day, and was sup- 
 pressed, first by the firmness of Nicholas, who 
 mowed down one or two companies of the muti- 
 neers with grape shot, and then by his moderation. 
 He arrested the ringleaders, and dispersed and par- 
 doned their deluded followers. 
 
 It proved, on investigation, that this conspiracy 
 had existed for years, and was founded partly on 
 crude ideas of liberty and equality, and partly on 
 the offended pride of the nobility ; offended, be- 
 cause, from Ivan Vassilievitsch downward, the 
 constant effort of the czars had been to diminish 
 their monstrous power over their serfs, and to in- 
 struct their ignorance. Compared with the na- 
 tions either of Poland or Russia, whose feelings 
 they have been sedulously represented to express, 
 they were but as drops in the oceeui, and their 
 knowledge — that of the Russian rebels, especial- 
 ly — must have been small indeed, if they ex- 
 pected to effect aught but their own ruin and that 
 of their followers. 
 
 " All the prisons of the realms," says Hordynski, 
 in continuation, "were prepared to receive their 
 victims. Over the whole of Poland and Russia 
 the sword of cruel revenge was suspended." 
 
 Supposing all the instigators of this criminal 
 enterprise in every sense of the word to have been 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 123 
 
 put to death, their execution could not have been 
 called injustice, cruelty, or revenge. As it was, 
 Nicholas showed far more moderation than most 
 other sovereigns have done in like circumstances. 
 Five only of the noble Russian Jack Cades, (mar- 
 tyrs of liberty, Hordynski calls them,) taken in 
 open battle, with arms in their hands, were hanged, 
 as they deserved ; and a few hundreds were sent to 
 Siberia. 
 
 At Warsaw, the trials of the conspirators were, 
 perhaps, conducted more harshly, as might have 
 been expected from the temper of the Grand Duke 
 Constantine, who tried them, and who was the 
 principal object of their hatred. Senator Soltyk, 
 undeniably one of the chiefs of the conspiracy, 
 was, perhaps, flogged with the knout ; in consid- 
 eration of his years, his life was spared. Kryzan- 
 ouski, another of them, committed suicide, Hordyn- 
 ski says, to avoid torture, which had been abolished 
 by Catherine half a century before ; but more 
 probably, to escape the gallows, to which his 
 fellows were sentenced. The senate, however, by 
 a commission of which they were tried, contrary, 
 as the Encyclopaedia Americana informs us, to the 
 provisions of the senate, commuted their sentence 
 to a few years' imprisonment. 
 
 Of this infamous conspiracy, Fletcher, the source 
 from which we Americans have gotten all our ideas 
 of Poland and Nicholas, speaks in the terms pres- 
 ently to follow. It is true that the statement is 
 not Fletcher's own, but is borrowed from some 
 nameless scribbler in the Metropolitan Magazine ; 
 but, as he incorporates it into his book without 
 note or comment, he endorses it, and is particeps 
 criminis in spreading false reports. The reader 
 will observe that this anonymous writer is flatly 
 
124 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 contradicted by the confessions of Hordynski, a 
 Pole, who, having been an actor in what he de- 
 scribes, may certainly be believed when he crimi- 
 nates his own party, conceiving that he is honoring 
 it by so doing. We should not quote from Fletch- 
 er, (believing his speculations, original or borrowed, 
 wholly unworthy of attention,) but that his words 
 serve £ls an illustration of the manner in which 
 sympathy for Poland has been uniformly and sys- 
 tematically " got up." 
 
 '' The Grand Duke Constantine, who has played 
 so conspicuous a part in the affairs of Poland, is wor- 
 thy of something more than a mere passing notice. 
 Though possessed of considerable talents, he is, in 
 fact, an untamed tiger, giving way on all occasions 
 to the most violent paroxysms of temper. He has 
 a deep sense of the rights of his order, and holds 
 the feelings of every other class as absolutely 
 nought. So soon, therefore, as he found that his 
 imperial brother was no longer the liberal patron 
 of constitutional rights, he gave the most unre- 
 strained license to his capricious and violent injus- 
 tice," &c. &c. 
 
 '' But, notwithstanding these increasing grounds 
 of dissatisfaction, nay, of deep and unqualified ab- 
 horrence, the good sense of the associated regenera- 
 tors of their country's freedom prevailed over their 
 excited feelings. The ferocity of the unprincipled 
 savage but continued them in the path of duty, and 
 in the necessity of the utmost caution. Yet thus 
 rendered circumspect, they never forgot that these 
 practical illustrations of tyranny imposed upon 
 them additional and more urgent duties to their 
 country. Under these convictions they restricted 
 their operations to the most narrow limit, and noth- 
 ing beyond Poland and Poles was ever regarded 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 125 
 
 in even a speculative view. Yet, in spite of all 
 this caution, on the breaking out of the Russian 
 conspiracy, after the death of Alexander, in favor 
 of Constantino, in opposition to his younger broth- 
 er, the present emperor, attempts were made to 
 connect the Polish association with the Russian 
 revolt." 
 
 We have no doubt that this falsehood was penned 
 deliberately, and with a perfect knowledge of the 
 true state of facts. The author of it deserves 
 credit for his ingenuity, at least. There is no way 
 of lying so sure to mislead, as the blending of so 
 much undeniable truth with falsehood as will rec- 
 oncile probabilities; and this can only be done 
 with a thorough knowledge of the case, which, it 
 is evident, this writer possesses. Such special 
 pleading as his has, at all events, been successful in 
 prejudicing both England and the United States 
 against the Emperor Nicholas. 
 
 There was no need to attempt to justify the re- 
 bellious Poles : the work was done to his hand. 
 We look upon the partition of Poland as the most 
 fortunate event that ever happened to that country. 
 One incontestable wrong has constituted an excuse 
 for any wrongs the Polish aristocracy may commit, 
 from that time forth forever. It is like the Catholic 
 church's inexhaustible stock of merits. Such is 
 the feeling of all mankind. A Pole can do no 
 wrong, because his grandfather has, perhaps, been 
 wronged ; for the dear, gullible public seldom look 
 beneath the surface of foreign soils. 
 
 '' Under this pretext," the same writer continues, 
 ''an immense number of the association, already 
 in bad odor from having been denounced by Alex- 
 ander, were arrested. The most chosen victims 
 were persons eminent for their rank, attainments, 
 11* 
 
126 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 virtues, and patriotism ; not that noisy and pre- 
 sumptuous quality, miscalled patriotism, which dis- 
 plays itself in idle declamation and useless turbu- 
 lence, but in that silent devotion to the best interests 
 of their country, illustrated by improving its con- 
 dition, and by promoting every measure calculated 
 to benefit the people. The individuals so arrested 
 were declared, by an imperial ordinance, to be guilty, 
 in defiance of an acquittal by the senate, which 
 alone could legally investigate the charges. The 
 imperial edict then issued, condemning the accused 
 to imprisonment, exile, and every penalty that un- 
 principled caprice could suggest. In this career of 
 criminal folly a singular step was taken. The 
 whole of the offences were published, the defence 
 suppressed." 
 
 Here are two palpable lies, with two circum- 
 stances. The accused were tried, as the constitu- 
 tion directed, by a court consisting of senators, all 
 Poles themselves, though Hordynski says they 
 were in the Russian interest. It was called the su- 
 preme court of the diet, and its president was Count 
 Vicenti Krasinski, whom even Hordynski describes 
 as '• a m^n of great merit, a brave soldier, as well 
 as a good citizen, who had been faithful to his 
 country for fifty years, had made for it the greatest 
 sacrifices, and was regarded by the soldiers as a 
 father, and very much beloved by the nation." 
 
 The accused were charged with nothing but 
 conspiracy and rebellion, which they did not deny ; 
 and, if their defences were not published, it was 
 because they sought not to repel the charges against 
 them, but to justify their conduct, and hold it up 
 as an example to others ; or, as their counsel above 
 cited has it, '' as these offences (conspiracy and re- 
 bellion) involved only what every Pole felt to be a 
 
THE Ex>IPEROR NICHOLAS. 127 
 
 sacred duty," &c. Can any one wonder that the 
 emperor was unwilling his subjects should be 
 taught that to subvert his throne, and destroy his 
 life, were sacred duties? 
 
 The prisoners were not pronounced guilty by the 
 emperor's ordinance, nor were they illegally tried. 
 The second section of the seventy-sixth article of 
 the charter expressly provided, that the execution 
 of the laws " shall be intrusted to the commission 
 of justice, chosen from the members of the supreme 
 tribunal," meaning the senate ; and the commission 
 of justice which tried the accused (which Fletcher 
 calls the supreme court of the senate, and Hordyn- 
 ski the supreme court of the diet) was so chosen. 
 The Pole does not say that these prisoners had not 
 the full benefit of the law ; though his language in- 
 fers it. He says that the procurator-general (an- 
 swering to our attorney-general) "sentenced all 
 who were condemned (that is, found guilty) to 
 death, to be hanged and exposed on a wheel." It 
 is difficult to penetrate the obscurity of Hordynski's 
 style,* and equally so to unravel the tangled skein 
 of his confused ideas ; but we suppose he means, if 
 he means any thing, that the prosecuting officer 
 urged the strict observance of the law against high 
 treason, as it was his duty to do, and just as our 
 attorney-general would have done. 
 
 It seems, too, that, whatever the sentences of 
 the prisoners may have been, whether "imprison- 
 ment, exile," or " every penalty that tyrannical ca- 
 price could suggest," they did not emanate from 
 the emperor ; or that, if they did, they were not 
 final and without appeal ; for the senate had power 
 
 * Hordynski wrote in Polish, which he translated into bad 
 French, as he wrote, which was rendered into English by a perbon 
 whose knowledge of French was about equal to his own. 
 
128 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 to, and did, commute them — the president of the 
 commission of justice, the worthy and well-beloved 
 Krasinski, only, voting in the negative. 
 
 With regard to the ferocity, cruelty, and barbari- 
 ty, of the " untamed tiger, the unprincipled sav- 
 age," the Grand Duke Constantino, in the absence 
 of all proof for disinterested evidence, we have 
 but one fact to state. This tiger and savage slept, 
 nightly, in the outskirts of the city he is accused 
 of outraging in every possible manner, in the midst 
 of a populace goaded to madness by his cruelty, 
 without guards, though he had three Russian regi- 
 ments at hand ! Certainly, he was either the most 
 courageous or the most stupid tyrant that ever 
 reigned ; or he was, as we think, a very passion- 
 ate man, as the sympathizers aver, but not a ty- 
 rant at all. His usual practice was to rise at 
 four, and appear among the troops, and in public, 
 till two, his dinner hour; after which he slept 
 four or five hours, and then gave the evening to 
 amusement. 
 
 It is admitted, on all hands, that a secret polit- 
 ical society had existed in Poland from the year 
 1821, for the purpose of gaining over the officers, 
 civil and military, to revolutionary views ; an as- 
 sociation similar in most, if not in all respects, to 
 the Carbonari in Italy, and the Tugenbund in 
 Prussia. To their exertions was owing the in- 
 surrection of 1830. It was hurried, however, to 
 a premature explosion by the emperor's prepara- 
 tions for war on France and Belgium, and the 
 discontent of the inhabitants of Warsaw at hav- 
 ing the troops billeted upon them. '* Of this dis- 
 content the ' patriots ' made use, in endeavoring 
 to propagate their views of the necessity of a 
 revolution." Seditious placards were posted at 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 129 
 
 every corner. " The holy moment was now fast 
 approaching, and Warsaw was in anxious expec- 
 tation." 
 
 The event that was the immediate cause of the 
 revolt is variously stated. We have not the Rus- 
 sian version of it. 
 
 One author (Fletcher's authority) says, ''The 
 police of the grand duke, ever on the alert to 
 render themselves acceptable to their master, by 
 affording him objects on which he might wreak 
 his ruthless passions, planned an association for 
 the purpose of involving the most respectable and 
 distinguished persons in Poland ; and for that pur- 
 pose inveigled a number of ardent youths, just 
 after the revolution in Paris, to attend meetings, 
 and to avow patriotic opinions. The prime con- 
 spirator, either from indolence, or a belief that 
 there might be danger in devising a new or- 
 ganization for the association, used that which 
 had been discovered during the early proceedings 
 against the patriots. A copy of this scheme falling 
 into the hands of some of the members of the ac- 
 tual association, excited a suspicion that they had 
 been betrayed ; and the recollection of former 
 horrors decided them to take immediate measures 
 for liberating themselves from their detestable 
 thraldom. 
 
 "Constantino had established a school for the 
 education of inferior officers, with a view to de- 
 stroying the national character in the army. The 
 numbers at this establishment were, at this time, 
 180, of whom not more than six or eight were 
 parties to the association. These, however, early 
 on the evening of the day already mentioned, went 
 into their barrack, addressed their comrades, ex- 
 plained their views, and, without a single dissen- 
 
130 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 tient, — not even excepting one individual who was 
 sick in bed, — they armed themselves, and com- 
 menced their operations." 
 
 Another says, "It appears that it (the revolt) 
 was immediately occasioned by a sham conspiracy, 
 got up by the Russian police, who had thus in- 
 duced a number of young men to betray them- 
 selves, and crowded the prisons with the victims. 
 Not only the Polish officers, the youth of the 
 military school, and the students, had been gained 
 over to the cause of the patriots, but the greater 
 part of the citizens ; and the chief nobles were 
 ready to encourage an effort to save themselves 
 from what they now foresaw — the occupation of 
 Poland by a Russian army, and the marching of 
 the Polish troops to the south of Europe. Such 
 was the state of things when the insurrection at 
 Warsaw broke out. 
 
 " A young officer entered the military school, on 
 the evening of that day, and called the youth to 
 arms. They immediately proceeded, and were 
 joined, on their way, by the students of the 
 university. Another party of cadets and students 
 paraded the streets, calling the citizens to arms, 
 and they were joined by the Polish troops." 
 
 A third very enthusiastic sympathizer says, 
 " On the first of December, the Russian superin- 
 tendent of the school for military engineers at 
 Warsaw, where some hundreds of the Polish youth 
 were educated, had the insolence to order two of 
 the young officers to be corporally punished. The 
 students instantly rose against the author of the 
 indignity, drove him out, and rushed to the quar- 
 ters of a regiment of the native guards, calling oil 
 them to rise against the oppressors. The troops 
 immediately followed the call — the spirit spread — 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 13^1 
 
 the Russian soldiers were every where gallantly 
 and instantly attacked, and routed." 
 
 Hordynski's edition differs materially from these 
 three discrepant ones, and is about as likely to be 
 correct, or inaccurate, as either. "An event which 
 served to irritate all minds, and hasten the revolu- 
 tion, was the arrest and imprisonment of eighty 
 students. These brave young men were assembled 
 in a private house, in order to pray to God in se- 
 cret for the souls of their murdered ancestors, on 
 the anniversary of the storming of Praga, by 
 the bloody Suwarrow, in 1796, when none were 
 spared, when Praga swam with blood, and was 
 strewed with the corpses of thirty thousand in- 
 habitants. In memory of this event, the patriots 
 had met almost every year for secret prayer, 
 since public devotions on the occasion had been 
 forbidden by the grand duke. The above-men- 
 tioned students, with some priests, were in the act 
 of worship, praying to the Almighty, and honoring 
 the memory of their forefathers, when the doors 
 were broken open with great violence, and a num- 
 ber of gendarmes, under their captain, Jurgasko, 
 with a company of Russian soldiers behind them, 
 entered the apartment. Our brave youths continued 
 their prayers upon their knees about the altar, and 
 in that position suffered themselves to be bound, 
 and dragged away to prison. The news of this 
 outrage was spread through Warsaw with the 
 quickness of lightning, and it thrilled every heart. 
 This was the occasion for fixing upon the 29th of 
 November as the day for commencing the revolu- 
 tion, when the 4th Polish regiment, many of the 
 officers of which were among the initiated, were 
 to mount guard in Warsaw." 
 
 It seems, then, that the outbreak did not origi- 
 
132 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 nate with the military students ; but had long been 
 planned and premeditated. 
 
 '' The patriots assembled early in the morning 
 of the 29th of November, to renew their oaths, and 
 ask the blessing of the Almighty on their great 
 undertaking. The moment approached. Seven 
 in the evening was the hour appointed for the 
 commencement of the revolution. The signal 
 agreed upon was, that a wooden house should be 
 set on fire in Szulec Street, near the Yistula. The 
 patriots were scattered over the city, ready to stir up 
 the people on the appearance of the signal. Most 
 of them were young men, and students. Some hun- 
 dred and twenty students, who were to make the 
 beginning, were assembled in the southern part of 
 Warsaw. All was ready. At the stroke of seven, 
 as soon as the flame of the house was seen reflected 
 on the sky, many brave students, and some offi- 
 cers, rode through the streets of that part of the city 
 called the Old Town, shouting, ' Poles ! brethren ! 
 the hour of vengeance has struck. The time to 
 revenge the tortures and cruelties of fifteen years 
 is come. Down with the tyrants ! To arras, 
 brethren, to arms ! Our country forever ! ' " 
 
 What followed is known to the world. Eigh- 
 teen days after, the Emperor Nicholas issued a proc- 
 lamation, declaring that no concessions would be 
 made to the rebels, and another to the Russians, 
 telling them that the Poles had dared to propose 
 conditions to their legitimate sovereign. " God is 
 with us," he added, '' and, in a single battle, we 
 shall be able to reduce these disturbers of the 
 peace to submission." This resolution was long 
 debated in the Russian senate, and it was not 
 without extreme reluctance that Nicholas issued his 
 manifesto, and resolved on rigorous measures. We 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 133 
 
 have it on the authority of an American gentle- 
 man, then residing \n St. Petersburg, that the em- 
 peror's anxiety and sorrow for what had befallen 
 in Poland seriously affected his health. On the 
 24th of January, the diet declared Poland inde- 
 pendent, and the throne vacant. 
 
 On looking back to the history of the Rus- 
 sian kingdom of Poland, from 1795 to 1830, the 
 most enthusiastic sympathizer is compelled to ad- 
 mit that the independence of the nation was hope- 
 lessly destroyed — by whose fault or crime it avails 
 nothing to inquire, so far as its restoration is con- 
 cerned. The partition had been acquiesced in by 
 the world ; the territory had been divided between 
 three of the most powerful nations in Europe, from 
 whose grasp Napoleon himself had not been able to 
 wrest it. The Poles of Russian Poland had ob- 
 tained, under Alexander and Nicholas, nearly as 
 liberal a form of government, and as good laws, 
 as we, people of the United States, have ourselves. 
 They could gain nothing, collectively, by a change, 
 and we do not believe the nation had much to 
 complain of ; for we give little faith to the highly- 
 wrought complaints of the defeated rebels ; and, 
 granting them all to be literally true, their wrongs 
 were not sufficiently grievous to justify a desperate 
 appeal to arms, in the first resort, under the circum- 
 stances. We do not find any thing in the charac- 
 ter of Nicholas, either as man or sovereign, to war- 
 rant the belief that he was at all disposed to act 
 the part of an oppressor ; there is not a solitary act 
 of tyranny imputed to him by one of his maligners. 
 The worst that even one of his beaten rebels can 
 say of him, is, that '' he seemed to terrify every 
 one with his very look. His lowering and over- 
 bearing eye was the true mirror of Asiatic despot- 
 12 
 
134 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 ism. Every movement was a command, and his 
 imperious air was in true harmony with the ruhng 
 passion of his mind. Such a sovereign must needs 
 bring distress on our country, acting through the 
 instrumentality of a brother Hke himself." 
 
 We may conchide that a man, or a sovereign, is 
 a tolerably good sort of a personage, when his bit- 
 terest enemies can find no fault with him but his 
 looks ; and yet, if any man alive is calculated to 
 make a favorable impression by his manners and 
 personal advantages, writers of all nations agree 
 that the Emperor Nicholas is that man. 
 
 If Nicholas was difficult of access, and forbidding 
 in his manners to the Poles, Major Hordynski, be- 
 fore he condemned him, should have consulted the 
 history of his country ; and there he might have 
 read that such things as daggers have been worn 
 in Poland. He should have remembered, too, that 
 the first greeting the emperor received from his 
 Russian subjects, on his accession, was an attempt, 
 fomented, sanctioned, and shared, by Poles, to de- 
 stroy his throne and life. Common sense might 
 have told him that such attempts at conciliation 
 are not Calculated to inspire the person so favored 
 with much benevolence toward those who make 
 them, though it does not appear that the Russo- 
 Polish conspiracy of 1826 ever dwelt further in 
 the emperor's memory, so as to affect his political 
 conduct, up to 1830. The major does not pre- 
 tend that it did ; he only believes that such a look- 
 ing sovereign " must needs bring distress on his 
 country." We do not see the sequence; and if 
 there were one, ill looks are no sufficient cause for 
 rebellion or revolution ; far less for murder. 
 
 We do not see that Nicholas is in fault for having 
 succeeded to, or for maintaining, the authority of 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 135 
 
 his predecessors. To go back three reigns to inves- 
 tigate the validity of his title, seems to us very like 
 seeking for — 
 
 John Bull's title to the sovereignty of Ireland, 
 
 Bonaparte's right to the crown of France, 
 
 The pope's right to his triple diadem. 
 
 The right of the Romans to Italy, 
 
 The right of the imperial Tartar to the throne 
 of China, and 
 
 Our own right to the soil of Massachusetts. 
 
 We live not in a world of abstractions, but of 
 stern realities ; and as things are not as they should 
 be, we must make the best of them as they are. 
 The Emperor Nicholas has done so, and, it seems to 
 us, he has done wisely. To have acknowledged 
 the independence of Poland would not have bene- 
 fited the Poles, or the world, but the contrary ; 
 and it would have involved the retrogression, if 
 not the downfall, of afar more important nation — 
 Russia. 
 
 It was not the people of Poland who sought to 
 shake off his rule — there is every reason to be- 
 lieve they were satisfied with it : it was but the 
 aristocracy, the fourteenth part of the nation, seek- 
 ing the restoration of their ancient consequence and 
 privileges, in whose abolition and destruction every 
 good man ought to rejoice. Their success would 
 have been a stab under Polish humanity's fifth rib, 
 and the passing-bell of Polish freedom. Nicholas 
 acted for the greatest good of the greatest number, 
 in opposing them. He acted like a true soldier, in 
 refusing to hear any thing from rebels with arms 
 in their hands. The whole ^' head and front of his 
 offending hath this extent, no more." 
 
 We do not well to give implicit credence to the 
 statements of the missionaries of the Polish Propa- 
 
136 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 ganda, the burden of whose discourse is freedom, 
 patriotism, and Prince Adam Czartoryski. 
 
 " A host of speculative writers," says one of these 
 propagandists, "have endeavored to impress the 
 public mind with an idea, that the mass of her 
 (Poland's) people, before that event, (the triple 
 partition,) were slaves or serfs, subjected to a few 
 nobles. It has been falsely asserted, that the Po- 
 lish people, at this moment, under the governments 
 of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, are happier than 
 before ; and that the dismemberment of their coun- 
 try has injured only the interests of a few nobles 
 — petty tyrants." 
 
 Now, as we hope for a better life, we never 
 saw or heard the servitude of the great mass of the 
 Poles disputed before we undertook to write this 
 little volume ; never till, after having penned the 
 preceding pages. Major Tochman's tract happened 
 to fall in our way. Every writer we have con- 
 sulted on the subject confirms it, and the authori- 
 ties from which we quote are not a few. At the 
 same time, we believe that our view of the rebel- 
 lion is as new to the Americim, French, and English 
 public at large, as it was to us two years ago, when 
 we first began to study and judge for ourself. It 
 seems to us strange, nay, surprising, that Major 
 Tochman should have thought it necessary to 
 repel attacks that were never made, or, if made, 
 were made so feebly as to make no impression, and 
 leave no trace, on the public mind. We can only 
 account for his thus begging the question by sup- 
 posing an hostility that does not exist and fortify- 
 ing his position before war is declared, by suppos- 
 ing that he feels its weakness, and that, being 
 himself a revolted Polish soldier, and, of course, a 
 noble, he feels as gentlemen of loose morals, and 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 137 
 
 ladies of doubtful character, do, when the subjects 
 of honesty and chastity are mentioned. 
 
 Major Tochman is a Pole, and, of course, knows 
 more of the condition of his country than we can 
 pretend to know ; but this advantage is counter- 
 balanced by his questionable position as a revolted 
 subject, and by the fact that he is almost avow- 
 edly a partisan of Prince Adam Czartoryski, and a 
 missionary of the Polish Propaganda. These facts, 
 however, are not generally enough known to have 
 their proper weight ; and we should also recollect 
 that a Pole, speaking of the affairs of Poland to 
 such foreigners as only speak French and English, 
 plays the fox in the royal game of goose ; sure that 
 his hearers cannot oppose him, if they would. 
 George Psalmanazer wrote what he pleased of the 
 Island of Formosa, and was believed for half a cen- 
 tury, because there was no one to contradict him. 
 
 We shall briefly recapitulate Major Tochman's 
 £issumptions, together with our reasons and authori- 
 ties for disbelieving them in toto. 
 
 Before the introduction of Christianity, he says 
 that Poland was an absolute monarchy, and the con- 
 dition of its people was unknown. If he had called 
 it an absolute anarchy, down to the year 1791, 
 he would have come nigher the truth. In the 
 eleventh century, he adds that the people were 
 divided into four classes, viz., the wojewods, cor- 
 responding with the lords and peers of England 
 and France, a privileged class, to which the bishops 
 and prelates belonged. From this body the king 
 selected his council, consisting of twelve members. 
 
 The nobles, who had no share in the govern- 
 ment. They were the army, equivalent to the 
 knights of feudal Europe. 
 
 The Wiesniacy, agricultural people, peasants or 
 12* 
 
138 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 serfs ; according to M. Tochman, a free and inde- 
 pendent people, mostly tenants. Those of them 
 who fought the battles of their country became 
 noble by so doing. 
 
 This, too, was and is the case in detested 
 Russia. 
 
 " The owners of land used to build hamlets and 
 villages, and the poor, who wished to settle in them, 
 used to take a lease of as many acres as they 
 pleased. The produce belonged to the tenant, who 
 paid his rent by working on other land for the 
 owner from two to four days in the week, either 
 personally, or by the labor of his servant or hired 
 man." 
 
 Pretty high pay, too, for leave to toil, even were 
 the statement true. 
 
 " The labor of every man having been counted 
 for one day's rent, the tenant could pay his weekly 
 rent in a day, by sending his landlord a number of 
 laborers equal to the number of days' rent due. 
 All these peasants were under the protection of the 
 law, as well as the nobles, and could remove when- 
 ever and wherever they pleased. Some of these 
 peasants paid additional rent, in the shape of eggs, 
 poultry, and flax." 
 
 It is hardly to be supposed that the Polish peas- 
 antry or tenants were better off in the eleventh 
 than they were in the last century. In 1827, the 
 peasants on one large property held about forty- 
 eight acres apiece, for which they wrought two 
 days a week, with a yoke of oxen. If further 
 labor was required of them, they were paid 3d. a 
 day for two days more, and, if beyond these four 
 days, at the rate of 6d. a day. On another prop- 
 erty, they held thirty-six acres each, gave two days 
 a week regular rent, and received 6d. a day for 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 139 
 
 additional labor with, and 3d. without, the yoke of 
 oxen.* 
 
 This service was thus modified under despotic 
 Russia. We shall presently see what it was under 
 the republic ; if it is not mockery to call Poland a 
 republic, at any time. 
 
 "The fourth class (it is M. Tochman who 
 speaks) were prisoners of war ; and their descendants, 
 slaves of the nobles and wojewods ; their condi- 
 tion was not worse than that of the English vil- 
 leins and tenants at will. All these slaves and 
 serfs were emancipated at once, and declared as free 
 as the peasants, by the great national assembly, in 
 1347, which also limited the power of the kings, 
 and laid the foundation of that new Polish consti- 
 tution which made Poland an elective monarchy, 
 and, finally, a republic." 
 
 All very fine, this, for the serfs and slaves ; but 
 the major has forgotten to tell us how and when the 
 power of their masters over them was ever abridged, 
 or what aristocracy, having the power to oppress, 
 ever failed to abuse it. As the Russian proverb 
 has it, " God is high up, and the czar a great way 
 off." He seems to think that nobody in America 
 but himself has ever read history, as Mahomet 
 Emir said to the ambassador Polocki. He has also 
 forgotten to tell us when any law, not protective 
 and extensive of their own privileges, was ever 
 respected or obeyed by the Polish nobles, or contin- 
 ued in force a single month, if it ever came into it. 
 "Fine words," says the vulgar proverb, "butter no 
 parsnips." To talk of acts of Polish kings, or na- 
 tional assemblies of slave-holders, is as absurd as to 
 quote the laws for the protection of negroes in the 
 
 * Jacob, who wrote from personal observation. 
 
140 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 West Indies, or any where else, which are always 
 nugatory, because they leave the power of abuse in 
 the hands of the master, and render the proof of it 
 as difficult as it is to convict a Roman Catholic car- 
 dinal of incontinence ; which requires seventy-two 
 eye-witnesses. 
 
 The great Casimir died in 1370. Why does 
 not Major Tochman tell us that, till his time, the 
 tenants, if he so pleases to call them, had been held 
 by their lords as incapable of removing from their 
 soil and service, or of having a will of their own, 
 and that the lord might murder a tenant with per- 
 fect impunity. Casimir so far attempted to modify 
 this state of things as to declare that, if any tenant 
 was injured by his lord, he might sell his property 
 and go whithersoever he pleased. A formidable 
 part of the abuse was, that the proprietors pledged 
 their tenants to each other for their debts, thus 
 making the said free and happy tenants prisoners 
 and exiles, perhaps for life. Nay, if a noble killed 
 another noble's tenant, by accident or otherwise, 
 the matter was settled by his making over to the 
 damaged proprietor an equally valuable tenant. 
 For abolishing, or rather for trying to abolish, these 
 abominations, Casimir received from his nobility 
 the derisive title of " king of the farmers." 
 
 It was the custom, too, when a tenant died 
 without children, for the lord to seize his property. 
 Casimir decreed that the property should go to the 
 nearest relative. "Who have assailed you?" he 
 asked of a deputation of the peasantry, who came 
 to complain to him of their grievances; "were 
 they men ? " " They were our landlords," was the 
 answer. " Then," said Casimir, "if you are men, 
 too, are there no sticks and stones ? " 
 
 If the nobles were powerful enough, in the next 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 141 
 
 reign, (of Lewis, king of Hungary,) to extort a char- 
 ter for themselves from their sovereign, confirming 
 all their privileges ; if they had power to drive him 
 from the throne ; * of what avail to the serfs, peas- 
 ants, tenants, or farmers, (whichever Major Toch- 
 man likes,) were the laws of John Casimir? The 
 fact that the laws of 1347 were reenacted again 
 and again, from age to age, at almost every change 
 of government, conclusively shows that they were 
 never of any advantage to the nation. As an able 
 writer observes, " the nobility were still the only 
 NATION. They seized all the benefits of the law, 
 made the king a puppet, the people doubly slaves, 
 the crown totally elective, and the nation poor and 
 barbarous, without the virtues of poverty or the 
 redeeming boldness of barbarism." 
 
 ''It is true (the propagandist admits) that, even 
 while Poland boasted of her republican form of 
 government, the peasants were not admitted into 
 any legislative or executive office, and they were 
 very often abused by the nobles, which gave occa- 
 sion to some of our own writers to blend and com- 
 pare their condition with that of the real serfs of 
 other countries. This evil was in the nature of 
 things. (Why, then, seek to deny, disguise, or pal- 
 liate it?) The mass of the nation were illiterate, 
 ignorant, and superstitious ; and, in such condition, 
 the sovereignty of the democratic principle could 
 not be extended to all her people, (Was this intend- 
 ed as a sop for the defenders of our own domestic 
 institution?) for such liberty would have stopped 
 the progress of civilization, and reduced Poland to 
 the rank of savage nations." 
 
 * Koch, Tableau des Revolutions, 
 
142 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 Setting aside the fact that there was no room for 
 such reduction, — 
 
 " He that is down can fall no lower ! " — 
 
 our pleader for Poland has here unconsciously blun- 
 dered upon the apology for negro slavery, for feudal 
 bondage, for Russian serfdom, for servitude all the 
 world over. What other justification do slave-hold- 
 ers ever offer for slavery, than the unfitness of 
 slaves for freedom, and the evils attendant on imme- 
 diate emancipation ? — evils that are not imaginary 
 in Poland and Russia, as the conspiracy of 1826, 
 and the rebellion of 1830, abundantly prove ; evils 
 that the emperor finds real, inasmuch as they spring 
 from the selfish pride of the nobles, not from the 
 ignorance or vindictive temper of the serfs. 
 
 At the same time the unfortunate pleader for Po- 
 land has unwittingly been betrayed by his zeal into 
 a gross inconsistency, na-j, a flat contradiction of 
 himself On the very same page where he denies 
 the existence of slavery in Poland, and quotes an 
 act of the Polish diet, in 1347, in support of his de- 
 nial, he virtually acknowledges and apologizes for 
 its continuance, with such an argument as only a 
 desperate case suggests, viz., that the Polish slaves 
 were not freed, because they were unfit for freedom. 
 
 Let us now see what the actual condition of the 
 Polish people was, before they were so fortunate as 
 to come under the rule of Russia. " Under the re- 
 public, the Polish peasants were slaves, and did not, 
 in fact, enjoy any greater consideration than the 
 blacks of Carolina and Georgia in the present day."* 
 They were the absolute property of their masters, 
 
 *Coxe, 1,113. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 143 
 
 who, down to the year 1768, might kill them, with- 
 out incurring any heavier penahy than a small fine. 
 Though the murder was then made capital, the en- 
 actment was nullified by the accumulation of evi- 
 dence it required to prove the fact.* Slaves were 
 required to labor five days in the week for their 
 lords, who might also seize any money or property 
 they acquired on their own account ; they might 
 inflict corporal punishment, and sell them, like ne- 
 groes at Washington, and bullocks at Brighton. 
 The boasted liberty of Poland was, in sad truth and 
 stern reality, what Mahomet Emir said — "to live 
 without laws ; " the power of the few to trample the 
 many to pieces, and grind the pieces to powder ; to 
 humiliate and oppose their sovereign, and to sell 
 themselves.f It would be strange, indeed, if some 
 of them were not, once in a great while, disposed 
 to treat their thralls with justice and humanity. 
 The Chancellor Zamoyski emancipated his slaves, 
 as we have seen, and was branded by his order as a 
 traitor for so doing ; the Czartoryskis, and Radzivils, 
 and Jablonowskis, have freed some of their peasants, 
 and ameliorated the condition of the rest ; James 
 Birney emancipated his slaves; and Nicholas the 
 First has broken the bonds of more serfs, his own 
 property, than all the nobles of Russia and Poland 
 have, from the creation of the world to this day. 
 But one William Penn is not a nation of duakers, 
 nor are Zamoyski and Nicholas samples of the Polish 
 aristocracy. 
 
 Harrig, the author of '' Poland under the Domin- 
 
 * Coxe, 1, 113. 
 
 t Coxe, 1, 14. Voyage de deux Francais dans le Kord d' Europe. 
 Busching's Introduction. Connor's State of Poland. Voltaire, 
 Histoire de Charles Douze. Coyer, Vie de Sobieski. Malte-Brun, 
 Tableau. Fletcher's History of Poland. McCulloch's Gazetteer. 
 Rulhiere, Anarchie de Bologne., and a host of others. 
 
144 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 ion of Russia," and a discharged officer from the 
 Russian service, — a very prejudiced and question- 
 able authority when he speaks of any thing Russian, 
 and a very partial one to aught that is Polish, — says 
 of the Polish peasantry, even under the constitution 
 of 1815 — " The Polish serf is, in every part of the 
 country, extremely poor, and, of all the living crea- 
 tures I have met with in this world, or seen described 
 in books of natural history, he is the most wretched. 
 He is in a worse situation than the Russian serf, 
 who is maintained by his master, and has at least a 
 subsistence in return for the cudgellings he receives." 
 Against this mountain of concurrent testimony, 
 shall we believe that all former writers on Poland 
 have been in error, and that Major Tochman alone 
 sees clearly ; shall we, can we, believe him, when 
 he tells us that, " as early as the fourteenth century, 
 the children of the peasants were admitted to the 
 same schools in which the children of the nobles 
 were educated " ? shall we believe that " peasants 
 alone " battled against Russia, under Kosciusco, to 
 restore their own degradation ? 
 
 ' " O ! where's the slave so lowly, 
 Condemned to chains unholy, 
 Who, could he burst his bonds at first, 
 Would pine beneath them slowly ''" 
 
 We may indeed believe that " those (peasants) 
 who graduated, were declared nobles de jure^ and, 
 as such, entitled to the full enjoyment of all the 
 rights of free citizens of the republic" — ay, those 
 who graduated. The second schoolboy in a class 
 may certainly claim to be within one of the head, 
 if there are but two boys in it. 
 
 In the 16th century, M. Tochman tells us, the 
 voters of Poland were 480,000, out of a popula- 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 145 
 
 tion of fifteen millions ; while France, with a popu- 
 lation more than double, has now only 180,000 
 voters. Very well ; but what Frenchman re- 
 ceives a blow, were it from a peer, without re- 
 turning it, or is robbed of his earnings, or sold in the 
 market ? But the nobility of Poland sprang from 
 among the country people, says Tochman ; they 
 are not the descendants of another conquering race. 
 
 If they are petty tyrants and taskmasters, what 
 matters it where, or from whom they sprang ? 
 
 ^' There are, in Poland, many villages and ham- 
 lets inhabited by nobles only, who are as poor as 
 the peasants, and till the soil with their own hands, 
 who, before the partition, nevertheless, enjoyed an 
 equality of rights with nobles worth millions^ and 
 to whom thousands of peasants paid rent." 
 
 We know it : Voltaire introduced these titled 
 beggars to the world a hundred years ago. Hence 
 it is that every outcast who finds his way, or 
 escapes, from Poland, is a count, or noble, or, at the 
 very least, a gentleman ; though he may not have 
 a penny in his pocket, or a rag to his back. Why 
 not ? there is nobody to expose him. Under the old 
 laws of the republic, the nobles were terrigencB ; 
 every rascal who owned half an acre in fee simple, 
 or could prove his descent from any body who had 
 ever owned a like estate, was a noble, or gentleman, 
 the terms being synonymous ; provided, always, 
 that he and his progenitors had always been con- 
 sumer e fruges nati, and had never debased (!) 
 themselves by engaging in manufactures or com- 
 merce, these being the only two ways of gaining 
 an honest livelihood in Poland.* No king can 
 
 * Busching, Introduction to Poland. Malte-Brun, Tableau de la 
 Pologne. Coxe, Travels^ &c. 
 
 13 
 
146 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 create a gentleman ; but the king of Poland could 
 not create even a Polish noble. This swarm of 
 needy patriots, with nothing to lose and every thing 
 to gain, constitutes the ready material for Polish 
 revolutions and rebeUions. The more need is there 
 that they should be taught that they are no better 
 than the rest of mankind ; and that all hope of re- 
 gaining their former privileges should be crushed 
 out of them. 
 
 Under Russia, Austria, and Prussia, on a change 
 tout cela. The oppressive privileges of the no- 
 bility have been suppressed. They can no longer 
 trample on the useful classes, and a poor gentleman 
 considers it no more disgraceful to work at home 
 than to beg abroad. Freedom, indeed ! freedom 
 of thought and speech, where dissent was punished 
 with death on the spot; because, said they, "acts 
 of violence are few in number, and only affect the 
 individual sufferers; but if once the precedent is 
 established, of compelling the minority to yield to 
 the majority, there is an end to any security for 
 the liberties of the people." (The people!)* 
 
 But if there are poor nobles in Poland, so there 
 are, or lately were, also rich and powerful ones, 
 with enormous estates ; such nobles as, more than 
 all other causes, have retarded the civilization and 
 emancipation of all Europe. The estates of Prince 
 Czartoryski and Count Zamoyski were equal in 
 extent to half of England. In the time of the re- 
 public, the one furnished the army with twenty, 
 and the other with ten thousand men. What 
 wonder, then, that the present Prince Adam should 
 have been impatient of the Russian government, 
 
 ** Salvandy, Histoirt de la Polognt. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 147 
 
 and eager to regain the lost influence of his fathers 
 by rebellion, or in any other way? What wonder 
 he sighed for their privilege to maintain troops and 
 fortresses ? What wonder that he was at the head 
 of the late insurrection, in a great measure his own 
 work ; or that he is now the Father Superior of 
 the Polish Propaganda? What wonder he re- 
 gretted his own exemption and that of his vassals 
 from arrest, whatever might be their crimes, — when, 
 in short, he, and such as he, were every thing, and 
 freedom and the Polish people, nothing ? 
 
 With what face does Major Tochman boast that 
 "there always was more freedom in the spiritual 
 power, and more independence in the secular, than 
 in any other Christian country," knowing, as he 
 must, that it was the religious intolerance and 
 oppression of the Polish nobility that brought the 
 heavy hand of Catherine II. down on them ? Did 
 not this pretended land of toleration become the 
 field of religious contest under Sigismond III. and 
 the Jesuits ? Were not the Protestants deprived of 
 all places of trust and honor ? Did not bigotry add 
 weight to the serf's shackles in that reign ? Did 
 not Polish jealousy of the independence of the Cos- 
 sacks, the attempts of the nobles to enslave and 
 reduce them to the condition of serfs, and to pro- 
 scribe their religion, and their inhuman butcheries 
 and oppressions, drive that people to revolt, in the 
 succeeding one? How dares he boast that the Jews 
 found a home in Poland when they were perse- 
 cuted elsewhere ? Does not every abridged school 
 geography tell us that they are not even allowed to 
 hold landed property, to this day ? How came the 
 Jews so to swarm in Poland ? Did the toleration 
 of the Polish nation give them a welcome ? Did 
 they not owe it, rather, to the adulterous weakness 
 
148 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 of Casimir the Great for a Jewess, whom he suffered 
 to lead him by the nose, as Esther did Ahasue- 
 rus ? Spiritual freedom, indeed ! Was not Lysinski 
 burned at the stake on an absurd charge of atheism, 
 in the reign of John Sobieski, the greatest mon- 
 arch and man Poland ever produced ? This man's 
 offence was having written, on the margin of a 
 stupid, inconclusive treatise, in proof of the exist- 
 ence of God — ^^ Ergo J non est Deus.'''' He lost 
 his life because the Polish clergy had not sense 
 enough to understand the sarcasm. His tongue 
 was torn with a hot iron, and his hands burned be- 
 fore his pyre was lighted. To prevent his escape, 
 they even violated one of the protective laws of 
 their own order, by which a noble could only be 
 apprehended after conviction. 
 
 The servitude of the peasants was modified in 
 1791, when the Poles, tnisting to the promised 
 support of Prussia, attempted to throw ofi" their 
 dependence on Russia. They had a great task be- 
 fore them, and a powerful enemy to contend with ; 
 it was, therefore, necessary to conciliate other 
 classes than the nobles. Under Napoleon, slave- 
 ry was wholly abolished in the duchy of Warsaw, 
 nearly identical with the kingdom of Poland, in 
 1807 ; the labor and service of serfs having been 
 defined and regulated by law ; but the influence 
 of the change was not so great as might have been 
 expected, owing to their ignorance. The peasants 
 may now leave the land, without asking their lords' 
 permission ; but they must first pay all arrears, and, 
 from inability to do this, and various other causes, 
 they seldom leave the estates where they were 
 born. The habit of servitude is no more easily 
 eradicated tlian other rooted habits ; — the peas- 
 ants do as they used to do, when their service was 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 149 
 
 altogether compulsory ; they neglect the lands. 
 It is not, however, uniformly the case. Many 
 have extended their farms, and some have become 
 proprietors ; but many years must probably pass, 
 before any great general change takes place. 
 
 Since the insurrection of 1831, when the Poles 
 cast away their last chance of independence, Poland 
 has been governed nearly like the rest of the Rus- 
 sian empire. The council of administration con- 
 sists of three directors-general, (of the interior, of 
 justice, and of finance,) a comptroller-general, and 
 other functionaries, appointed by the emperor, to 
 whom the reports of the council are submitted by a 
 secretary of state for Poland, residing in St. Pe- 
 tersburg. There is, also, in Petersburg, a depart- 
 ment for Polish affairs, to which the government 
 of that kingdom has been confided ever since the 
 suppression of the insurrection. The legislative 
 power is vested in the sovereign ; and the laws for 
 the government of the kingdom are submitted to 
 him, for his sanction, by the Russian council of 
 state. The local administration is in the hands of 
 the civil governors, with the same powers exer- 
 cised by the heads of the different governments of 
 Russia. 
 
 The civil and commercial codes in force are 
 nearly the same as in France ; the criminal code is 
 after the pattern of those of Austria and Russia. 
 Personal and religious liberty is garantied, and 
 those who do not interfere with politics are as safe 
 in Poland as any where else. There is a censorship 
 of the press, that, for obvious reasons, is more rigid 
 here than in Russia. Justices of the peace have 
 jurisdiction of causes not involving more than five 
 hundred florins, above which they are carried to 
 the tribunals of original jurisdiction in the capitals 
 13* 
 
150 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 of the several governments. There is a court of 
 appeal and a court of cassation at Warsaw, and 
 there are commercial tribunals in all the principal 
 towns. Political offences are tried and judged by 
 a council of war, or a commission specially ap- 
 pointed. 
 
 Before 1830 there was little diffusion of educa- 
 tion excepting among the nobility and the upper 
 classes of townsmen. But sixteen thousand of the 
 entire population received instruction, or one in 
 two hundred and sixty-two. After the insurrection 
 was suppressed, the schools were reorganized on the 
 same plan as those of Russia. Private as well as pub- 
 lic schools are under the supervision of the govern- 
 ment. There were about forty-four thousand 
 pupils, in public and private establishments, in 
 1835, and in 1839 upwards of seventy thoussmd, 
 or one out of every sixty-two individuals.* 
 
 An order issued by the Russian government, in 
 1838, gave great offence to the Poles and their 
 sympathizers, though, we confess, we cannot see 
 the harm of it. It seems to us that if despotism 
 teaches one Pole in sixty-two to read and write, 
 where only one in two hundred and sixty was 
 taught before by constitutional monarchy, the 
 fact argues very little in favor of Polish capaci- 
 ty for self-government. Nor can we see what harm 
 there is in teaching a Pole Russ, one of the dia- 
 lects of his own mother tongue. The ukase estab- 
 lished a teacher of the Russ language in every pri- 
 mary school, and directed that all children attend- 
 ing such schools should learn it. It was also 
 ordered that no person should be employed as a 
 tutor, unless qualified to give instruction in Russ, 
 
 * Russia under Mcholas I. 
 
1*HE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 151 
 
 and that no person unacquainted with that language 
 should be appointed to any civil or military em- 
 ployment. 
 
 There can be little doubt that it is for the interest 
 of both countries, as it is the policy of the emperor, 
 to Russianize Poland ; or that the gradual substitu- 
 tion of the one language for the other is the most 
 effectual means that can be taken to effect that 
 result. Were it desirable, or were there any ra- 
 tional prospect that Poland would ever be able to 
 regain her independence, we might, perhaps, find 
 arguments against the measure. But there is no 
 such prospect ; and, as Poland has no literature worth 
 preserving, we believe no valid objection can be 
 found to the promotion of the interests of both na- 
 tions by their consolidation. 
 
 When we look back to the state of Poland previ- 
 ous to 1791, we cannot but wonder that the king- 
 dom was not dismembered long before. It was, in 
 fact, proposed by the Swedes in the reign of Casi- 
 mir v., as the only way of quieting, and prevent- 
 ing it from disturbing the peace of other states.* 
 
 However objectionable may have been the mo- 
 tive of the powers who dismembered Poland, how- 
 ever indefensible the act, and dangerous the prece- 
 dent, there can be no rational doubt that the meas- 
 ure was most decidedly advantageous to the great 
 bulk of the Polish people. It is folly to suppose 
 that the constitution of their government could have 
 been remodelled to any good purpose — history 
 shsmies the supposition. The whole framework 
 of society was radically vicious. It would and will 
 require long years before newly-emancipated slaves, 
 degraded and brutalized by centuries of oppression, 
 
 * Rulhiere. 
 
152 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 (whose fawning servility even now evinces the bur- 
 den from which they have been relieved,) and a 
 proud and jealous nobility, can be restrained within 
 the limits of law and justice, and raised to an equal- 
 ity with civilized nations. Such a work can only 
 be achieved by a strong government, such as the 
 Poles never could have formed among themselves. 
 However loudly the Polish nobility may lament, 
 and their sympathizers may echo them, it is not to 
 be denied that the condition of the people has sig- 
 nally changed for the better. 
 
 Unluckily, we have few data on which to esti- 
 mate the extent of the change for the better. Ab- 
 solute power in Russia and Poland cares little for 
 the opinion of other nations, and it is not the fash- 
 ion of the Emperor Nicholas to stoop. We have 
 seen what has been done in regard to the system of 
 general education. Poland has undoubtedly suffered 
 much in consequence of the late rebellion, in conse- 
 quence of destruction of life and property, proscrip- 
 tions, <fcc. ; but, within the last eight or ten years, 
 the country appears to have revived. The munici- 
 pal revenue of Warsaw, in 1834, was a fourth more 
 than in 1829. 
 
 The value of insured buildings in Poland, in 
 1835, was 112,204,000 more than that of buildings 
 insured in 1829. 
 
 In 1828, the population was 4,088,289 ; in 1838, 
 it was 4,298,962. 
 
 The old roads have been improved, and new 
 ones have been made, which would seem to argue 
 an improvement in trade and intercourse. On the 
 whole, late writers assure us that the country is in 
 a state of improvement. 
 
 If, in the foregoing chapter, we have condensed 
 Major Tochman's superfluity of words, we think 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 153 
 
 he will not accuse us of altering, perverting, or sup- 
 pressing, his meaning. Nevertheless, to make him 
 amends, we will subjoin a synopsis of his tract, 
 which may serve, and seems to have served, for 
 the basis of all modern declamation on Polish 
 patriotism and Polish wrongs. 
 
 '' Kosciusco — great martyr of freedom — sacri- 
 legiously erased from the map — time's bloodiest 
 picture — Sarmatia fell — infamous act — mankind 
 indebted to Poland — defended Christianity and 
 Europe from the Tartars — preserved humanity, 
 religion, and the arts — asylum of the persecuted — 
 blood of heroes consecrates the soil — freedom of 
 worship allowed forever to all denominations — he- 
 roes of Lexington and Bunker Hill — thousands of 
 foreign soldiery — cities and villages smoking — 
 mourning mothers — murdered husbands and sons 
 — palpitating hearts — horror — native land — ge- 
 nius of liberty — grave of Pulaski — monument of 
 Kosciusco looks down — rational liberty of all 
 men — serfs of Russia — kiss of Judas — literary 
 splendor of Poland — laurels of the hero and 
 bard" — &c. &c. &c. 
 
 We pause, and forbear, in mercy to the reader. 
 If any one's depraved taste relishes 
 
 " Sound without sense, and words devoid of force, 
 Through which no art can find a clew," 
 
 let him read the Rev. J. N. Maffit's autobiography, 
 or Macpherson's Ossian ; and, if that won't do, 
 Major Tochman's tract at length. 
 
 We know, as well as Major Tochman can tell us, 
 that anarchy, and oppression, and bloodshed, and 
 misrule, have prevailed in other lands besides Po- 
 land ; we know that the crimes of nations, or indi- 
 viduals, do not deprive their posterity of their 
 
154 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 natural rights, or exclude them from the pale of 
 Christian charity and sympathy ; but, when a son 
 of one of the most degraded nations on earth en- 
 deavors to exalt that nation above all others, and 
 to claim, not only an active sympathy in her be- 
 half, but to excite hatred toward another, friendly 
 people, it is time that 
 
 " the veil, that friendly hands would cast 
 
 O'er faults forgotten and imprudence past," 
 
 should be rent away, and that the suppliant land 
 should be seen as she is, drenched in human blood, 
 sitting in the midst of the misery she has wrought, 
 in the chains she has forged, fitted, and riveted on 
 herself. The people of Van Diemen's Land should 
 not be reproached with being the children of con- 
 victs ; but it will be exceedingly unwise of them, 
 to say the least, to boast of their ancestry. 
 
 When a beggar asks relief for his sick wife and 
 starving children, burnt out of house and home, it 
 behooves us, before we draw our purse-strings, to 
 satisfy ourselves that he has not broken his wife's 
 heart, starved his children in order to revel in riot 
 himselfj and set fire to his house in his intoxication. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 155 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RUSSIA. — STATISTICS. — HISTORICAL FACTS. — 
 RUSSIA AS IT WAS. 
 
 Before we attempt to convey to the reader our 
 idea of the past and present condition of Russia, it 
 may be well to define its actual limits. 
 
 In the first place, it is the most extensive empire 
 of ancient or modern times. 
 
 It comprises the whole northern portion of the 
 eastern hemisphere, from the frontier of the Duchy 
 of Posen and the Gulf of Bothnia, to the Pacific 
 Ocean and Behring's Straits ; or from the 18th to 
 the 190th degree of east longitude ; a distance, on 
 the 60th degree of latitude, of nearly six thousand 
 miles. Its extent from north to south is also very 
 great, stretching from the 38th to the 70th, and in 
 some places, to the 78th degree, with an average 
 breadth of about fifteen hundred miles. Besides 
 this, Russia claims a large territory on the north- 
 east coast of North America, the Aleutian Islands, 
 Nova Zembla, and other insular possessions. 
 
 Russia in Europe, including Finland, has been 
 estimated by Hassel to contain 72,869 square 
 geographical miles ; 
 
 Russia in Asia, 275,767 do. ; 
 
 Russia in America, 24,000 do. ; 
 
 Total, 372,636 square miles. 
 
 A later estimate, by M. Kceppen, of the Academy 
 of Arts and Sciences at St. Petersburg, in the em- 
 ploy of the government, gives the following areas 
 of its grand divisions, which are, probably, more 
 correct ; — 
 
166 
 
 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 Northern Provinces. 
 
 Governments. Area in sq. m. 
 
 Archangel, 15,212 
 
 Olonetz, 2,354 
 
 Vologda, 6,880 
 
 Great Russia. 
 
 Petersburg, 710 
 
 Novgorod, 2,070 
 
 Pskof, 1,045 
 
 Smolensk, 954 
 
 Moscow, 550 
 
 Twer 1,122 
 
 Yaroslaf, 807 
 
 Kostroma, 1,438 
 
 Nijni Novgorod, .... 878 
 
 Vladimir, 831 
 
 Riazan, 707 
 
 Tambof, 1,152 
 
 Tula, 529 
 
 Kuluga, 541 
 
 Orel, 755 
 
 Koursk, 794 
 
 Baltic Provinces. 
 
 Esthonia, 315 
 
 Livonia, 826 
 
 Courland, 475 
 
 White Russia. 
 
 Witepsk, 778 
 
 Mohileff, 824 
 
 Minsk, 1,983 
 
 Lithuania. 
 
 Wilna, 1,161 
 
 Grodno, 570 
 
 Bialystock, 162 
 
 Pop. in 1838. 
 
 239,000 
 230,200 
 747,500 
 
 585,200 
 
 825,400 
 
 705,300 
 
 1,064,200 
 
 1.249,700 
 
 1,297,900 
 
 916,500 
 
 958,700 
 
 1,071,100 
 
 1,133,200 
 
 1,241,700 
 
 1,591,700 
 
 1,113,500 
 
 914,900 
 
 1,366,300 
 
 1,527,300 
 
 282,200 
 740,100 
 503,000 
 
 717,700 
 
 846,600 
 
 1,034,800 
 
 1,315,800 
 791,700 
 251,000 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 
 
 157 
 
 Little Russia. 
 
 Governments. Area in sq. m. Pop. in 1838. 
 
 Volhynia, 1,073 1,314,100 
 
 Podolia, 576 1,548,200 
 
 Kieff, .798 1,459,800 
 
 Tchernigoflf, 898 1,300,000 
 
 Paltawa, 1,062 1,621,600 
 
 Kharkoff, 1,386 1,334,000 
 
 Voroneje, 1,354 1,507,200 
 
 Don Cossacks, .... 2,550 640,300 
 
 New Russia. 
 
 Ekateritioslaf, .... 1,186 791,000 
 
 Kherson, 1,099 765,800 
 
 Taurida, 2,040 520,200 
 
 Bessarabia 794 720,000 
 
 Wolga and Caspian Provinces. 
 
 1,104 
 674 
 
 Kasan, 
 Pensa, 
 
 Simbersk, 1,141 
 
 SaratofF, 3,473 
 
 Astrakhan 2,829 
 
 Caucasus, &c., .... 1,803 
 
 Oural Provinces. 
 
 Orenburg, 6,535 
 
 Perm, 2,721 
 
 Viatka, 2,497 
 
 Siberia. 
 
 Tobolsk, 
 Tomsk, 
 Irkutsk, ^ 
 
 Yakutsk, I 
 Kamschatka, V 
 Okhotsk, 
 Yeniseisk, J 
 14 
 
 1,220,800 
 
 988,400 
 
 1.199,000 
 
 1,564,400 
 
 258,500 
 
 478,500 
 
 1,771,400 
 
 1,488,800 
 1,511,600 
 
 888,18 
 
 162,000 
 
 {. 
 
 684,900 
 
 077,000 
 
 r 507,300 
 
 162,400 
 
 <! 4,500 
 
 7,700 
 
 205,800 
 
158 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 Transcaucasian Provmces. 
 
 Governments. Area in sq. m. Pop. in 1838. 
 
 Georgia, &c., 3,381 2,000,000 
 
 Finland, 6,406 1,397,145 
 
 Kingdom of Poland, . . 2,267 4,298,962 
 
 Russian America, . . . 17,500 61,053 
 
 Total, 364,388 59,673,260 
 
 Classified Account of the Population of Russia^ 
 by the Minister of Finance. 
 
 Males. Females. 
 
 Russian priests, .... 52,331 
 Deacons and sacristans, . . 63,178 
 Male children of priests, dea- 
 cons, and sacristans, . 138,548 
 
 Total, 254,057 249,748 
 
 Priests of the United Greek 
 
 and Roman Church, . 7,823 7,318 
 
 Catholic priests, . . 
 Armenian do. 
 
 Lutheran do. 
 Reformed Church, 
 Mahometan Mollahs, 
 Tartar Lamas, 
 
 2,497 
 474 343 
 
 1,003 955 
 
 51 37 
 
 !50 
 
 150 
 
 7,850 6,071 
 
 Nobles, 
 
 Hereditary, 284,731 253,429 
 
 By virtue of service, with 
 
 their sons, .... 78,922 74,273 
 
 Petty officers, who have left 
 the army, and are employ- 
 ed in the civil service, . 187,047 237,443 
 
 Foreigners of all classes, . 22,114 15,215 
 
 Military colonies, . . . 950,698 981,467 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 159 
 
 Inhabitants of Towns. 
 
 Males. Females. 
 
 Merchants, 131,347 120,714 
 
 Shopkeepers, artisans, &c. 1,339,434 1,433,982 
 
 Citizens in the eastern provinces, 7,535 6,966 
 Greeks of Nijni, gun-makers 
 
 of Tula, &c. . . . 10,882 10,940 
 
 Citizens of Bessarabia, . . 57,905 56,176 
 
 Inhabitants of Villages. 
 
 Peasants, the private prop- 
 erty of the emperor 
 and the imperial fam- 
 ly, peasants annexed 
 to the crown, &c. . 10,441,399 11,022,594 
 
 Peasants, the property of 
 
 nobles, .... 11,403,722 11,958,873 
 
 Wandering IVibes. 
 Calmucks, Circassians, and 
 Mahometans of the 
 Caucasus, .... 245,715 261,982 
 
 Territory beyond the Caucasus. 
 
 Georgia, Armenia, Mongolia, 
 
 &c 689,147 689,150 
 
 Poland, 2,077,311 2,110,911 
 
 Finland, 663,658 708,484 
 
 Russian colonies in America, 30,761 30,292 
 
 Total, 28,896,223 30,237,343 
 Grand total of both sexes, 59,133,566 
 
 The privates of the army and navy, and their 
 wives and children, are not included in either of the 
 above tables ; so that the sum total may be estima- 
 ted, in round numbers, at sixty-one millions. To 
 
160 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 this should be added about a million and a half of 
 mountaineers between the Caspian and the Black 
 Sea, and several wandering tribes of Circassians 
 and others, whom it is impossible to number. 
 
 The divisions and boundaries of this immense 
 empire have materially varied at different periods. 
 Peter the Great made some important changes in 
 the distribution, which was, nevertheless, remod- 
 elled and placed on a permanent footing by Cath- 
 erine II., in 1775. Her arrangement, nearly, was 
 confirmed and settled, by Alexander, in 1822. The 
 empire is now divided into governments, and 
 oblasts, or territories not yet formed into govern- 
 ments. Some of these, particularly in Asiatic 
 Russia, are of great, but unknown extent, and un- 
 certain limits. The best information upon this 
 subject at our command is contained in the above 
 tables. 
 
 There can be no fair judgment of the character, 
 temper, or genius of a people, without taking into 
 consideration the circumstances of their late history. 
 Foreigners find fault with us because we have not 
 attained perfection in the arts, sciences, and belles- 
 letters, at the same time while our whole energies 
 have been employed upon the necessary and useful. 
 They describe our national character as they do 
 that of Russia, while we have no national character, 
 not having yet had time to form one ; and though 
 the Russians of to-day are no more like the Rus- 
 sians of a century ago than the oak is like the 
 acorn, and no more like what they will be a cen- 
 tury hence, than the same oak is like the ship into 
 which it is destined to be fashioned. We laugh at 
 the wedding of a pair of Sandwich islanders, when 
 the bride appears at the altar in a single cotton gar- 
 ment, and the bridegroom in puris naturalihus. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 161 
 
 We should do better to reflect that, a hundred years 
 since, the grandparents of the happy couple were 
 almost as the beasts that perish, and had no more 
 idea of law or Christianity than a bare-legged High- 
 landman of the same epoch had of a knee-buckle. 
 Their appearance in a church, in any garb, at least 
 argues an awakened moral sense, and a capacity 
 and desire for improvement. 
 
 In the 15th century arose the Cossacks, in the 
 reign of Ivan the Great. The Poles and Lithua- 
 nians had conquered the whole of Western Russia 
 to Kiow, and subjected the inhabitants to religious 
 persecution, as well as political oppression, notwith- 
 standing the Polish spirit of toleration, so boasted 
 by Major Tochman. The Crim Tartars beset 
 Russia hard on the east. The discontented, 
 therefore, retired to the fertile and uninhabited 
 Ukraine, and organized themselves into a military 
 community, governed by their own hetmans, un- 
 der the auspices of Poland. Thus they remained, 
 the bulwark of Poland against the Turks, though 
 oppressed by the oligarchy, till, in John Casimir's 
 time, they took up arms against the Polish gover- 
 nor, simply because he had ravished the wife of 
 Chmielnicki, a man of some influence among 
 them, and burned his house, in the flames of 
 which his infant child perished. Casimir tried con- 
 ciliation. The Cossack chief withdrew his forces, 
 and negotiations were in progress ; but the Polish 
 nobles broke the truce ; whereupon the Cossacks 
 defeated them, entered Poland, and invested the 
 king in his camp at Zborow. A peace was then 
 granted by the simple Cossacks, who believed those 
 sincere who had deceived them before so often, 
 when they promised them personal and religious 
 
 freedom, (1649.) 
 14# 
 
162 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 The foiled and humiliated nobles were not sat- 
 isfied with this, to them, disgraceful treaty, — if 
 any thing could disgrace them, — and, before the 
 year was out, the diet declared its intention to 
 reduce the Cossacks to obedience. Casimir pro- 
 claimed a crusade, and received a consecrated 
 sword and helmet from the pope, and then marched 
 against the Cossacks with 100,000 Polish nobles, 
 and 50,000 foreign troops, trained in the '' Thirty 
 Years' War." 
 
 The hetman allied himself with the cham of 
 the Tartars, and met this vast armament. He was 
 beaten, and his forces dispersed, and the Cossacks 
 gave themselves to Alexis Michaelowitsch, in 1654, 
 who gladly received his new and voluntary sub- 
 jects.* 
 
 The Cossacks revolted from Poland, rather than 
 be slaves. Under the dominion of Russia, " Free 
 as a Cossack," has become a proverb. It is their 
 boast that they cannot be forced into the service, 
 like refractory Russian conscripts and British sea- 
 men. They hold their lands by the military tenure 
 of four years' service, each, in the ranks, which, in 
 time of peace, they perform for a merely nominal pay. 
 Poland turned the scale of her own destiny, when 
 she converted these wild warriors from friends into 
 foes. Russia numbers upwards of 100,000 of them 
 in her countless ranks. At home, the freedom of 
 their institutions surpasses that of the ancient Swiss 
 cantons. 
 
 Ivan Vassilievitsch II., surnamed '' The Terri- 
 ble," and '' The Tyrant," son of the Great Ivan, 
 first gave the Russians a code of laws. He ex- 
 tended the limits of the empire, and surpassed his 
 
 * Chevalier, Guerre des Cosaques. Malte-Brun, Tableau de 
 Pologne. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 163 
 
 father in his efforts for its improvement. In the 
 latter part of his reign, Russia was assailed by 
 Sweden, and Denmark, and Poland, all at once, 
 and only obtained peace with the latter power, by 
 yielding Livonia, (1582,) at the intercession of the 
 Emperor Rodolph II. and Pope Gregory XIII. 
 From this first aggression, perhaps, dates the in- 
 veterate hatred entertained by the Russian people 
 against the Poles ; a hatred enhanced by the mem- 
 ory of subsequent wrongs, and as rancorous as the 
 conquered Welsh felt for the English people down 
 to the reign of Henry V. This feeling the Rus- 
 sians are at no pains to conceal. It has been 
 handed down to them from generation to gener- 
 ation, and will, doubtless, live for long years to 
 come. It is one of the strongest traits in the 
 national character. Every Russian knows by 
 heart, and triumphantly recites, the menacing lyr- 
 ic of the poet Pushlin, that he addressed to the 
 Polish sympathizers in France. 
 
 The Russian pride was severely wounded by 
 the Emperor Alexander's gift of a constitution 
 to the Poles, as it seemed to acknowledge their 
 capacity to enjoy institutions for which the Rus- 
 sians were unfit. How purely imaginary this sup- 
 posed capacity was, the result has shown ; but, 
 when the insurrection of 1830 broke out, the na- 
 tional hate found vent. When Nicholas announced 
 the necessity of taking up arms against Poland to 
 the officers of his army, they drew their sabres, 
 fell on their knees, and, with fearful oaths and 
 imprecations, convinced the emperor that all the 
 severity of martial law and Russian discipline 
 would be needed to save the Poles from extermi- 
 nation.* 
 
 * Polytechnic Journal, February, 1842. 
 
164 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 The usurper and murderer, Bous Godenov, by- 
 stirring up civil strife, and restoring and increasing 
 the privileges of the nobles, well nigh undid all 
 the good that had been done by the two Ivans. 
 
 Poland again took part with the impostor Deme- 
 trius, in the civil war stirred up in Russia in his 
 name. This man played the same comic, or rather 
 tragic, part enacted before him by the slave Clemens, 
 in the reign of Tiberius, and by Perkin Warbeck, 
 in England, in the reign of Henry VII. The king 
 of Poland (Sigismund) was ashamed to counte- 
 nance this vagabond ; but the Polish aristocracy, 
 who were never ashamed of aught, or asked their 
 sovereign servant's consent to do any thing, seated 
 him on the throne of Russia, on the 21st of July, 
 1605. He was murdered on the 17th of May fol- 
 lowing, or, more properly, executed, with 1700 
 of his Polish adherents ; but a second Demetrius 
 sprang up, and a third, and the last impostor was 
 patronized and defended by the Polish oligarchy 
 like the first. Sigismund himself, urged by the 
 Jesuits, concurred with them, sent an army into 
 Russia, in the cause of the second pretender, took 
 Moscow, deposed the Czar Basil Schoueski, who 
 had been elected by the Russians, and drove him 
 into a cloister in Poland, where he died, and again 
 the Poles forced a monarch upon Russia. 
 
 Demetrius II. was assassinated by the Tartars; 
 and the Russians, to avoid a new war with 
 which they were threatened by Poland, oflfered 
 their crown to Wladislas, the son of Sigis- 
 mund, on condition that he would renounce the 
 Latin and embrace the Greek ritual. The Polish 
 General Zolkiewski advanced to the very walls 
 of Moscow, with an army, and extorted the oath 
 of fidelity to Wladislas from the citizens; but 
 Wladislas himself never came. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 165 
 
 We read, with indignation and horror, of the 
 capture of Warsaw and the storming of Prague 
 by Suwarrow, but we do not hear at all of the 
 atrocities perpetrated by Zolkiewski. Six thou- 
 sand of his troops entered Moscow, and treated its 
 inhabitants with remorseless cruelty. They set 
 fire to several parts of the city ; put great num- 
 bers of the people to the sword; plundered the 
 treasury, the convents, and the churches, and car- 
 ried off a prodigious booty, in gold and silver. 
 
 When the French eagles perched on the Krem- 
 lin, the awful scene that ensued was but a faint 
 repetition of the horrors wrought by the intrusive 
 and invading Poles in 1611. Thus speaks the 
 Russian historian Karamsin : " What words can 
 adequately paint the deplorable state to which 
 Moscow was thus reduced ? That popnlous cap- 
 ital, resplendent with riches and numbers, was 
 annihilated in a single day. There remain only 
 smoking ruins ; piles covered with ashes and 
 drenched with blood. You see nothing but 
 corpses, and churches sacked or half devoured by 
 the flames. The awful silence of death is in- 
 terrupted only by the pitiable lamentations of 
 wretches covered with wounds, a prey to all the 
 agonies of prolonged torture." 
 
 By the laws of war, practised and allowed by 
 all nations, an untenable place that holds out, and 
 is carried by assault, undergoes the extremities of 
 fire and sword, if the conqueror so wills it, espe- 
 cially if its resistance has been desperate and 
 bloody. Prague was so taken by Suwarrow, who 
 did not, however, burn Warsaw. 
 
 The reason of so stern a proceeding, though 
 harsh, is just. It is to warn garrisons not to cause 
 a useless waste of life by hopeless resistance. 
 
166 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 Moscow was not taken by assault by the Poles : they 
 entered it without opposition. Yet Zolkiewski is 
 chronicled in history as a hero, and Suwarrow as a 
 butcher. Why ? — the one was a patriotic Pole, the 
 other a Russian barbarian. 
 
 The Muscovites, however, having driven Zol- 
 kiewski from the empire, elected Michael Fedoro- 
 witsch Romanoff, the founder of the present reigning 
 dynasty, with unlimited hereditary power, in 1613. 
 In his reign appeared the third Demetrius, who 
 got possession of Pleskow, and was ultimately 
 beheaded by Alexis, Michael's son and successor, 
 in 1653. 
 
 There was war between Russia and Poland, or, 
 rather, by Poland on Russia, during Michael's 
 reign. The Russians besieged Smolensko, and the 
 Poles Moscow, at the same time, till a truce for 
 fourteen years made them desist. The truce not 
 being renewed, the Russians again blockaded Smo- 
 lensko, till the siege was raised by Wladislas, who 
 gained a complete victory over them. The czar 
 made overtures for peace, which was concluded (in 
 1634) with the understanding and agreement that 
 Wladislas should forever resign his pretensions to 
 Russia, and content himself with' holding the 
 duchies of Smolensk and Severia, as fiefs of the 
 crown of Polaud. 
 
 Alexis Michaelowitsch improved his army by the 
 introduction of foreign officers ; broke the treaty ; 
 recovered Smolensk, Tschernigoff, Belaja, Kiow, 
 and the Ukraine ; ravaged Lithuania, and made an 
 inroad into Poland itself. At the same time, he 
 warred on the Turks and Tartars. At one time, he 
 had possession of Volhynia and the greater part 
 of Lithuania ; but surrendered them again when 
 peace was concluded. From the Tartars he took 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 167 
 
 the Crimea. At his death, in 167G, he was at 
 peace with all his neighbors, excepting the Turks. 
 
 We suppose we have now accounted for the re- 
 ciprocal animosity of the Poles and Russians, and 
 shown that the balance of wrong is not in favor 
 of the former. Granting that the Russians have of 
 late years treated the Poles harshly, it must be 
 admitted that it was not without some provo- 
 cation. 
 
 Before Peter's time, (and in what follows we 
 speak only of what was previous to his reign,) it 
 was the practice of the czars to hinder inquisi- 
 tive persons from all knowledge of their govern- 
 ment : some of them banished the sciences from 
 their dominions, and forbade the profession of them 
 under severe penalties. The clergy was as igno- 
 rant as the laity: all they knew was, that, as mem- 
 bers of the Greek church, they were bound to hate 
 the Latins. Very few indeed of them could make 
 a sermon, even for Russian serfs ; and few books 
 could be found, in the richest monasteries, even if 
 there had been any priestly readers. Ignorance, 
 however, is no pacificator ; and the clergy quarrelled 
 about points of doctrine in Russia as well as every 
 where else. The chief point of dispute was, 
 whether the laity ought to cross themselves with 
 two fingers or three ; and a very serious sedition was 
 got up by one Jacob Nursuflf, in Astrachan, about 
 this important matter, in the reign of Feodor III. 
 Even in Peter's time, the theology compulsorily 
 taught in the few cloisters that he did not suppress, 
 savored strongly of the darkness of ages past. One 
 of the subjects of a public theological debate was, 
 whether it was a sin to smoke tobacco, and the dis- 
 putant in the affirmative contended that it was 
 lawful to get dnmk on brandy, but not to smoke, 
 
168 
 
 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 because it is written that what cometh out of the 
 mouth defileth a man, and that which entereth 
 therein defileth not.* 
 
 Another important and equally fiercely contested 
 point was, whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from 
 the Father alone, or from the Father and Son united. 
 
 The Russians, nobles and slaves, were unques- 
 tionably less civilized than the Mexicans and Peru- 
 vians in the times of Cortez and Pizarro ; and, to 
 keep them in ignorance and insensibility of their 
 yoke, an ancient law forbade them to travel abroad, 
 without permission from the czar or the patriarch, on 
 pain of death. This law flattered their pride, and, 
 like the Chinese, they regarded all other nations as 
 mere ^'outside barbarians." The conversation of 
 strangers, thought some of the czars, would be too 
 instructive, and would teach their subjects to sigh 
 for unreasonable liberty. Even the magnates 
 were not permitted to retire from court, and sel- 
 dom or never visited their large possessions in the 
 provinces, which they left to the management of 
 stewards. The sovereign himself never married 
 a foreigner, but chose his wife from his nobility, 
 or even among the common people ; nor had her 
 relations any special honor, unless during her 
 lifetime. 
 
 The general, universal, utter ignorance extended 
 even to almost total neglect of what was requisite 
 to self-preservation ; we mean, the art of war. The 
 czar could raise a very large army, indeed, in a 
 very short time, by sending orders to the voevodas, or 
 governors, to furnish their contingents at a stated 
 time and place ; but these troops were but the 
 rudest of militia, without discipline or skill in the 
 
 * Voltaire, Histoire de Charles XIl, 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 169 
 
 use of weapons ; and therefore it was they were 
 usually defeated. It was not till the reign of 
 Ivan II. that Russia had a standing army of forty 
 thousand men; viz.. the Strelitzes, a disorderly, 
 mutinous, pretorian band, more dangerous to their 
 country and to their master than to the enemy, and 
 a nuisance and a terror to their fellow-subjects. 
 The cavalry was, like the Polish pospolite, just such 
 as France and England had when those kingdoms 
 were assemblages of fiefs. The Russian nobles 
 mounted and armed themselves at their own ex- 
 pense, and fought individually and independently; 
 often with no other arms than the sabre, bow, and 
 quiver. 
 
 The command of armies was given to birth, not 
 merit ; nor were there any regular general offi- 
 cers. The other officers, from colonels down, were 
 foreign adventurers, fugitives from other countries, 
 brought to Russia by large rewards. Their high 
 pay, and the esteem in which they were held, 
 showed how much the Muscovites were in want 
 of military teachers. As most of them had never 
 been more than private soldiers elsewhere, they 
 were of little use in Russia. 
 
 Prom all these causes, it resulted that, though 
 the Russians extended their dominions to the east 
 and north, among tribes as barbarous as themselves, 
 they could make no impression on the Turks, and 
 were unable to resist the Swedes, or even the 
 paltry Poles. The boyarins were mostly exempted 
 from military service, and looked upon their scan- 
 dalous exemption as an honor. 
 
 The people, forbidden to learn, ignorant of the 
 
 subdivision of labor, born in slavery, and laboring 
 
 for their lords instead of themselves, were content 
 
 with such rude cultivation as enabled them to exist, 
 
 15 
 
170 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 and made no improvement, notwithstanding their 
 courage, hardihood, vivacity, penetration, and flexi- 
 bility of character — qualities that survive in full 
 force in their posterity at the present day. Rich 
 they could not become, nor durst, if they eould i 
 even the nobles feared to appear so. The arts are 
 the children of opulence and easy government j 
 what wonder they were strangers to Russia ? 
 
 The czar had his council of state, whom he con- 
 sulted when he pleased, and whose counsel he fol- 
 lowed when it pleased him. This assembly was 
 composed of his boparins, or hereditary nobles : a 
 few of the gentlemen of his bed-chamber, or scol- 
 nics ; the grand councillors, {dumni duoraninSy) 
 who were all noble ; and three dumni diacsy or 
 under-chancellors, advocates of the people, ap- 
 pointed by the czar from the lower orders. These 
 last always stood while the others were seated. 
 All public affairs were considered by this council : 
 foreign emissaries were chosen from it by the sov- 
 ereign. 
 
 There were several courts of justice, called pre- 
 causes, in which the councillors of state, whether 
 boyarins, scolnics, or dumni duoranins, might pre- 
 side, while the dumni diacs officiated as registers. 
 They decided cases only at the first hearing ; after 
 which there was an appeal to the council of state. 
 
 The ritual of the Russo-Greek church, of fifty 
 millions of people, now fills twenty folio volumes, in 
 the Sclavonic tongue. 
 
 The Empress Catherine and the Emperor Alex- 
 ander labored wisely and diligently to simplify and 
 to give order and regularity to the administration 
 of the government of Russia ; to reduce it to a sys- 
 tem that should be, as far as possible, independent 
 of the character or caprice of any future sovereign. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 171 
 
 Alexander proclaimed, in 1811, that the law was 
 superior to the sovereign, and gave the senate the 
 right to remonstrate against any ukase they might 
 deem inconsistent with it. 
 
 PuWic business is transacted, under the emperor, 
 by four boards, councils, or colleges. 
 
 The emperor's imperial council was established 
 on its present footing in 1810 ; and consists of a 
 president and an indefinite number of members, 
 among whom the ministers must always be reck- 
 oned. It is divided into the departments of legis- 
 lation, war, civil and religious affairs, finance, and 
 the afl^airs of Poland ; and has the superintendence 
 of every thing connected with the internal adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 The senate was founded by Peter the Great, and 
 is considered the most important body in the state ; 
 being the high court of justice of the empire, and 
 having control of all the inferior tribunals. Its 
 functions, partly deliberative and partly executive, 
 are set forth in a ukase of the 20th of Septem- 
 ber, 1802. The members are nominated by the 
 emperor, and can, therefore, be but a feeble check 
 on his power. Their number is about a hundred, 
 with a yearly salary of seven thousand rubles each. 
 The senate is divided into eight committees of sec- 
 tions, of which five sit at St. Petersburg and three 
 at Moscow. Each committee has power to decide, 
 in the last resort, upon certain descriptions of cases 
 brought either immediately before it, or by appeal 
 from the inferior tribunals. There are cases, how- 
 ever, in which persons dissatisfied with its decisions 
 may petition to the emperor. 
 
 The senators are mostly personages of high rank 
 or station ; but some eminent lawyer represents the 
 emperor, and presides in each department. His sig- 
 
172 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 nature is essential to the validity of any decision. 
 In the general meeting of the sections, the minister 
 of justice takes the chair, as high procurator. 
 
 Beside its supervision of the courts of law, the 
 senate examines the state of the public revenue and 
 expenditure, and has power to inquire into public 
 abuses, and to make a great variety of appointments. 
 Its proceedings are published monthly in the gov- 
 ernment paper. 
 
 The holy synod constitutes the third college, or 
 council of the empire. All its decisions are in the 
 emperor's name, and are of no force till approved by 
 him. There, as with us here, the ecclesiastical is 
 wholly subordinate to the temporal power. 
 
 There are eleven ministers, viz., of the impe- 
 rial household, of war, finance, justice, interior, 
 public instruction, imperial domains, post-offices, 
 public buildings and roads, and the vice-chancellor 
 and comptroller-general. These constitute the 
 fourth college, and they have colleagues who sup- 
 ply their places when sick or absent. They com- 
 municate directly with the emperor, or with his 
 private chancery, or executive department, of which 
 more anon. 
 
 It has ever been the wise poHcy of the Russian 
 sovereigns to allow conquered or acquired countries 
 to retain their own laws and institutions, so far as 
 thoy were not hostile to the empire or its general 
 constitution. Thus Poland has not been deprived 
 of her slavery and aristocracy — the only permanent, 
 fixed institutions she ever enjoyed. 
 
 Again, if Russia should ever resolve to follow the 
 example now proposed, and soon to be set, by the 
 United States, and dishonestly and unjustly annex 
 Turkey, or Persia, to her dominions, there will be 
 just as much and as little occasion to sympathize 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 173 
 
 with the sons of Islam as with the Poles ; as they 
 will probably be allowed to retain all their national 
 nuisances, and only exchange one padishah for 
 another. It is vexatious to all the Philhellenes in 
 Christendom, to be sure, to think that the Turks will 
 not, in any case, be driven out of Europe ; but, judg- 
 ing of the future by the past, such will assuredly be 
 the lamentable fact. 
 
 Finland, Ingria, Esthonia, Livonia, conquered 
 from Sweden by Peter the Great, were allowed to 
 retain their peculiar privileges and institutions for 
 about a century, when they were modified by Alex- 
 ander, very much for the better. Courland, and the 
 provinces wrested from Poland, enjoyed the same 
 favor till some of them forfeited it by their own 
 folly. Notwithstanding these exceptions, the form 
 of provincial government is sufficiently uniform. 
 
 The empire is divided into fourteen general gov- 
 ernments, equivalent to vice-royalties, between fifty 
 and sixty governments, and more than three hun- 
 dred and twenty districts, not including the ohlasts 
 already mentioned. 
 
 The general governors represent the emperor, 
 and, as his representatives, command the forces, and 
 have the supreme control of the affairs of their respec- 
 tive governments, civil and military. All public 
 functionaries within their jurisdictions are responsi^ 
 ble, and must make their reports, to them. They 
 sanction or suspend the judgments of the several 
 government courts. 
 
 To each civil government there is a civil gov- 
 ernor, representing the governor-general or viceroy, 
 and responsible to him. The civil governor is 
 assisted by a council of regency, to which all meas- 
 ures must be submitted. A vice-governor takes the 
 place of the civil governor in case of absence or 
 15* 
 
174 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 sickness. The vice-governor also presides over a 
 council of finance, who manage the estates of the 
 crown and the collection of the revenue. There is 
 also a council of general provision, answering to our 
 overseers of the poor, and having the direction and 
 inspection of all public charities, prisons, work- 
 houses, and schools for the poor : likewise a college, 
 or board of health, which attends to such matters 
 as its designation implies, appoints district physi- 
 cians, inspects pharmacopoeias, (fcc. 
 
 The districts have their local functionaries. 
 
 The towns have a municipal body, elected every 
 three years, by the different classes of the popula- 
 tion. This looks somewhat like training and prep- 
 aration for a representative system, which idea is 
 corroborated by the unceasing efforts of the empe- 
 rors to create a middle class, from Peter the Great 
 down. Each town has also either a bailiff or a 
 commandant, (according to its corporative impor- 
 tance,) appointed by the crown, who has charge 
 of the police, executes sentences, pursues crimi- 
 nals, ifcc, and has charge of the public buildings 
 and stores. 
 
 The Russian judicial system is complicated. 
 There are civil and criminal courts in every circle, 
 and in every government a supreme court, divided 
 into civil and criminal sections. It receives ap- 
 peals from the lower courts, and its sentence is 
 final in all criminal cases, as well as in all civil 
 questions about sums under five hundred rubles. 
 Higher matters must go to the senate. 
 
 We have mentioned the emperor's private chan- 
 cery. Something like it has existed since the time 
 of Alexis, the father of Peter the Great. The crimes 
 first brought before it were attempts against the 
 emperor's life, against religion, and against the 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 175 
 
 state ; but, at last, it took in all crimes. The pro- 
 cess began with the arrest, and sometimes ended 
 with the execution, of the accused. It was a ter- 
 rible institution, as all secret, irresponsible tribunals 
 must be ; but it had this extenuating feature, — 
 if the informer failed to prove his charge, he was 
 knouted three several times ; whence it may be 
 inferred, that few men cared to denounce their 
 neighbors falsely. If the accused refused to plead, 
 he Avas knouted. Was this worse than the peine 
 forte et dure, or pressing to death, of English juris- 
 prudence ? Both were bad enough, in all conscience. 
 If the judge was not convinced by either party, 
 they were both knouted again, and so on, till their 
 respective guilt or innocence became a question of 
 physical endurance.* 
 
 When Peter the Great went to the senate cham- 
 ber, and found the senators all absent from their 
 posts, he taught them the taste of an imperial 
 flogging, with his own hand, which was not a 
 soft or a light one. Peter III., in a like case, 
 sharply reproved them. Nicholas I., finding that 
 neither blows nor words had availed, organized 
 a secret chancery, to correct the abuses insepar- 
 able from the form of government. It is not a 
 part of the laws, but a business he has taken 
 upon himself as an individual ; and the institution 
 is. called ''the Private Chancery of his Majesty the 
 Emperor." It is a system of espionage like that of 
 Haroun Alraschid, and precisely similar in its effects. 
 
 In this country, where every act and thought 
 is open to the censure and correction of the press 
 and the law, where the law is definite, is almost 
 always executed, and, sometimes, with strict jus- 
 
 * Tooke's Life of Catherine II. 
 
176 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 tice, we have no idea of the necessity of a secret 
 police in an empire where the great mass are in the 
 darkest ignorance, and where the will of one man 
 is the best and surest guaranty against wrong. 
 Where such is the case, it is unquestionably of 
 the last importance, that the important one should 
 know what wrongs are committed ; and how is 
 this to be effected, but through the medium of 
 a secret police ? 
 
 It will be objected that, supposing the emperor 
 to be every thing heart can wish in a ruler, it is 
 impossible for him to be made acquainted with half 
 the wrong that takes place in an empire of sixty 
 millions. It is true that Nicholas cannot possibly 
 know all the misdoings of all his officers ; but the 
 fact that no one of them can sin with the certain- 
 ty that his crime will not reach the imperial ear, 
 and that he is certain it will be punished if it 
 does, must needs be a powerful check upon every 
 individual. Partridge's illustration, of the man 
 with a pistol against a thousand unarmed ones, 
 applies here. 
 
 The private chancery has four branches. One 
 watches the senators and other great officers of 
 state ; another the courts of law ; a third the police ; 
 and a fourth the public charities ; and each watches 
 all the others. It is, therefore, exceedingly difficult 
 for any public functionary to offend unseen by 
 this million-eyed Argus. Abuses are made known 
 to the emperor almost simultaneously with their 
 commission. Not even the occasional absence of a 
 functionary from his station escapes him. It is 
 needless to say, that the consequent proceedings 
 take place according to equity, and not to rule 
 or precedent. 
 
 The burden of this appalling responsibility, the 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 177 
 
 '' despot " meets with order and method. Each 
 hour of his every day has its own work, and 
 Nicholas does it. There is but one opinion of 
 his capacity for business among friends and foes. 
 No fatigue frightens him ; nothing is too great for 
 his vision, or small enough to escape it. The im- 
 perial censor alike detects the gravest malversation 
 and the most trifling blunder in grammar; and the 
 aberration from honesty or syntax is commonly 
 brought home to the delinquent within twenty- 
 four hours. 
 
 On coming home at night, — it may be from a 
 review, it may be from the theatre, — the emperor 
 sits down to his work, and leaves it not till it is 
 done, though day should dawn, the while. It is 
 said that his incessant application to business has 
 impaired his health. For the sake of his millions 
 of subjects, we hope it is not so. i 
 
 It is curious that, in an absolute monarchy and a 
 land of slavery, the functionaries of all the provin- 
 cial tribunals should be elective ! The superior 
 court of a circle consists of a judge and secretary, 
 and of four assessors, two chosen by the nobles, and 
 two by the burghers. The superior court of jus- 
 tice for a government, which is divided into a civil 
 and criminal chamber, has, in like manner, its pres- 
 ident, secretary, and four assessors, the assessors 
 chosen in the same way. It seems to be the prin- 
 ciple, and certainly is the practice, in Russia, that 
 some of the judges in every court should be of the 
 same class as the parties on whose cases they are 
 to decide, and should be elected for the purpose by 
 their equals. This is a valuable privilege to the 
 nobles and burghers ; but is of no use to the peo- 
 ple, whose slavery and ignorance preclude them 
 from profiting by it in the least. Nevertheless, as 
 
178 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 their slavery is not utter and remediless, like that of 
 our negroes, — as any Russian serf may become a 
 noble, and as the concentrated effort of the gov- 
 ernment is steadfastly directed to their exaltation, 
 a brighter day must eventually dawn on them all. 
 
 Before the reign of Catherine II., the judges, 
 especially of the lower courts, were wretchedly 
 paid. She increased their salaries. Still, paying 
 judges appointed by favor and removable at pleas- 
 ure, and without any fixed code of laws to guide 
 them, would not prevent great abuses in the admin- 
 istration of justice. Peter the Great, and most of 
 his successors, tried hard to collect and simplify 
 the laws of the empire, and appointed divers com- 
 missions for that purpose ; but the task was found 
 too Herculean, till his present majesty took it in 
 hand. Between 1826 and 1833, was published the 
 Swod ZakonoiOj or '' Body of Law," digested by 
 the legislative commission, under the emperor's 
 supervision and direction. Considering the diffi- 
 culty of the undertaking, the lack of assistance, and 
 the short time in which it was accomplished, the 
 creation of the Code Napoleon shrinks into insig- 
 nificance in comparison with the achievement of 
 this ''northern barbarian." The following is an 
 extract from the imperial manifesto published on 
 the completion of the work : — 
 
 "Having recognized, on our accession to the 
 throne, the indispensable necessity of introducing 
 into the whole body of the laws of our country a 
 clear and systematic order, we commanded, in an 
 especial manner, that they should be collected, and 
 the collection published entire ; and we further an- 
 nounced our will that there should afterwards be 
 taken out from the mass, for the purpose of form- 
 ing a body of uniform and regular laws, all such 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 179 
 
 laws as are now in force in our empire, without 
 changing their spirit in the slightest degree — the 
 whole to be strictly pursued on the basis laid down, 
 in the year 1700, by Peter the Great. 
 
 '' The execution of the first part of this plan was 
 finished in 1830. 
 
 *' With the aid of the Almighty, and after seven 
 years' assiduous labor, carried on under our personal 
 direction, the accomplishment of the second part is 
 now terminated. From the code of 1649, till the 
 1st of January, 1832, all the laws promulgated 
 within that period of one hundred and eighty-three 
 years, which have preserved through the changes 
 of time, even to our days, their force and tenor, 
 have been collected and classified according to 
 their nature, only leaving out such clauses as have 
 been repealed by subsequent laws ; and with the 
 exception of the regulations of the army by land 
 and sea, and some others hereafter mentioned, all 
 these laws have been arranged in a uniform system, 
 divided into codes according to the principal dis- 
 tinctions of administrative and judiciary affairs. 
 All the laws that have been promulgated after the 
 1st of January, 1832, or which may be so promul- 
 gated in the ordinary march of legislation, will be 
 added every year, in a supplement, to the body of 
 laws, according to the order of the above codes, 
 and with reference to the proper article ; so that, the 
 general system of laws being once established, it 
 will preserve its uniformity and identity forever. 
 
 " The most pressing and essential wants in the 
 empire, justice and order in the administration, im- 
 periously demand this measure. It guaranties the 
 force and the action of the laws for the present, and 
 establishes a solid basis for their gradual perfecti- 
 bility in the future. It fulfils, in fine, the wishes 
 
180 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 by which our ancestors have been animated for a 
 period, hardly interrupted, of one hundred and twen- 
 ty-six years." 
 
 We opine that the execution of this undertaking 
 places the Emperor Nicholas in a place no step lower 
 than is occupied by the great Peter. Nay, more ; 
 if he had, not suppressed, but exterminated, twenty 
 such aristocracies as the Polish nobility, we are 
 resolute that the Swod Zakonow would more than 
 have atoned for all. 
 
 The worst feature in the present government of 
 Russia is undoubtedly the maladministration of the 
 code of laws the emperor has given his people.* 
 The multiplication of dishonest lawyers is as great 
 a curse to this country as war, pestilence, or 
 famine. What, then, must be the misery of that 
 country where every man is allowed to practise, 
 qualified or not ? We have asked the question — 
 we answer it. It is stated that, in 1826, there were 
 two millions eight hundred and fifty thousand cases 
 before the tribunals of the empire : one of every 
 five adult males must have been at law. The evil 
 must have been enormous, even allowing fifty per 
 cent, for possible exaggeration. Legal proceedings 
 in Russia are said to be dilatory in the extreme. 
 The prohibition of taking fees from suitors is said to 
 be generally disregarded, and it is affirmed that, if 
 justice cannot be defeated, it can at least be indefi- 
 nitely retarded, by money. This last charge will 
 apply here, among us civilized men, and we are only 
 shielded from the partial application of the first, by 
 public opinion and the guardian power of the press ; 
 for high salaries will not put all judges above bri- 
 bery. When the emperor ordered a report on the 
 
 * Polytechnic Journal, Feb. 1842. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 181 
 
 inferior magistrates to be drawn np for his examina- 
 tion, with special command that those who made a 
 traffic of justice should be pointed out, the docu- 
 ment began thus : " Corruption exists among all 
 the judges^ without exception.^^ 
 
 It remains for the Emperor Nicholas to com- 
 plete his noble work by the training, selection, and 
 payment of judges, and by bringing public opinion 
 to bear upon them ; for his own eye, keen as it is, 
 cannot see every thing ; and all this we have confi- 
 dence in him to believe that he will do, should his 
 life be spared long enough : the past is a guaranty 
 for the future. 
 
 The question, therefore, was not the dismissal of 
 the incompetent and corrupt ; but the adoption of a 
 radical new system. Supposing the stipends of the 
 incumbents had been augmented ; would that have 
 improved their integrity ? Certainly not ; and there 
 was no alternative but to remould and remodel 
 every thing — the laws, and the judges appointed to 
 dispense them. It has, to a considerable extent, 
 been done by the new code, in which the emperor 
 was chiefly indebted to the assistance of Speranski, 
 a counsellor of state. 
 
 The police of Russia were formerly very numer- 
 ous, and are still very effective. They have various 
 powers, not involved in their ordinary functions ; 
 such as to decide differences between masters and 
 servants, &c. Crime is not so frequent in Russia 
 as in most other nations of Europe, and property is 
 as well protected there as elsewhere. 
 
 Whatever the number of the police employed in 
 Russia may have been, even so late as ten years ago, 
 (and all travellers agree that it was very great,) every 
 American reader will be astonished to learn that it 
 does not now exceed two thousand men, throughout 
 16 
 
182 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 the whole vast empire. Incredible as the fact may 
 appear, it has been verified by reference to the gov- 
 ernment estimates. The police minister, Count 
 Beckendorf, has the superintendence of all police 
 regulations, and is, at the same time, director-gen- 
 eral of the imperial gendarmerie. As minister of 
 the police, he plans its measures, and, as command- 
 ant of the gendarmes, he enforces them ; and yet 
 the force at his disposal is neither more nor less than 
 two thousand men.* 
 
 Treason is the only crime punished with death in 
 Russia; for other such crimes as are atoned capi- 
 tally in other Christian countries, the criminal under- 
 goes the knout, and is condemned to labor for life in 
 the mines of Siberia. The commutation does not 
 please the peasantry : the Russians have been used 
 to brutal treatment for so many ages ; laziness, the 
 necessary concomitant of slavery, is so ingrained 
 into their system, that, though they shrink not from 
 the knout, they prefer death to labor in the mines. 
 The greatest difficulty Catherine II. found in the 
 abolition of the torture was the opposition of those 
 most liable to it ; and, when Stephen Bathory would 
 have deprived the Lithuanian nobles of the privilege 
 of flogging their serfs, the serfs themselves besought 
 him, '' that his majesty would graciously be pleased 
 to make no innovations." Submission is so much 
 a second nature to them, that a drunken Russian 
 will crave the forgiveness of any foreigner for his 
 intoxication, and will not leave him till he has ob- 
 tained it. *' During the Easter diversions," says 
 Kohl, " I once saw a drunken man take off his hat 
 in the public market-place before the governor, fall 
 on his knees, and seize his hand, saying, ' Ah ! I 
 am drunk, your excellency ! — it is a holiday to-day ; 
 
 • Polytechnic Journal, Feb. 1842. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 183 
 
 let me be flogged : I have drunk too much ; I be- 
 seech your excellency to let me be punished ; ' and 
 the governor could not get away till he had given 
 the man a sharp reprimand." 
 
 It would seem, therefore, that any endeavor to 
 elevate the Russian serfs, generally, must be up-hill 
 work. 
 
184 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS. — ANECDOTE OF PETER THE 
 GREAT. — RUSSIAN CHURCHES. — THE KNOUT. 
 
 The patriarch, once supreme in all ecclesiastical 
 aiFairSj was elected by the metropolitans, the arch- 
 bishops, the bishops, and the inferior clergy, from 
 among the monks of St. Vassili, subject to the con- 
 firmation of the czar. Once, he depended on the 
 see of Constantinople. It belonged to the patriarch 
 to crown the czar, and to regulate all spiritusd 
 affairs, by the ecclesiastical tribunals, which were 
 held in his name. He was styled proto-archiman- 
 drite of the order of St. Vassili. The pomp and 
 grandeur of this prelate were all but incredible. 
 On Palm-Sunday, his day of solemn procession, 
 the czars led his horse on foot, in their imperial 
 purple, while the people fell prostrate before him, 
 like Tartars before the grand lama. 
 
 The power of the patriarch was almost equal to 
 the czar's. God and St. Nicholas were the primary 
 objects of the people's adoration, and after them the 
 czar and the patriarch, who could inflict the most 
 inhuman tortures, and pass sentence of death, with- 
 out appeal. 
 
 Next the patriarch ranked the metropolitans of 
 Novgorod, Kasan, Rostow, and Sark ; then came 
 the archbishops of Vologda, Tver, Astrachan, Si- 
 beria, Archangel, and Pskof ; and after them the 
 bishops of Viatka and Colunona. There were 
 about fifty archimandrites, or abbots, and a prodi- 
 gious number of proto-papas (provosts) and papas, 
 (priests.) 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 187 
 
 nant at the trespass, and did not always limit their 
 resentment to cursing and reviling. Sometimes, 
 they even sought damages at law. The scandal 
 this practice occasioned was the cause that private 
 pictures were removed from the churches, and the 
 more enlightened church party consoled themselves, 
 for the presence of those that remained, with the 
 reflection that pictures did not come within the 
 mischief of the second commandment. 
 
 There were, and are, images in some of the 
 churches, however, though it does not appear that 
 they were ever worshipped. There was a miracu- 
 lous one, of the Virgin, in the church of the Trinity. 
 This virgin was said to weep at the changes the 
 energy of Peter was effecting. But Peter was 
 not a man to be wept from his purposes. He 
 paid the church a visit ; and at his nigh approach, 
 the disconsolate virgin wept like another Niobe. 
 After gravely regarding the indisputable miracle, 
 the czar coolly stepped up to the pedestal, and lift- 
 ed the lady's head-gear. The top of the head 
 came off" with it, and lo ! the head contained a basin 
 filled with water to the level of the eyes. The 
 pedestal was purposely made rickety, and when- 
 ever it was shaken by an advancing foot, the water 
 trickled from the small punctures in the Madon- 
 na's eyes. " That is, indeed, a very fine image," 
 said the czar, as he gravely readjusted the miracle, 
 and turned away. Punishment was unnecessary, 
 or rather, the exposure was sufficient punishment. 
 McCulloch is wrong in stating that " all statues, 
 bas-reliefs," &c., are rigidly excluded from the Rus- 
 so-Greek churches. Leitch Ritchie saw an image 
 of the Virgin in the cathedral church of the As- 
 sumption at Moscow, and many others. There is 
 an image of St. Nicholas in the Kremlin at Nikol- 
 
188 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 skoi gale. The stranger who forgets to uncover 
 to this image risks having his hat pulled from his 
 head. 
 
 The bishops were also to observe '' whether 
 priests and deacons, and the lower ecclesiastics, fre- 
 quented brothels, or were noisy in the streets when 
 drunk, or, v/hat is v/orse, whoop and halloo in their 
 drink in church, &c. ; or, what is intolerably shame- 
 ful, whether they fight in the boikulachni,^^ (a spar- 
 ring match in the streets with gloves, of which the 
 peasants were very fond.)* 
 
 That the clerical profession is not a guaranty of 
 sobriety in Russia, even to this day, appears from 
 the following extract from a letter from M. de 
 Sabouref to the Rev. Mr. Venables, author of 
 " Domestic Scenes in Russia." 
 
 " The Russian peasant is deeply imbued with 
 a reverence for religion, and is not so much super- 
 stitious as thoroughly ignorant. He kisses the 
 hand of his parish priest, but he laughs at his fail- 
 ings, and is quite able to make the distinction be- 
 tween the man and his office. Of this I can give 
 you a very characteristic anecdote. Passing one 
 day near a large group of peasants, who were as- 
 sembled in the middle of the village, I asked them 
 what was going forward. 
 
 " ' We are putting the father into a cellar.' 
 
 " ' Into a cellar ! ' I replied ; ' what are you doing 
 that for ? ' 
 
 '" O,' said they, ' he is a sad drunkard, and has 
 been drunk this whole week ; so we always take 
 care every Saturday to put him in a safe place, that 
 he may be fit to officiate at church next day ; and 
 on Monday he is at liberty to begin drinking 
 again.' " 
 
 * Leitch Ritchie. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 185 
 
 The Christian precepts read, and the psalms sung, 
 in the churches, were in Sclavonian, very few of 
 the clergy knowing Latin. Any baptism but triple 
 immersion was held of no avail. They received 
 the eucharist in both kinds, and administered it to 
 children of seven years, whom they thought capa- 
 ble of sin at that age. They rejected the doctrine 
 of purgatory, but held with confession, the sign of 
 the cross, processions, and many other ceremonies 
 of the Catholic church. Confession, however, was 
 only practised after the commission of enormous 
 crimes, when absolution appeared necessary to the 
 sinner, but not repentance. The benediction of 
 the papa once obtained, he believed himself pure in 
 the sight of Heaven. Thus the Russian trans- 
 gressor left the confessional to cut a throat or pick 
 a pocket ; and what to other Christians was a curb 
 and a restraint, was to him an encouragement to 
 persevere in iniquity. 
 
 They had a great many fasts, which they ob- 
 served very rigidly. They would not even drink 
 milk on fast days ; but heads of families, girls, mar- 
 ried women, and the papas themselves, made no 
 scruple of getting drunk at other times. This will 
 not be considered incredible if we refer to the 
 ^' spiritual regulation " of Peter the Great. It 
 seems, it was common for men to marry in drunken 
 frolics — the time when a Russian is peculiarly, 
 characteristically, and nationally, loving and affec- 
 tionate. In such cases, the sobered and repentant 
 sinner was admonished by the regulation not to 
 marry a second wife before he had laid the matter 
 before a papa. " But if the priest himself," pro- 
 ceeds the regulation, " happens to be in the same 
 predicament, the matter must go before the Spirit- 
 ual College." 
 
 16* 
 
186 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 It also appears, from the same instrument, that 
 hundreds took priests' orders solely that they might 
 revel in drunkenness and debauchery; and the bish- 
 op was specially enjoined to ascertain, before or- 
 daining a candidate, that he was not a vagabond, 
 or superstitious, or a huckster of pictures of the 
 saints, which priests were allowed to barter, but not 
 to sell for money. The law is still extant ; but as 
 wholly disregarded in Russia as the license law in 
 Boston and New York. There is no difference, in 
 this respect, even in " holy " Moscow, between the 
 saint-market and the fish-market.* 
 
 To account for this, it is necessary to state that 
 every family has the pictures of its tutelar saints 
 conspicuously placed in its apartments ; and if the 
 visitor happens not to perceive them, he immedi- 
 ately asks for the saints, whom he salutes before the 
 master of the house. The most ardent lover dares 
 not receive a kiss from his mistress, be the moment 
 never so critical, without first covering the saints, 
 that they may not be scandalized. These saints 
 were, and perhaps are, carried to funerals ; and it 
 was usual for the metropolitan to put into the coffin 
 a certificate, addressed to St. Nicholas, of the upright 
 walk and conversation of the deceased ; now, it is 
 a prayer and confession of faith. 
 
 It was common and general for private individ- 
 uals to hang up these pictures in the churches, 
 while they still reserved to themselves a private 
 right of property in the saint. They placed him 
 there, because they could not afford him a suitable 
 temple themselves, without any notion of his lis- 
 tening to the prayers of others. If, therefore, they 
 caught a neighbor adoring him, they were indig- 
 
 • Leitch Ritchie. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 189 
 
 It would seem, too, that the piety of the Rus- 
 sian peasantry is very much on a par with that of 
 the same class in most Catholic countries. A petty 
 trader had occasion to call on an English merchant 
 on the evening of St. Nicholas's day. The Eng- 
 lishman told him to call " to-morrow." " To-mor- 
 row ! " cried the indignant Russ ; '^ why ! you are 
 worse than an infidel. The very Tartars will 
 spend all the money they have to-morrow in getting 
 drunk to the honor of St. Nicholas ! " * 
 
 Kruilow, the Russian ^sop, gives us the following 
 fable, illustrative of the way in which the Russian 
 fasts are kept. " The injunction is, ' Ye shall not 
 eat any kind of flesh on fast days, nor shall ye boil 
 eggs in water upon your hearths, and eat such 
 eggs.' A peasant who had no notion of denying 
 himself eggs on a strict fast day, drove a nail in- 
 to the wall, and hung an egg upon it by a wire, 
 under which he set a lighted lamp, and so cooked 
 it. Being caught in the act by the priest, he al- 
 leged that he had not supposed he was breaking 
 the commandment. ' The devil must have taught 
 you that ! ' cried the indignant priest. ' O yes, 
 father,' replied the offender, 'forgive me, and I 
 will confess ; the devil did teach it to me.* 
 ' That's a lie ! ' roared the devil, who had been 
 chuckling at the eggs behind the stove, ' I did not 
 teach him, father, indeed ; for, on my sacred honor, 
 I never heard of the trick till now.' " 
 
 This is but a fable ; but if evasion, of the 
 church's commands had not been common, Kruilow 
 never would have written it. 
 
 But what if there were, what if there are ignorance 
 and drunkenness among the Russo-Greek clergy ? 
 Has there been none in the Catholic priesthood, or 
 
 * Richardson, 
 
190 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 the Church of England ? Were it not better that 
 drunkenness (not to speak of ignorance, of which 
 we have no lack at home) were prevalent among 
 the American clergy, than that we should open 
 with every mail an account of some adultery or 
 other crime committed by some American servant 
 of the altar ? Let us look at home before we de- 
 ride the Russian clergy ! and let all Christendom do 
 the same. 
 
 Amidst all their ignorance and superstition, 
 among all their ridiculous customs and ceremonies, 
 the Russians had some that were significant and in- 
 structive. They crowned newly-married persons 
 with wormwood, emblematic of the bitterness of 
 marriage, and sprinkled them with hops, the type 
 of fruitfulness. They covered the bride's eyes 
 with a veil, to signify that she ought to be blind to 
 her husband's faults. Their laws did not forbid 
 bigamy ; yet the few who practised it were looked 
 upon as the shame and dishonor of their families. 
 
 The worst trait of former Russian barbarism, 
 however, was the low estimate placed on the bet- 
 ter sex. Travellers tell us (and they are too nu- 
 merous and too unanimous to be all and altogether 
 in error) that they considered female virtue to be 
 like sal volatile^ only to be preserved by close con- 
 finement ; and therefore enjoined their wives and 
 daughters to stay always within doors, and abstain 
 from all conversation with men. The more rude 
 and uncouth the woman, they thought, the better 
 the wife. The husband might kill her by immod- 
 erate correction — which assuredly is a certain way 
 to correct any body — without incurring the penalty 
 of the law. They might put them away for bar- 
 renness, and compel them to enter the cloister ; and 
 yet the Russian wives were generally proud of 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 191 
 
 their husbands' jealousy and brutality. We could 
 scarcely believe this, if we had not seen Irishmen 
 tried for beating their wives. It was not till the 
 beginning of Peter's reign that fathers stipulated, 
 in marriage contracts, that their daughters should 
 not be starved or unmercifully cudgelled. Women 
 who destroyed their tyrants were set in the ground 
 and starved to death ; and we may believe that 
 where such was the lot of women, this horrid pun- 
 ishment was often incurred. 
 
 There seems to have been very little Christianity 
 in Russia, as the word is now understood, till the 
 seventeenth century. It is a little singular that a 
 despotic prince should have been its apostle. We 
 do not wonder that the Russian clergy of his day 
 did not canonize him ; though he did more for 
 Christianity than St. Augustin, St. Patrick, or St. 
 Andrew ; but he will one day be canonized in the 
 hearts of all sincere Russian Christians ; indeed, he 
 is already. At some future time, too, the people of 
 Poland will erect a statue to the Emperor Nicholas 
 — we do not mean the nobility. 
 
 Peter's spiritual regulation directed the Spiritual 
 College to " compare the history of saints, whether 
 some of them were not lying devices, or fabulous 
 and ridiculous stories." Such things, he thought, 
 ought to be discountenanced ; the more, that " es- 
 pecially the simple folk can scarce distinguish the 
 right hand from the left ; but firmly and pertina- 
 ciously maintain whatever they see written in a 
 book." He also condemned the superstition that 
 forbade working on Friday, lest Panitza (the Venus 
 of heathen Russia) should be angry. This god- 
 dess walked in the ecclesiastical processions of Little 
 Russia, even at that time, in the guise of a woman 
 with dishevelled hair, and was led into the 
 churches to be worshipped bv the Deonle. 
 
l92 
 
 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 It was a current belief that a man buried in the 
 Pecherskoi monastery would be saved, even if he 
 had died impenitent. In another place, it was the 
 custom to pray before an oak, and the papa shook 
 the boughs over the people's heads, as he pro- 
 nounced the benediction. The college was also 
 commanded to inquire into the '' infinite number 
 of fables " about holy relics. 
 
 Certain bishops, being in want of money, placed 
 an image in a desert, and pretended that it wrought 
 miracles. The regulation emphatically condemned 
 their conduct. 
 
 "The bishop," says the regulation, "ought to 
 command his servants to behave themselves order- 
 ly and soberly in the cities and monasteries he 
 visits, and to commit no outrage ; especially not 
 to exact from monks and popes too great a quan- 
 tity of meat and drink for themselves, or of prov- 
 ender for their horses ; especially that they attempt 
 not to rob, on pain of being severely chastised ; for 
 the servants of bishops are usually a dissolute herd ; 
 and when they observe their lord to have any 
 authority, like wild Tartars they impudently fall 
 to pillage." 
 
 It was the custom of the choristers to sing sev- 
 eral hymns at the same instant, to save time, and 
 for the priests, when summoned to the sick beds 
 of people of little note, to send them their prayers 
 in the messenger's hat. 
 
 Richardson, the author of "Anecdotes of Rus- 
 sia," who travelled in the reign of Catherine II., 
 relates a laughable anecdote of this kind of pro- 
 jectile prayer. — "At Easter, after Lent, the Russo- 
 Greek Christians indulge in the wildest revelry; 
 but not till the parish priest has taken off the ob- 
 ligation to fast, and blessed the house at each of 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS, 193 
 
 its four corners. It so chanced that, in raising the 
 injunction in a certain village, the priest purposely 
 passed the door of a parishioner who had offended 
 him, without stopping. The man, on his return 
 home, finding himself neglected, consulted with 
 his wife, who was no better pleased to eat fish 
 and keep sober, while their neighbors were feast- 
 ing or getting drunk, than he was ; and the best 
 method their conjugated wisdom could devise to 
 get out of the dilemma was, to make the pastor a 
 present of a fine goose. 
 
 ^' It so chanced that the papa had gone to another 
 village, where he was to officiate the next morning, 
 and it was impossible to return and bless the house. 
 Nevertheless, the goose was a temptation irresistible, 
 and sharpened his ingenuity. He took the peas- 
 ant's cap, breathed four blessings in it, replaced it on 
 his head, and told him to hasten back and shake 
 it, upside down, at each corner of the cabin, and 
 that should be his dispensation." 
 
 It was the custom in Lent to give theatrical 
 representations of the resurrection in the churches, 
 where Christ, and the women to whom he showed 
 himself, were duly represented. 
 
 In one part of the regulation, we think we see 
 Hamlet directing the players: "A preacher has 
 no need to tug and heave, as if he were tugging at 
 the oar in a boat. He has no need to clap his 
 hands — to set his arms a-kimbo — or to bounce, 
 or spring, or to giggle and laugh ; or any reason for 
 howlings and hideous lamentations." 
 
 Such were the manners of the Russian priest- 
 hood a century ago ; for, with whatever distrust 
 we may regard the statements of travellers, there 
 is no rebutting the testimony of Peter the Great. 
 Their manners, at least, have since undergone much 
 17 
 
194 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 improvement. During the three months that Leitch 
 Ritchie was ^' industriously frequenting every kind 
 of assembly of the people, he never saw an ec- 
 clesiastic otherwise than respectable, either in his 
 dress or conduct." This, however, is only the 
 church keeping pace with the general spread of 
 civilization. It does not appear that a papa gains 
 any additional respect by sobriety, nor is he more 
 familiarly received in the houses of the upper 
 classes than formerly. 
 
 The monks of St. Vassili engrossed all the ec- 
 clesiastical preferments ; but the lower clergy were 
 of and with the people, and, of course, their char- 
 acter was that of the people. In this, they were 
 unlike the Polish clergy, who were of the nobility, 
 and, having no feeling or interest in common with 
 the people, did nothing to ameliorate their condi- 
 tion. Early travellers, when they deplored the 
 degradation of the clergy, were not aware that 
 they were describing the whole people. The ig- 
 norance of church and lay being equal, there could 
 be little reciprocal improvement. 
 
 The mighty intellect of Peter always grasped 
 the truth' at once. While he reformed the church 
 government, and the morals of the clergy, he saw 
 that this was enough, and that it was inexpedient 
 and unsafe to attack any point of their doctrine. 
 There was a great outcry against his reforms 
 among the lower clergy, whose vices he attacked. 
 Peter, nevertheless, put down whatever was inju- 
 rious in the conduct of the papas with a strong 
 hand ; but he was tolerant to what did no harm. 
 
 He cudgelled the papas with his own imperial 
 hand ; but he did not venture to attack the pictures 
 of the saints ; their presence in the houses of the 
 peasants injured no one ; they were as dear to the 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 195 
 
 people as their beards. He spared them, though 
 his synod petitioned to have them removed from 
 the churches. Nicon, the patriarch, destroyed 
 himself by interfering with these popular gods. 
 
 Such was once the state of religion, and the 
 church, in Russia • and it does not appear that they 
 have improved in any thing like an equal degree 
 with the other institutions of the empire : yet — 
 
 The Greek creed has about 50,000,000 of vo- 
 taries in Russia. The principal points in which 
 it differs from the Roman church are, its denial of 
 the pope's authority, spiritual and temporal; its 
 enjoining church and lay to study the Scriptures in 
 the vernacular, and its prohibition of celibacy in 
 the clergy. This latter requisition is carried to the 
 length that no priest can discharge any spiritual 
 function before he is married, or after he becomes 
 a Avidower. He is not, however, allowed to marry 
 a second time, and, therefore, his sacerdotal char- 
 acter and his wife expire together, unless he is 
 specially licensed to continue to officiate by his 
 bishop. A widowed priest has, in recompense, the 
 barren consolation of being permitted to enter a 
 monastery, and never to aspii'fe to the highest dig- 
 nities of the church. 
 
 The Russian church was subordinate to that of 
 the Eastern empire, and received its patriarch from 
 the metropolitan of Constantinople, as we have al- 
 ready said, till that city was taken by the Turks; 
 after which, the Russian clergy made their own 
 nomination, always from among the monks of 
 St. Vassili. This state of things continued till 
 Peter the Great declared himself the head of the 
 church, and appointed a holy synod to govern it ; 
 which still continues. 
 
 The clergy are either secular or regular — the 
 
196 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 former comprising the parochial priesthood, and the 
 latter the high ecclesiastical dignitaries, monks, 
 &c. The hierarchy is composed of bishops, arch- 
 bishops, and metropolitans, and there are thirty^ 
 eight dioceses in all. 
 
 No country in Christendom has so many fine 
 churches as Russia. The meanest village has its 
 temple, with gilt dome and spire. These edifices 
 are almost all substantially built of brick, in the 
 Grecian style of architecture, plastered and painted 
 with much care and taste, in striking contrast 
 with the dwelling-houses. Throughout Russia, 
 there are almost 500 cathedrals and about 29,000 
 churches belonging to the established faith, which 
 give employment to about 70,000 clergymen. 
 Moreover, there are over 550 convents, of which 
 70 are for women. Each church has a lofty belfry, 
 and large bells, of which the Russians are immod- 
 erately fond. A chime of fine ones may be found 
 in every steeple, to be rung several times during 
 every service^ and without intermission on holidays. 
 
 In Russia, as in every other Christian country, 
 the piety or superstition of individuals had greatly 
 enriched the monasteries. Peter the Great availed 
 himself of the abuses this occasioned to deprive 
 them of their wealth; and Catherine II. completed 
 the degradation of the clergy by appropriating the 
 whole immovable property of the church to the 
 use of the state, and assigning pensions to the 
 functionaries to whom it had belonged, in its stead. 
 
 Still, with the exception of a few livings in 
 Moscow and St. Petersburg, the stipends of the 
 clergy, even with the perquisites of their functions, 
 and the offerings of the people, are insufficient to 
 support them comfortably. The whole number of 
 the established clergy is about 254,000 j and so 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 197 
 
 small is the sum appropriated to pay them, that 
 they are almost wholly dependent upon their flocks, 
 as, perhaps, they should be. The income of the 
 senior metropolitan, the chief of the hierarchy, did 
 not, lately, exceed 600 or 700 pounds a year, and 
 an archimandrite, or abbot, got but 180 or 225 
 dollars.* Beside the " surplice fee," which, in 
 rich benefices, may amount to 90 annual dollars, 
 and, in poor ones, to 20, they have but a wooden 
 house, not much better than those of their parish- 
 ioners, and a little land, which they cultivate with 
 their own hands. The highest dignity they can 
 attain — unless they become widoAvers — is that of 
 prototype of a cathedral, with a salary of about 90 
 dollars a year.f While such is their depression, we 
 need not wonder at the grossness or vulgarity of 
 the great bulii of the clergy, which is not, how- 
 ever, more glaring in them than in the itinerant 
 gospellers of Great Britain and the United States. 
 
 The severity of the climate of the northern parts 
 of Russia, and the inferior grade of the clergy in the 
 social scale, make it customary for the Russian no- 
 bility to celebrate those religious ceremonies which, 
 in other countries, are performed in churches, in 
 their houses. On such occasions, it is an important 
 point that the rank of the officiating priest should 
 correspond with that of the master of the house. 
 For a simple gentleman, for example, a deacon 
 may do ; but a prince, or a senator, must have a 
 bishop. 
 
 None but the sons of clergymen are educated for 
 the church, and the instances are exceedingly rare 
 of persons belonging to any other class enrolling 
 themselves among the secular clergy. The regu- 
 
 * Pinkerton's Russia. t Coxe. 
 
 17* 
 
198 VINDICATION OP RUSSIA AND 
 
 lar, or dignified clergy, on the contrary, often 
 receive recruits from among the nobility and other 
 classes. 
 
 Orders, and other marks of distinction, are con- 
 ferred on the regular clergy, and a bishop who has 
 not the star and ribbon of some order of knighthood 
 is little regarded. 
 
 The invocation of saints, as mediators, subordi- 
 nate to Christ, is enjoined. 
 
 The mysteries, or sacraments, are seven. 
 
 Baptism is performed on the eighth day after 
 birth, and never, on any account, repeated. It is 
 held so important, that, if there be no priest at 
 hand, any person may perform the rite. Chrism is 
 anointing with oil, immediately after baptism, and 
 is called " the seal of the gift of the Holy Ghost.'' 
 The priest, in anointing the child, makes the sign 
 of the cross on his forehead, eyes, nostrils, mouth, 
 ears, breast, hands, and feet, repeating at each sign, 
 "The seal of the gift of the Holy Ghost." The 
 child's hair is then cut crosswise. The priest 
 wraps up some locks of it in Avax, and throws 
 them into a pond. After seven days, the young 
 Christian is brought back to be publicly washed by 
 him. 
 
 Transubstantiation is one of the doctrines of the 
 Russo-Greek church ; only the wine must be mixed 
 with warm water, the bread must be sopped in it, 
 and the mixture must be exhibited with a spoon. 
 The priests take the elements separately. The 
 table-cloth is consecrated by a bishop, and must 
 have some particle of the relics of a martyr woven 
 into the web. 
 
 The other sacraments are marriage, confession, 
 ordination, and extreme unction. 
 
 Marriage has two consecutive parts, the espou- 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 199 
 
 sals, and the matrimonial coronation. At the es- 
 pousals, the priest places rings on the fingers of the 
 parties, with many prayers, and the paranymphus 
 shifts them from the one to the other. At the cor- 
 onation, the priest crowns them with a tin, or silver 
 crown, (it was formerly with flowers,) saying, 
 " The servant of God is crowned for the hand- 
 maid of God, in the name of the Father, the Son, 
 and the Holy Ghost." The mutual cup is then 
 given ; they walk three times in a circle ; the 
 crowns are taken off, and they salute each other. 
 In eight days, they return to the church, and their 
 crowns are "dissolved" by prayer. 
 
 If the Russo-Greek creed promotes agricultural 
 labor by enjoining a vegetable diet on its professors 
 for fifteen or sixteen sure days in the year, their cal- 
 endar is singularly unfavorable to the improvement 
 of agriculture. The Russian peasants regulate their 
 whole lives, and especially the acts of their domes- 
 tic economy, by the calendar, and not by the laws 
 of nature. Cattle are turned out, for example, not 
 when there is grass for them to eat, but on St. 
 Stephen's day, when the priest sprinkles them with 
 holy water, and blesses them, by which they are, 
 no doubt, greatly benefited. To insure the coun- 
 tenance of St. Gregory, they begin ploughing on 
 his day, no matter whether the season be backward 
 or forward, or what the weather is. Apples are 
 gathered, not when they are ripe, but on the festi- 
 val of the Virgin, in August. Before that, apples 
 are poisonous, but, afterwards, green fruit will not 
 hurt a child at the breast ; and if it dies of flux or 
 inflammation, " why, it was God's will, and there 
 is nothing more to be said about it." The drovers 
 of the south (tschumaks) all set out on Shrove 
 Tuesday, because the roads are then good ; and 
 
200 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 about the first of October, they return home, be- 
 cause, after Pakrowi, (a festival at that time,) it is 
 not safe to be abroad, on account of evil spirits. 
 TraveUing is regulated in the same way, winter 
 and summer.* 
 
 Coxe tells us that, when he was in Russia, 
 many of the priests could not read the gospel 
 they preached, even in their own language. Such 
 gross ignorance is not common now. The duties 
 of the Russian clergy are exceedingly laborious. 
 Dr. Pinkerton says that a peculiar degree of cul- 
 ture and good manners is to be found in the fami- 
 ly circle of the parochial clergy, who form a distinct 
 caste, as they necessarily must, from the circum- 
 stances before stated. 
 
 Hear this, ye who run to the second hour. A 
 Russian sermon has one merit, that almost atones 
 for any vulgarity and ignorance that can be im- 
 agined in the preacher — it is invariably short ; the 
 longest does not exceed a quarter of an hour. 
 
 There are about seventy sects of dissenters, or 
 Raskolniks, or heretics, who are all tolerated, though 
 no member of the established church is permitted 
 to forsake his religion. When one of its members 
 marries a person of another creed, the children 
 must all be reared in the established faith. 
 
 One sect of Russian dissenters renounces labor, in 
 order to be in readiness to receive the Holy Ghost 
 when he comes. In another, every man baptizes 
 himself, believing that there is nobody in the world 
 holy enough to perform the rite. Some believe 
 that Antichrist has come, and put an end to all 
 righteousness in the church ; others deem it merito- 
 rious to starve themselves to death. The most 
 
 * Kohl. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 201 
 
 numerous of the Raskolnicks are the Old and the 
 Anti-Ceremonialists, these wishing to incorporate 
 the rites of Judaism with Christianity, and those to 
 strip Christianity of all ceremonial. 
 
 The Anti-Ceremonials profess to be sprung from 
 the loins of Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego. 
 They will have no icons, ceremonies, churches, or 
 holy-days ; all times and places being to them 
 equally holy. They meet and sup in each other's 
 houses, like Christ and his disciples, praying, hymn- 
 ing, and expounding, women as well as men. They 
 preach, pray, or sing, standing, sitting, or lying 
 down, just as the fancy strikes them. 
 
 Thus far these sectaries mainly agree with the 
 disciples of Silas Lamson and Abby Folsom, in 
 this country ; but in other respects there is a differ- 
 ence. Their property is in common, and the only 
 punishment they inflict is expulsion from their 
 society. If a husband wishes to leave his wife, or 
 a wife her husband, they give them a share of the 
 common property, and bid them go in peace. They 
 hold the story of the Christian atonement to be mere- 
 ly symbolical, and as having no meaning but in a 
 spiritual sense. Christ, they maintain, must be 
 born, grow up, teach, suffer, and die, in us. Bap- 
 tism is the same thing as regeneration, and takes 
 place inwardly. When Christ, which is the word 
 of God, sinks into the heart, the communion is re- 
 ceived ; as for the bread and wine, they hold it 
 absurd to pretend that it does more than nourish the 
 body. Fasting from food is folly ; abstinence from 
 sin is the true Lent of the righteous. Marriage is 
 not a sacrament, but a mere verbal contract. If a 
 woman is seduced, the seducer must either marry 
 her, or quit the society. Death is merely a change, 
 and not for the worse. They believe also in future 
 rewards and punishments. 
 
202 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 There is one thing in this country, which we ab- 
 hor as a land of slavery, that is worthy of the com- 
 mendation of all the world, and of our especial imita- 
 tion. In its temples, all ranks, bond and free, stand 
 in the presence of God as equals and as brethren. 
 There is no "nigger pew " in the north-east corner 
 of the gallery, for the serf to peep out of at the 
 altar ; the flesh and blood of the Redeemer is not 
 carried to him apart. " The princess rears her 
 haughty head, or bends it with graceful condescen- 
 sion ; and the poor miijik, clasping his hands upon 
 his chest, bows his body almost to the earth before 
 her who but a moment before was his equal and 
 his sister." Take physic, southern brethren! take 
 physic, Russian physic, fellow-Christians of Boston ! 
 
 There are many among us who will be satisfied, 
 in theory, with nothing less than the absolute com- 
 petence of men for self-government under any and 
 all circumstances. There are others, who will fling 
 up their caps, and shout " hurrah for liberty," when- 
 ever they hear the triumph of Texan cut-throats, 
 Polish conspirators, or Hibernian peep-o'-day boys, 
 just as they huzzaed for Jackson twelve years ago ; 
 just as they huzza for Clay or Polk now ; just as the 
 English mob huzza for every royal baby additional 
 they have to maintain ; just as negroes huzza for the 
 4th of July, without knowing why or wherefore. 
 You shall easily find a nullifier indignant that the 
 Russian serf has not a vote in public aflfairs, who, 
 nevertheless, will sell his own serf at public outcry, 
 to pay a gambling debt ; it will not be hard to find 
 an abolitionist inveighing justly against the whole- 
 sale robbery and oppression committed by Texas 
 and the British in China, who denounces the em- 
 peror of Russia as a slave-holder, while at the same 
 time he deplores the hard fate of the Polish martyrs 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 203 
 
 of liberty ; you will readily find a thousand demo- 
 cratic champions of the liberty and equality of 
 (white) mankind, here or in Russia, who are not in 
 the least aware that three of themselves weigh even, 
 in the political scale, with five black beasts of 
 draught and burden, in the Southern States. How 
 shall we convince any of these creatures of impulse 
 that the government of Russia is not to blame for 
 not forcing freedom on millions who never knew 
 the meaning of the word, who never dreamed of 
 an effort to attain the thing? How shall we make 
 them sensible that the Emperor Nicholas knows 
 almost as much as they do, that he deplores the 
 existing evils of his nation as much as the most en- 
 thusiastic advocate for liberty can, and that he has 
 done, and is doing, all that even an emperor of 
 Russia can, to emancipate his people, and fit them 
 for a share in his government ? 
 
 We have no justification to offer for the man who 
 holds property in his brother man, against the lat- 
 ter's will, for a single moment, or who takes the 
 fruits of his sweat without rendering him a fair 
 equivalent. But does the reader remember a sin- 
 gle instance in history, where a nation of slaves 
 have simultaneously thrown off their chains, who, 
 before they wrought themselves into a republic, 
 did not go through the school and ordeal of arbi- 
 trary rule ? 
 
 Rome reached despotism under the Caesars ; but 
 had not virtue enough at any time to become free. 
 
 Did the mass of Englishmen attain a representa- 
 tive form of government without the training of 
 centuries, or without submitting to the despotism 
 of Cromwell ? The reign of Cromwell was the 
 zenith of England's glory. 
 
 What was the consequence when the long-suffer- 
 
204 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 ing people of France broke their yoke at a blow, and 
 waded through seas of blood to — what ? Free- 
 dom ? — no. No ! the splendid despotism of Napo- 
 leon. That despotism, however, prepared them for 
 such freedom as they now enjoy. 
 
 What might have been our fate, when we gave 
 Andrew Jackson the purse and the sword, and set 
 him above the law and the constitution, if he had 
 not happened to be a good man ? 
 
 What have been the consequences of our admit- 
 ting to the elective franchise foreigners quite as 
 unfit to enjoy it as any serf in Russia? ay, less 
 fit ; for the Russian serf is, excepting on holidays, 
 sober, and never turbulent or quarrelsome. Let 
 the history of the last twelve years answer ; and if 
 the advent of a handful of barbarous bog-trotters 
 has produced such evils among a far greater num- 
 ber of civilized men, trained to self-government for 
 two centuries, what would be the consequence, we 
 do not say of emancipating, but of putting the 
 reins of government into the hands of upwards of 
 forty millions of equally ignorant serfs? 
 
 We think that, considering the condition of all 
 classes of the Russian nation, the present form of 
 government is better adapted to its wants than 
 any other that human wisdom could substitute in 
 its stead. The unlimited power of the sovereign, in 
 its unity, is, as it has been directed for more than a 
 century, the best guaranty for its civilization, and 
 for the greater improvement and greater good of the 
 greater number. Had the nobles any share in the 
 government, or any political power, God knows 
 where tyranny and oppression would stop ; perhaps 
 at the limits they had reached before the reign of 
 Ivan the Great ; perhaps where they now halt in 
 the territory beyond Mason and Dixon's line. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 205 
 
 What Poland was, Russia would be. As it is, it 
 is the emperor's interest to exalt the people, and 
 the people's interest to sustain the emperor. He is 
 the palladium of their rights ; they, of his authority. 
 No cloud intercepts the Russian peasant's view of 
 the sun. Civilization is rapidly extending under 
 the emperor's fostering encouragement ; slaves are 
 fast decreasing in number ; and freemen are taking 
 their places. The emperor has nothing to fear 
 from his slaves, and but one thing to fear from the 
 nobles — assassination — the universal weapon of 
 oligarchy. 
 
 A representative form of government, constituted 
 as Russian society now is, would be but creating 
 another aristocracy ; putting power into the hands 
 of a comparatively small class ; and would fit Rus- 
 sia as ill as absolute monarchy would fit the United 
 States. 
 
 From the chilly and desert character of half of 
 its extent, and from associating its very name with 
 exile and suffering, we are apt to regard Siberia in 
 the light that we do the sands of Sahara, or the 
 snows of Greenland, — as a land almost uninhabita- 
 ble, and doomed to everlasting desolation. Neverthe- 
 less, though this is true of a part of its surface, it is 
 by no means so of the whole. Its southern districts 
 are of vast extent, are watered by large navigable 
 rivers, and equal great part of Europe and North 
 America in agricultural advantages. The immense 
 plains that stretch eastward along the banks of the 
 Amour are capable of subsisting all the people of 
 Christendom in comfort and abundance. There are 
 traces of a much more dense population, than is now 
 to be found in them, having once inhabited there ; 
 but the waste steppes that separate them from other 
 regions, and the fact that most of their rivers flow 
 18 
 
206 VINDICATIOX OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 into the Frozen Ocean, has hitherto prevented any 
 considerable population from occupying them. Let 
 the reader look at the map, and he will see that the 
 navigation of the River Amour by steam is destined 
 to effect a mighty change in this country. It is 
 true that the mouth of the Amour belongs to the 
 Celestial Empire; but what of that? After having 
 seen dueen Victoria cram the celestials with opium 
 without remonstrance, he must be very squeamish, 
 indeed, who can complain of an emperor of Russia 
 for obtaining possession of an advantage indispensa- 
 ble to so great a part of his dominions — peaceably 
 if he can, forcibly if he must. 
 
 " I found the wretches about to commence their 
 march," says Leitch Ritchie, " in a temporary depot. 
 A long chain secured both legs at the ankles. A 
 great many were Jews, most of them mujiks, (pea- 
 sants, who have their lords' permission to reside in 
 towns.) Some carts were near, filled with their 
 wives and children, and some of their male relations 
 stood beside them unmanacled, who had petitioned 
 to be permitted to share their exile." 
 
 Very gloomy, indeed ; and, if the reader will take 
 the trouble to call at the jail in Leverett Street, he 
 may often see men there in chains, waiting for the 
 carriage that is to convey them to the state prison. 
 
 We do not suppose a field negro in Georgia or 
 South Carolina would much care whether he felt 
 the taskmaster's whip in one country or another. 
 So it is with the mnjik : he is born to labor, and 
 must continue in servitude, whether he goes to Sibe- 
 ria or stays in Europe. Accordingly, the mere fact 
 of transportation is not regarded by them as a severe 
 punishment, especially as their families are allowed 
 to accompany them, if they will — a mercy that is 
 not granted to our own serfs, who are only criminal 
 in a dark skin. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 207 
 
 Condemnation to the mines is what the Russian 
 dreads, and with reason, as it is the substitution for 
 capital punishment, and is, perhaps, more severe ; 
 for it is better to die in a few minutes, than to be 
 several years about it. It is precisely the operation 
 of our own principle of false humanity that snatches 
 a man from the gallows to imprison him for hfe at 
 hard labor. In our opinion, death would be prefer- 
 able. 
 
 We hear terrible tales of the knout, and of the 
 mines of Siberia, from the Polish exiles, and, indeed, 
 from a great many other sources, just as we hear of 
 the wolves in the western prairies, which, by the way, 
 are never known to harm the human race. Now, 
 we are free to admit that being flogged nearly or 
 quite to death is a very uncomfortable thing, 
 whether it happen in Russia and Poland, or in the 
 British and American army and navy ; and we believe 
 it happens as often to British and American soldiers 
 and sailors as it does to Russian criminals. But 200 
 strokes of the knout are given to a Russian mur- 
 derer : we have known four times that number inflicted 
 in the American army, for desertion. We admit, too, 
 that labor on the tread-mill, or in the Siberian mines, 
 is alike unfavorable to human health and longevity. 
 Still, we think — nay, we are sure — that all these 
 horrors have been grossly exaggerated. Call the 
 punishment of the knout, what it simply is, a whip- 
 ping, and most of its terrors vanish. 
 
 The knout is, indeed, a barbarous and revolting 
 punishment j but it is only inflicted in cases of enor- 
 mous guilt, such as parricide, robbery accompanied 
 with murder, &c. Even then, it gives the criminal 
 about the same chance for his life that a British sea- 
 man has who is flogged through the fleet. The 
 knout is never inflicted without a formal trial. 
 
208 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 The hatoags is a punishment inflicted with more 
 or less severity for minor misdemeanors, and is pre- 
 cisely the same thing as the Turkish or Chinese 
 bastinado. Almost every traveller has confounded 
 this infliction with the knout, and hence our horrible 
 idea of Russian cruelty. 
 
 Here, now, is one of the raw-head-and-bloody- 
 bone stories so easily fabricated, and so easily swal- 
 lowed by the gullible, sympathetic public. It was 
 copied from the ''Gazette de Cologne" into almost 
 all the American and English papers a few weeks 
 ago, under the caption of '' Russian cruelty." 
 
 '' Five Russian deserters — who were apprehended 
 close to, if not upon, the Russian territory — received 
 fifteen hundred strokes of the knout ; it is very 
 seldom the victim survives the thousandth blow. 
 Notwithstanding the death of the five in question, 
 the executioner proceeded to inflict the very last 
 lash prescribed by the sentence. With worse than 
 Chinese refinement in barbarity, the parents and 
 families of the condemned were forced to witness 
 the punishment from beginning to end." 
 
 We really wish that those journalists who cater 
 to the depraved appetite of the public for the horri- 
 ble and disgusting, would fabricate lies, as masons 
 mix mortar, with sufficient regard to consistency 
 to make the parts stick together. We have no terms 
 for the paragraphist who concocted this farrago of 
 falsehood, foul taste, and absurdity ; but to those 
 who have ignorantly copied or believed him, there 
 are a few words to be said. 
 
 A very moderate study of Russian law will teach 
 them that no man, soldier or citizen, is punished 
 with death in time of peace for aught but treason, 
 or receives more than two hundred strokes of the 
 knout for any crime, even murder. Russian soldiers 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 209 
 
 seldom desert, inasmuch as, however unwilling they 
 may at first be to serve, they soon find that it is in 
 every way better to be a soldier than a serf: when 
 they do, they are disgraced by being anew enslaved. 
 The colonel of a Russian regiment may order one of 
 the file of his regiment, for very grave offences, twenty 
 strokes of the knout, and no more. In civil life, 
 murder is punished with two hundred lashes only, 
 which, indeed, sometimes kill, but not often. Is it 
 at all likely that a Russian court-martial would pro- 
 nounce a harsher sentence than that of murder for 
 desertion in time of peace, and which would render 
 the second part of the punishment, disgrace, nuga- 
 tory ? 
 
 A Russian criminal receives the amount of his 
 sentence at once, and, usually, the greater part of it 
 in a state of insensibihty. In those schools of 
 honor and refinement, the British prize ring and 
 army, a surgeon or a bottle-holder attends the suf- 
 ferer, not to spare his physical suffering, but to make 
 sure that he feels it all ; to take him away from the 
 ropes, or the triangles, in order to bring him back 
 again, and tear open his lacerations as soon as nature 
 can endure the agony. And yet the English accuse 
 the Russians of cruelty ! Two hundred strokes 
 of the knout — it is too bad ; yet we have seen a 
 soldier in the American army take as many with the 
 cats on two several successive mornings. 
 
 Any one who has seen much flogging knows 
 that its severity depends much more on the arm that 
 strikes than on the number of blows. 
 
 In the above statement, the probability is, if there 
 is any truth in the story at all, that the deserters 
 received 150 blows each, and that it troubled the 
 reporter's conscience as little to add another cipher 
 as it did his fingers. New beginners always faint 
 18* 
 
210 VINDICATION OT RUSSIA AND 
 
 at about the fiftieth blow. As to the presence of 
 the relatives — rubbish ! — such silly barbarity would 
 make the whole Russian people as restless as fleas, 
 or Yankees. 
 
 It is alleged that the knout, and banishment to 
 Siberia, are the meed of many political oflfences, not 
 involving much moral guilt. True ; the punish- 
 ment of treason is proportioned to its possible or 
 probable consequences, every where, not to the 
 degree of its criminality. Is not poor, harmless 
 Thomas Dorr in the state prison of Rhode Island 
 at this moment ? 
 
 Granting that Siberia were worse than imagina- 
 tion paints it, we ask if criminals are to expect a 
 paradise at Botany Bay, or in the state prison at 
 Charlestown? In its very worst aspect, it is not 
 worse than any other penal settlement ; and of what 
 use is a penal settlement, how is it to deter offenders 
 from crime, if it be made easy and agreeable to 
 them ? The fact is, that, as we have already writ- 
 ten, and thousands have written before us, 07nne 
 ignotum pro magnifico est. We are only afraid of 
 ghosts because we know not what they are. 
 
 As for the cruelty of Russian punishments, it 
 behooves us to be silent. In this free, civilized, 
 enlightened country, the children of free, enlight- 
 ened fathers have hanged and drowned witches 
 and (Quakers. Nay, it is little more than a century 
 since a woman was burned alive in this very city 
 of Boston. Men's heads were literally sawed off, 
 for political offences, in Virginia, during Nat Tur- 
 ner's insurrection, which had a much better pretext 
 than the rebellion of the Poles in 1830. Aquila 
 Barnes was — not knouted after conviction in due 
 course of law — but hung without any trial at all, 
 in Arkansas, on suspicion of a murder, of which he 
 
THE EMPEROR MCIIOLAS. 211 
 
 was afterwards proved innocent. Was not 
 
 Brown sentenced to death, within the year, for 
 aiding the escape of a slave ? Is not Charles Tor- 
 rey, now, in an American prison, on a charge of 
 aiding slaves to escape ? It is not many years 
 since the enlightened citizens of Missouri roasted a 
 man alive by a slow fire, because their virtuous 
 horror of crime could not wait for the formality of 
 a trial, or be satisfied with the measure of punish- 
 ment awarded by the statute-book. We Ameri- 
 cans have no cruelty wherewith to reproach Russia. 
 
 John Bull, too, may think, in the nineteenth 
 century, of Glencoe, and the year 1746, and the 
 death of Admiral Byng, and his slaughter of the 
 unoffending Chinese, and his sworn tormentors, 
 and his burnings, and drawings, and quarterings, 
 and hold his tongue about Russian cruelty. What 
 did he to the Maroons in Jamaica? What, to the 
 scattered clans of CuUoden ? How did he treat the 
 Croppies in 1798 ? Perhaps, too, he can remember 
 Drogheda, Wexford, and Limerick. If he can, he 
 may perhaps talk of the knout, Siberia, and the 
 Poles, without a blush. 
 
 All nations have, at times, been cruel ; but cruel- 
 ty is less a part of the Russian character than of 
 most others. 
 
 Kohl informs us, that Russians who have been 
 in Siberia describe it as the El Dorado, the land 
 of promise, of Russia. Nature, they say, is rich 
 and wonderful there ; the human race strong and 
 healthy; society in the towns more polished and 
 intellectual than any-where else in Russia. Who- 
 ever has got over his introduction, — that is to say, 
 the knout and a few years' compulsory labor, — sel- 
 dom wishes to leave the country again. 
 
 The knout is a leathern whip, not more terrible, 
 
212 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 in reality, than the cat of the British army and navy, 
 or the long cow-hide of the negro overseer. With 
 the cowhide, or the knout, a man may be killed 
 with three scientific strokes — it has been done 
 with one. 
 
 A recent traveller, on his return from Moscow to 
 St. Petersburg, called on M. OnvarofF, the minister 
 for public education, and found him preparing a 
 report to the emperor on the number of schools 
 recently founded in each provincial government, 
 showing that the eagerness of the people for in- 
 struction had rendered a great increase necessary 
 in their number. " Civilized man," said the min- 
 ister, stepping up to the visitor, with the tables in 
 his hand, " can you guess in which of our provinces 
 it is proved, by figures and facts, that the people 
 are most desirous of acquiring education ? " The 
 visitor replied in the negative. " Then I will tell 
 you," resumed M. Onvaroff. "It is Siberia. In 
 that desolate region, the schools are found to be 
 too few to receive all the children desirous of 
 attending, and, therefore, we must establish ad- 
 ditional schools in Siberia." * 
 
 * Polytechnic Journal, Feb. 1842 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 213 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE RUSSIAN NOBILITY. — MERCHANTS AND 
 BURGHERS. 
 
 The boyarins, or hereditary nobles, of Russia, 
 are, for the most part, proprietors of the soil ; but 
 their rank is not necessarily dependent on the re- 
 tention of their fiefs. Any Russian plebeian may 
 become noble by his public services : the son of a 
 simple citizen may successively be clerk, assessor, 
 court counsellor, college counsellor, counsellor of 
 state, privy-counsellor, and minister ; and every 
 civil grade, above that of an assessor, involves the 
 rank of noble. A counsellor of state is called, 
 moreover, excellency, and ge^ieral ; for every civil 
 grade is assimilated with a military title. ^ 
 
 In both the army and the civil service, there ar^ 
 fourteen grades for the soldier, or civil functionary, 
 to pass, before he becomes a noble, by winning his 
 epaulet or his patent. Nay, unless he misbehaves, 
 he must mount, for he is promoted every three 
 years, at furthest. Not that a soldier must get into 
 the nobility and his grave together, either ; there 
 is much quicker advancement for those who de- 
 serve it. Count CheremetefF, now, or lately, an 
 imperial counsellor, began life a peasant serf; was 
 next a private soldier ; and nobly raised himself from 
 the ranks by his personal merit. His opinions on 
 military affairs are now considered paramount au- 
 thority, and he is the author of several valuable 
 elementary works, intended for the people and the 
 soldiery. 
 
214 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 Notwithstanding the way to promotion is thus 
 thrown open to all, there is a wide difference be- 
 tween the Russian plebeian and noble. Neither a 
 nobleman nor an officer is liable to corporal pun- 
 ishments by the civil or military law ; they are 
 exempted from the knout and bastinado, which are 
 reserved for the peasant and private soldier. Even 
 in cases of treason, the noble suffers nothing more 
 degrading than imprisonment, exile, or death ; and 
 capital punishment has become extremely rare. 
 
 Though the Russian nobility have no share in 
 the government, they still constitute an immense 
 power in the state. The land and money being 
 exclusively in their hands, agriculture, manufac- 
 tures, and commerce, can be little advanced but 
 through their agency. They are soon acquainted 
 with every improvement introduced into Europe, 
 and quick to take advantage of whatever accords 
 with their own interests. Some of the wealthy 
 ones have established manufactories of beet-sugar, 
 distilleries, glass, &c., on their estates, at vast ex- 
 pense, which have effected very desirable results. 
 There is a great extent of information now diffused 
 among the nobility, in striking contrast with the 
 ignorance of the mass. Commerce, manufactures, 
 statistics, science, literature, and the arts, are as 
 much and as intelligently discussed at St. Peters- 
 burg, as in Paris or London. 
 
 The nobility were not enfranchised in Russia 
 till the reign of Peter III. They were then 
 licensed to go armed or not, as they pleased, 
 and to travel abroad. They were, however, 
 obliged, by etiquette, to appear at court, and 
 ask leave, which Catherine, his successor, might 
 refuse, if she chose ; and so it continues to this 
 day. In 1834, eighty individuals, or heads of 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 215 
 
 families, petitioned for leave to travel, and about 
 half of them were refused.* 
 
 Ritchie thinks that, if the restriction was taken 
 off, there would be fewer applications for leave of 
 absence ; inasmuch as few of the Russian nobles 
 can afford to travel, though they may live very 
 comfortably at home. "No man," he adds, "now 
 thinks of wearing a sword, except when on military 
 duty ; but if a ukase were issued, prohibiting men 
 from doing so without having asked and obtained 
 permission, petitions would shower in from half 
 the nobles in the empire." 
 
 A Russian nobleman is only seen in his true 
 character in Russia: abroad, he adopts the tastes 
 and habits of those with whom he comes in con- 
 tact. The consequence is, that he is popular wher- 
 ever he goes. This statement, of course, presumes 
 a vast improvement since the time of Catherine. 
 The representatives of the states assembled by her 
 in 1796, though, doubtless, the first men of all parts 
 of the empire, immediately sold the commemorative 
 medals struck and given to them by the empress, 
 on the occasion, to the goldsmiths.f 
 
 Catherine's rules will serve to show the manners 
 of the court nobility assembled in the palace of 
 Czarskoselo, at that period, for the very purpose 
 of being polished. The lady who there rose, or 
 seated herself, on the empress's entrance or de- 
 parture from a room, was fined a silver ruble. 
 
 " RULES 
 ** By whi(Ji all who enter these doors must conduct themselves. 
 
 "1. To leave every kind of rank at the door; 
 likewise hats, and swords, above all. 
 
 * Ritchie. t Tooke. 
 
216 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 " 2. Disputes about prerogative, pride, and such 
 like, should any exist, to be left at the door. 
 
 '' 3. To be lively ; but not to spoil, or to break, 
 or to bite any thing. 
 
 " 4. To sit, to stand, to walk about, as each 
 thinks proper, without regard to others. 
 
 " 5. To speak with moderation, and not too 
 loud ; that the ears and heads of the rest may not 
 ache. 
 
 *' 6. To dispute without warmth or passion. 
 
 " 7. Not to sigh, or to groan, and so entail te- 
 dium and heaviness on the rest. 
 
 " 8. Any innocent game that one may project 
 not to be found fault with by the others. 
 
 '^ 9. To eat of the sweet and the savory ; but to 
 drink with moderation ; that each may always find 
 his feet, on going out of the door. 
 
 ''10. All wrangling to end in the room; and 
 what goes in at one ear should go out at the other, 
 before the party goes out of the door. 
 
 " Should any one offend against the aforesaid, 
 on testimony of two witnesses, for every fault, the 
 offender must drink a glass of cold water, not ex- 
 cepting the ladies, and read aloud a page of the 
 Telemachid. 
 
 " And whoever offends against three clauses in 
 one evening shall learn six lines of the Telemachid 
 by heart. 
 
 " And if any one offend against the ten, he must 
 be no more admitted."* 
 
 Such has been the improvement since Catherine's 
 time, that Russian travellers, now, are as satirical 
 upon foreign courts as foreign travellers once were 
 upon their own.f 
 
 • Tooke. t Khol. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 217 
 
 Among the Russian nobility are now mixed a 
 great number of German birth or extraction ; for 
 to be a foreigner is, in itself, a sort of title in 
 Russia. It appears, from the St. Petersburg Court 
 Calendar for 1837, that 600 of the highest posts 
 in the empire, from ministers and field-marshals 
 downward, were filled with persons of German 
 names ; or with Germans, to Russians, in the ratio 
 of one to four and a half Reckoning the whole 
 population of the empire at sixty-two millions, it 
 follows that its German population (of 400,000) 
 fill as many of the highest offices as 14,000,000 
 of the non-German population. Ten Germans had 
 seats in the senate that year, and 40 out of 300 
 ladies and maids of honor had German names.* 
 
 One day that the Emperor Nicholas was pre- 
 siding in his council of ministers, several questions 
 were discussed relative to the best mode of pro- 
 moting national improvement. The discussion 
 necessarily called forth many ideas and opinions 
 current in other parts of Europe. After all had 
 spoken, the czar thus delivered himself: '-'I can- 
 not refrain from avowing my astonishment at what 
 I have heard in the course of this discussion. The 
 council being composed of men of various ages, I 
 was led to expect that the younger ministers would 
 urge me forward to reform, while I should hear 
 only retrograde sentiments from those advanced in 
 life ; but the contrary is the fact. My old minis- 
 ters are the advocates of improvement, and liberal 
 ideas are combated by the younger ones. This 
 circumstance appears to me very singular, and 
 demands my earnest attention. I must reflect 
 upon it." 
 
 This led the emperor to other reflections. He 
 
 19 
 
 Khol. 
 
218 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 saw around him two classes of men — the first, the 
 elegant remains of the old Russian court, who had 
 flourished under Catherine^ Paul, and Alexander. 
 They knew the world well, and had mingled much 
 with the French society of the last century. They 
 considered national improvement the gradual and 
 inevitable application of the principles of the 
 school of Voltaire to social laws and customs. 
 They did not wish to take from the people their 
 ignorance, or their religion, which, they alleged, 
 was a useful instrument of government. For the 
 upper classes they recommended the adoption of 
 the old French regime of skeptical philosophy and 
 elegant civilization. 
 
 The other, younger, class of politicians saw their 
 great country copying, and imitating, and adopting, 
 the arts, the literature, and even the language, of 
 France, with regret. "As long," said they, "as 
 the entire merit of a nation consists in imitating 
 another, what is to be expected from it ? It is not 
 imitative improvement that ought to be encouraged, 
 but the genuine national development, that is too 
 often retarded by foreign imitation. Let us obtain 
 all the light we can from the French ; but let us 
 not cease to be Russians. Let us try to implant 
 manners, laws, and arts, in our own country; to 
 foster national genius ; and thus we shall acquire 
 a more solid and lasting improvement than can be 
 gained from a flimsy and superficial civilization, 
 whose tendency is to turn men who were barba- 
 rians but the other day into Parisians." This lan- 
 guage did not displease the emperor, and he acted 
 upon it.* 
 
 He has not, apparently, succeeded very well in 
 
 * Polytechnic Journal, Feb. 1843. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 219 
 
 developing the germs of nationality. As our most 
 primitive aborigines most delight in laced coats; 
 as the Taheitan ladies delight in arraying them- 
 selves in sailors' trousers ; so the Russian aris- 
 tocracy persist in running after foreign fashions. 
 Very little that can be called Russian has been 
 produced by Russian painters or musicians. Rus- 
 sian literature promises better: it already boasts 
 of the historian Karamsin, the fabulist Krailow, 
 and the poet Pushlin. A host more might be men- 
 tioned. If Russia has not yet produced a Shak- 
 speare or a Newton, it should be remembered that 
 she is but half a century old. 
 
 Among other things, the Emperor Nicholas re- 
 gretted to see that the French had become so 
 much the court language of the empire, that many 
 ladies of Moscow had actually forgotten Russian. 
 One of the grand dukes having been invited to a 
 ball given by the Muscovite nobilit}?-, the emperor 
 specially enjoined him to dance only with such la- 
 dies as spoke French, and who would be pointed 
 out to him ; at the same time forbidding him to 
 utter a syllable of any language but Russian during 
 the whole entertainment. There can be no doubt 
 that the ladies entertained the highest possible 
 sense of the honor of dancing with the prince, 
 and the reader may imagine their disappointment 
 and mortification at finding themselves unable to 
 hold any communication with him.* 
 
 Peter the Great divided the whole Russian pop- 
 ulation into fourteen classes, the eight highest of 
 which, alone, were to confer hereditary nobility. 
 Some of the other classes conferred personal no- 
 bility, for life, and others distinguished those eur 
 
 * Polytechnic Journal. 
 
220 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 rolled in them as well boruj or gentlemen. This 
 arrangement subsists, with little alteration, now. 
 
 This creation of a new order of nobility, founded 
 on service or merit, was, no doubt, a material im- 
 provement. It has lessened the influence of the. 
 old nobles, and, in some degree, liberalized the 
 caste, while it has oifered an object of ambition 
 to all classes. One writer =^ laments that the mul- 
 tiplication of titles has lessened their value. We 
 think that the less hereditary titles of nobility are 
 valued, the better. 
 
 We do not doubt that this is the view the 
 emperor himself takes of the matter. To make 
 hereditary nobility contemptible by its common- 
 ness, seems to have been the express object of 
 two new statutes inserted in the svod. — " Every 
 crown peasant, (say, in round numbers, twenty- 
 two millions,) when he acquires sufficient wealth, 
 may purchase the rights of citizenship, and become 
 the free merchant, or burgher, of a town." 
 
 " Every merchant of the first guild who has 
 been thrice elected chief of the corporation of 
 his district, at once establishes for his family the 
 privilege of hereditary nobility." 
 
 These statutes were exceedingly unpalatable to 
 ministers and counsellors; but they were obliged 
 to swallow them. To wash them down, however, 
 the emperor appended another, viz., '' The rate of 
 interest is reduced from six to four per cent." 
 
 The Russians are, nevertheless, fond of titles, 
 like all rude people ; — that of prince, in particular. 
 By the time he is a grandfather, a prince sees a 
 flourishing colony of young princes about him. 
 Beggars they may be, too. The objectioa is al- 
 
 * Schnitzler, StatigUque giniraU. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 221 
 
 ready realized. Hereditary nobility is as little 
 regarded in Russia as it ought to be every where 
 else. Even wealth gives a family no permanent 
 consequence. Every man is valued according to 
 his usefulness, and the best evidence of this is the 
 rank conferred by the emperor. He may, and 
 must, sometimes, make bad selections ; but the 
 plan works wonderfully well as a whole. 
 
 In 1836, the nobles were 691,355 ; of whom 
 538,160 were hereditary, and the rest personal 
 dignitaries. Of these hereditary drones, the king- 
 dom of Poland contributed 283.420 ; not that the 
 half of them had estates ; indeed, very many of 
 them were what are vulgarly called gentlemen 
 with three outs ; Anglice, beggars, or worse. In 
 Courland, Livonia, and the Polish provinces, none 
 but nobles can inherit landed property ; but, in 
 Russia proper, such is not the case — though even 
 there, with the exception of the crown estates, 
 they are almost the only landed proprietors. 
 
 The titles of prince, count, baron, <fcc., have su- 
 perseded those formerly in use, though they convey 
 no additional power or privileges. There are more 
 than a hundred titular princes in the government 
 of Tala alone. All the members of a noble family 
 are noble, and have the same title as its head. On 
 the death of a noble, his estate is divided, by a 
 fixed scale, among his children, of both sexes. One 
 seventh of his landed property goes to his widow, 
 forever, one fourteenth to each of his daughters, and 
 the residue is equally divided among his sons.* 
 
 Nobles are exempted from all personal charges, 
 and from military service ; but are required to 
 furnish recruits from the army according to the 
 
 * Venables's Russia 
 
 19* 
 
222 
 
 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 number of their serfs. Precedence is determined 
 by military grade : an ensign may take it of any 
 nobleman without military rank. 
 
 So few travellers and writers on Russia make any 
 mention of the nobles, — unless in situations where 
 they can be seen by all the world, — as, for example, 
 in the streets, in their travelling carriages, or on pub- 
 lic occasions, that the inference is unavoidable that 
 they have seldom been admitted, on terms of equal- 
 ity, to their society. Hence we know little of their 
 manners and character as a class. It is certain, 
 however, that there are many accomplished gen- 
 tlemen among them. It is more than probable 
 that the accounts given of them by such tourists as 
 Clarke, Lyal (lie-all ?) and the reverend spatterer 
 Morton, are about as true as the gross, vulgar, and 
 malignant caricatures of Dickens and Mrs. Trol- 
 lope. As far as mere manners go, the noble is 
 usually in advance of his race every where. 
 
 The Russian nobility are admitted by all to be 
 universally hospitable, and are stigmatized, we fear 
 with some degree of justice, as coarse and sensual. 
 Considering that they have no public occupation, 
 and that, in most parts of the empire, they can have 
 little society but that of their slaves, it is not won- 
 derful if their tastes and habits do still savor some- 
 what of barbarism ; but very much so, that they 
 should have made what improvement they have. 
 
 The Russian nobles keep great numbers of vas- 
 sals in their houses as servants. Some houses have 
 upwards of five hundred of these retainers, who 
 receive but a paltry pittance as wages ; yet it suffices 
 for their wants, as their masters feed and clothe 
 them. They are called dwarnije Ijudi, (court-yard, 
 people,) and are exempted from agricultural labor and 
 military service. They find their own bread and 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 223 
 
 kwas^ (an acid beverage, in universal use,) and pick 
 up the crumbs from their lords' table, wear the 
 same clothes they wore on the natal dunghill, and 
 sleep on the kitchen chairs, or beside the kitchen 
 stove. They are provided with boots, and a caf- 
 tan, while they are employed in the household, 
 and are soon sent back to the fields. They differ 
 too little from other peasants to form a distinct 
 class of society.* 
 
 Several Russian noblemen, of late, have distin- 
 guished themselves by their attention to their estates. 
 In some instances, they have imported stewards 
 and laborers from England. We have already 
 spoken of their enterprise as manufacturers. When 
 a noble establishes a manufactory on a large scale, 
 and keeps it in constant operation, he commonly 
 finds it necessary to put the serfs on the footing of 
 hired laborers, to pay them what he thinks fit for 
 their work, and leave them to provide for their 
 own subsistence, which he would otherwise be 
 obliged to do himself. 
 
 Coxe and Pinkerton, who are among the most 
 candid and best writers on Russia, speak very fa- 
 vorably of the Russian nobility. 
 
 The merchants, burghers, &c., of whom it has 
 been the settled policy of the czars, since the great 
 Peter, to form a free, middle, intermediate class, 
 between the nobles and the serfs, are thus described 
 by the Empress Catherine, in her instructions for a 
 new code of laws : " This class, composed of free- 
 men, belong neither to the class of nobles, nor to 
 that of peasants. All those who, being neither 
 gentlemen nor peasants, follow the arts and 
 sciences, navigation, commerce, or exercise trade, 
 
 * Khol. 
 
224 " VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 are to be ranked in this class. In it should be 
 placed all those who, born of plebeian parents, shall 
 have been brought up in schools or places of edu- 
 cation, religious or otherwise, founded by us, or 
 our successors. Also the children of officers and 
 of secretaries to the chancery." 
 
 Merchants and traders belong to this class, 
 and are distributed in guilds, according to the 
 amount of their capital. They also enjoy certain 
 privileges, on paying a fixed per centage on their 
 capital. 
 
 Every Russian trader must be a burgher, and be 
 registered as such, to enjoy the freedom of trade. 
 All whose names are registered in the burghers' 
 book, are either townsmen, with property within 
 the city, or members of a guild. 
 
 The guilds are three. 
 
 Members of the first guild report themselves 
 worth from ten to fifty thousand rubles. They 
 may engage in foreign commerce, and are not lia- 
 ble to corporal punishment. They may drive a 
 carriage, with two horses. 
 
 Members of the second guild declare themselves 
 possessed of from five to ten thousand rubles, and 
 are restricted to inland trade. 
 
 From a thousand to five thousand rubles entitle 
 a trader to admission into the third guild, which 
 comprises all stationary petty dealers. 
 
 All pay 1 3-4 per cent, on the capital they ac- 
 knowledge, the amount of which is left to the in- 
 dividual's conscience. 
 
 The burghers have many privileges more than 
 the peasants; and they are distinguished from the 
 merchants in being liable to the capitation tax, 
 and to military and naval service. The German 
 and other free colonists, established in difi'erent parts 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. ^25 
 
 of the empire, and the free cultivators, belong to 
 this intermediate class, which may contain three 
 millions of individuals. 
 
 This class, though so lately called into existence, is 
 rapidly on the increase, and actively engaged in in- 
 dustrious enterprise. Here it is that the emperor most 
 feels the importance of the nobility. He may con- 
 fer freedom, and rank, and privileges, on commerce 
 and mechanical skill ; but it is from the nobles that 
 the wealth must come to set them in motion ; and 
 it is fortunate for Russia, that the boyarin cannot 
 reap the advantages of the arts without conceding 
 a share of them to the artist. However small that 
 share, it cannot fail to insure competence and per- 
 fect freedom to the working classes, in the course 
 of time. 
 
 The Empress Catherine was wide awake to the 
 importance of such a class. Finding that the ille- 
 gitimate children produced in Russia were equal 
 to one fifth of the whole number of births, she 
 claimed all natural children, whose parents were 
 willing to surrender them, as the property of the 
 state. She decreed that these children, after being 
 carefully educated, and trained to useful callings, 
 should become free citizens j and thus the founda- 
 tion of the class was laid. In furtherance of this 
 plan, grants of money were made by the crown, 
 with which, augmented by the donations of indi- 
 viduals, hospitals and schools were speedily estab- 
 lished. Thirty thousand children are constantly 
 maintained, and taught trades, in the Foundling 
 Hospital at Moscow, and the schools connected 
 with it. 
 
 The Emperor Nicholas has shown exceeding sa- 
 gacity in carrying out the policy so nobly fixed by 
 his predecessors. He saw, as clearly as they did, that 
 
S26 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 the emancipation of his crown from feudal influ- 
 ences would never be complete till the imperial 
 authority, using the popular interest as a fulcrum, 
 shall downheave the remaining power of his still 
 important aristocracy. But the measures requisite 
 to obtain this object demand the concurrence of 
 the imperial council, his ministers, the senate, &c. ; 
 and as these bodies are composed of nobles, they 
 are naturally interested in opposing and retarding 
 any diminution of the privileges of their order. 
 Nicholas, however, has turned the enemy's flank. 
 He is himself the most extensive landholder in his 
 dominions, and nothing is easier for him than to 
 add new estates (peopled with peasants, who thus be- 
 come his property) to his vast possessions. He may, 
 as he has done, establish manufactories on his own 
 domains, and grant freedom to intelligent and in- 
 dustrious workmen, as he does. He purchases a 
 great many ignorant peasants yearly, and sends 
 them to his own manufactories, Avhere they are 
 instructed in various branches of industry. Every 
 year an equal number of crown peasants, who have 
 proved themselves capable of gaining their OAvn 
 living, a.re affranchised, and added ta the middle 
 class. The perseverance with which he carries 
 out the views of Catherine claims our warmest 
 admiration. 
 
 The encouragement now held out to every 
 branch of art and industry, in Russia, has developed 
 the wonderful imitative powers of the Russian 
 people. Some authors, prematurely, we think, say 
 that it has also shown the Russian poverty of in- 
 vention. It should be recollected how short a 
 time civilized Russia has existed ; and that, in that 
 short period, there have been too many things to 
 imitate, to leave much time for invention. The 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 227 
 
 want of an enlightened sovereign, willing to en- 
 courage the arts, explains the late civilization of 
 Russia, while her present wonderful advancement 
 attests the sovereign genius of the Emperor 
 Nicholas. 
 
 The foreign traveller in a Russian city scarcely 
 observes the presence of the embryo middle class. 
 The fact is easily explained. The peasants of 
 Russia are forty-four millions, at least, and such a 
 body must necessarily move slow. Moreover, put- 
 ting their great number out of the question, they 
 cannot, with much fewer advantages, have improved 
 nearly so fast as the wealthy, comparatively small 
 body of nobles. Now, admitting the affranchise- 
 ment of a number of serfs equal to the whole class 
 of nobles, (and it is much greater,) they would still 
 be too few to make much show, mingled with the 
 entire mass. The distinction between the highest 
 and lowest classes is, therefore, apparently as great 
 as ever. 
 
 The highest class of merchants have entirely 
 laid aside their national peculiarities, and are very 
 little distinguished from the nobles, if at all. The 
 lower class, the true Russians, still rejoice in the 
 beard and caftan. They often ostentatiously pur- 
 chase a nobleman's house, for a show ; they occu- 
 py only the shabbiest part of it. They are often 
 seen, in a uniform bedizened with gold lace, stalk- 
 ing statelily in the streets. 
 
 Peter the Great was a far-sighted politician : he 
 offered pride a premium. 
 
 Speaking of petty merchants, we must remark, 
 that many of them are still serfs, subject to the 
 obrok, or capitation tax, paid by the peasant to his 
 lord. The serf-merchant usually buys his freedom 
 of his master, as soon as he has accumulated money 
 
s^ 
 
 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 enough ; but, if the master be not willing to sell, 
 he cannot be compelled. 
 
 Ritchie sets the whole class of Russian petty 
 traders down as liars, cheats, and swindlers, with- 
 out a solitary exception. Just so our southern 
 brethren speak of us; probably with about equal 
 justice. We cannot contradict Ritchie, from any 
 personal knowledge of our own ; but perhaps we 
 may be allowed to remark, that such wholesale 
 condemnation is seldom merited by any large 
 class of men. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 229 
 
 SLAVERY IN RUSSIA. — SLAVES — REALLY SUCH.— 
 SERFS. — LICENSED SERFS. — POLICY OF NICHO- 
 LAS. 
 
 "Unhappily," says M'CiiUoch's Gazetteer, (very 
 good authority in most matters,) " the far largest 
 portion of the people of Russia are slaves, belong- 
 ing either to the crown or to individuals." Such, 
 too, is the light in which most writers regard the 
 Russian peasantry. The words serf, peasant, and 
 slave, are commonly used as equivalent terms, and 
 as such we have heretofore used them ; but there 
 is a distinction, and a wide one. The great mass 
 of the Russian people are, indeed, slaves ; but if 
 any one supposes that Russian slavery, in its most 
 hideous form, is comparable to American slavery 
 south of Mason and Dixon's line, he does Russia 
 cruel injustice. 
 
 The actual number of slaves, held in Russia as 
 personal estate, and not attached to the soil, men 
 who have neither souls nor bodies of their own, 
 who are either attached friends or assassins, as 
 they are treated, is, compared with the mass, very 
 small ; not much exceeding that of the nobles.* 
 But these bondsmen cannot be sold or bought, ac- 
 cording to a law promulgated fifty years ago, or 
 murdered or mutilated Vv'ith impunity. 
 
 It may be urged that the law is often a dead 
 letter in Russia, as it is in slave-holding America. 
 
 * Ritchie. 
 
 20 
 
230 
 
 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 Still the legal admission that the Russian slave has 
 a property in his own life and limbs^ and that he is 
 not an alienable chattel, like an ox or an ass, — in 
 short, that he is a human being, endowed with 
 some rights, — is a great improvement on some of 
 the American state codes. 
 
 The spectacle was never seen, in Russia, of a 
 man, his wife, and his child, sold in the same hour, 
 on the same auction-stand, to three different pur- 
 chasers, and hurried away, first to prison, and then 
 to three different and widely-separated provinces. 
 
 No reward is ever offered in Russia for a run- 
 away slave's head. 
 
 No slave is prohibited by law, in Russia, from 
 learning to read, and no freeman can be punished 
 for teaching him. 
 
 Every Russian slave may worship God, how, 
 when, and in what church, he pleases. 
 
 Slaves are sometimes cruelly flogged in Russia ; 
 but they never wear iron yokes upon their necks, 
 or are identified by loss of teeth, brands, burns, or 
 mutilations, inflicted as punishments. 
 
 The veriest slave in Russia, once enfranchised 
 by his tnaster, may aspire to any rank, but the 
 highest, in the empire. 
 
 Almost all of this unhappy race are, of course, 
 included among the "court-yard people." We do 
 not remember that any writer on Russia, excepting 
 Leitch Ritchie, has ever even mentioned the ex- 
 istence of such a class. 
 
 How these wretches became slaves, we have no 
 means of ascertaining ; it is enough for us that 
 slaves they are. Their proportion to the other 
 classes is much less than that of our slaves is to 
 us ; but the effects of the curse are the same in Rus- 
 sia that they were in the British West Indies, are 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 231 
 
 in the United States, and must and will be where^ 
 ever God, in his anger, suffers slavery to exist. In 
 183-, a slave in Moscow slew his mistress, a lady 
 of a kind and humane disposition. His motive 
 could never be discovered. He confessed that he 
 had smothered her in her bed, but would not con- 
 fess whether his object was revenge or robbery. 
 Yet this hardened wretch, after undergoing the 
 knout and being chained for his tramp to Siberia, 
 was anxious to establish the innocence of two wo- 
 men, his fellow-servants and sufferers, who had been 
 condemned and knouted as accomplices, though 
 he declared that they had not even known his 
 intentions. 
 
 Not a particle of evidence was adduced against 
 these women. They were condemned, on the 
 liegal presumption, that, having been in the house 
 at the time of the murder, they must have had 
 knowledge of the deed. Had the like crime been 
 committed, with like circumstances, in the state of 
 Missouri, they would probably have been hanged, 
 or, what is more likely, roasted alive, on the illegal 
 presumption of wearing black skins. The Russian 
 atrocity seems to have been borrowed from Roman 
 jurisprudence. 
 
 The truth is, the system of slavery, exist where 
 it may, is a crime so monstrous, that it can only be 
 sustained by a thousand other crimes, let their con- 
 sequences be never so destructive to humanity. It 
 is an institution that cannot subsist without pro- 
 voking assassinations, to be punished by legal mur- 
 ders, or, as in the above case, by a legal scourging, 
 branding, and banishment, of the helpless innocent. 
 But the slaves of Russia are worth a thousand 
 rubles a-piece, as property ; and, moreover, their 
 emancipation by the absolute will of the emperor 
 
232 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 would involve the emancipation of the serfs also : 
 in a word, it would be the sudden and violent rup- 
 ture of all the ties that bind Russian society together. 
 Is this to be expected? — is it to be desired? — can 
 it be — ought it to be done? These are questions 
 that have cost England long years to answer; 
 questions that we never shall answer ; questions 
 that, we think, never will be answered for us, but 
 in one of two ways, viz. by a universal amalga- 
 mation of colors in the south, or by blood and 
 burning. The former is not a very agreeable pros- 
 pect to our southern brethren and sisters, the latter 
 especially ; but no such consequences can result in 
 Russia. No Russian lady need fear transmitting 
 her name to a mulatto posterity, should slavery 
 continue in Russia to the end of time. 
 
 We shall presently show that, whether universal 
 emancipation in Russia be expedient and desirable, 
 or not, it will and must take place ; and has, for half 
 a century, been in a train of rapid accomplishment. 
 Nay, it will appear that, if the life of Nicholas 1. 
 be prolonged to the threescore years and ten al- 
 lotted to man, and if his successor shall " follow 
 in the fobtsteps of his illustrious predecessor," the 
 extinction of slavery will assuredly have been con- 
 summated, in Russia, in less time than it has cost 
 England. It is lucky that things are not in Russia 
 as they are in America; that the emperor is not 
 bound by any state precedents ; that he can afford 
 to look down with disdain upon our example. 
 
 The serfs, confounded with the slaves of Russia 
 by almost all writers, belong to the soil, and are the 
 great bulk of the nation. They belong to the 
 crown, and to the hereditary proprietors, — twenty- 
 two millions to the former, and twenty-three to 
 the latter. Count Cheremeieff, once a serf himself 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 233 
 
 is the owner of a hundred and ten thousand of them, 
 and there are some other nobles who have almost 
 as many. The time and liberty of those belonging 
 to private individuals is absolutely at the disposal 
 of their masters. They are born on the soil, and 
 with it their legal rights begin and end. Any 
 privilege they may enjoy, away from the natal 
 spot — the very license to leave it — is only by favor 
 of their masters; their earnings, too, are theirs; at 
 least, there is no law to protect them in the usufruct 
 thereof, any more than there is to protect an Amer- 
 ican slave. Of course, it may be assumed of the 
 serfs, as of the slaves, where the practice of the 
 system corresponds with the theory, as a general 
 rule, that their reasoning powers are chiefly applied 
 to escape as much as possible of the labor from 
 which they are to derive no benefit, and in which 
 they have no personal interest. 
 
 But the theory and the practice do not correspond. 
 It is, generally, the interest of the serf-holder to 
 accept of the serf a stated annual sum instead of the 
 personal services he might otherwise exact. This 
 capitation tax is called their ohrok ; and, after paying 
 it, the serf is free from other demands for the time. 
 This obrok, tax, tribute, or rent, may be stated at 
 from thirty-five to forty-five rubles a male head, on 
 the average. Others, instead of paying an obrok, 
 perform task-work ; others yield a tithe of the prod- 
 uce they raise ; and all of these impositions are 
 demanded from some of them. Runaway serfs are 
 punished with imprisonment and hard labor; but 
 the law protects their lives. 
 
 If we presuppose that the serfs have no ambition, 
 
 and consider their obrok what, in fact, it usually is, 
 
 a very trifling rent for the lands they occupy, — 
 
 they are, apparently, as well off as the English 
 
 20* 
 
234 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 peasantry. They can be transferred from one mas- 
 ter to another with the land ; but they cannot 
 be removed from it without their own consent ; 
 therefore, they can no more be said to be sold than 
 an English, or American tenant, when the title- 
 deeds of his farm change owners. Supposing the 
 serf's obrok to be a purely arbitrary exaction, for 
 which no equivalent is rendered, — as it is when he 
 buys permission to leave the estate and try his for- 
 tune elsewhere, — the injustice is not greater than is 
 endured by English dissenters and Irish peasantry, 
 who patiently pay, the slaves ! an obrok, without an 
 equivalent, to the established church. Moreover, 
 the Russian land-holder does not add insult to ex- 
 tortion ; he does not rob his serf in the name of his 
 maker. But the worst of it, and what in a great 
 measure paralyzes the serfs energies, is, that the 
 obrok is not a fixed sum, like rent, but depends on 
 the liberality, avarice, or caprice, of the master, who 
 proportions it to his bondman's ability to pay. Some 
 of the serfs licensed to dwell away from their estates, 
 in towns, are amerced upwards of a thousand rubles. 
 This is something akin, in principle, to the Abys- 
 sinian practice of eating flesh with the blood. 
 
 Moreover, a Russian proprietor may inflict cor- 
 poral punishment on his slave. The serf cannot 
 pay for his liberty as a right : his lord may refuse 
 to part with him, or fix the price beyond the possi- 
 bility of attainment. The fact is, in short, that in 
 Russia, as in every country where the laws are 
 feeble, — the slave-holding states, for example. — the 
 condition of the serf depends upon the character of 
 the seigneur. Where one class has great power 
 over another, there will be abuse ; and, what is more 
 pernicious to the moral and mental character of the 
 governed, insecurity. At the worst, there is not so 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 235 
 
 much oppression in Russia as formerly, and the con- 
 dition of the serfs is not so bad, generally, as might, 
 a priori^ be supposed. No serf ever starves in Rus- 
 sia ; he has a greater command of the necessaries 
 of life than the Irish serf. The villages are often 
 as snug and comfortable as English, almost as much 
 so as Yankee ones ; a Scotch writer admits that 
 they are on a par with Caledonian villages, except 
 in the article of dirt, which is far less abundant and 
 less ostentatious in Russia than in the land of cakes. 
 A south-western negro quarter, or an Irish hovel, 
 would be considered derogatory to the breeding of 
 a Russian swine. 
 
 Something may justly be said, too, in justifica- 
 tion of the present race of serf-holders. The num- 
 ber of brutal, ignorant tyrants, always to be found 
 in a slave-holding aristocracy, is rapidly diminishing 
 in Russia under the knives and hatchets of their 
 victims, the influence of civilization and improved 
 laws, and the example of the emperor. The master 
 may chastise the servant ; but if the latter die of 
 the correction, he is hanged for the murder. The 
 serfs on the estates of humane and enlightened mas- 
 ters are well supplied with all the comforts of life. 
 We do not know, from any positive authority, that 
 the property acquired by licensed serfs is any better 
 protected by law now than it was before the reign 
 of Nicholas; yet such must be the fact. Else, 
 should we hear of one licensed serf having four 
 thousand laborers at once in his pay in St. Peters- 
 burg, and of another's planning and building the 
 Kazan cathedral church, the finest in that splendid 
 city ? Should we be told of serfs rolling in their 
 carriages, and living as magnificently as the mag- 
 nates of the land, were it in the power of their mas- 
 ters to despoil them ? There were no such slaves 
 
236 VINDICATION OP RUSSIA AND 
 
 in the West Indies ; there are none such in the 
 United States. 
 
 It is to he taken into account, however, that the 
 proprietors pay a tax on their peasants to the treas- 
 ury, at the rate of about four rubles per male head ; 
 and that they are required to furnish recruits for the 
 army, according to the number of their tenantry. 
 Moreover, they are under legal obligation to pro- 
 vide their serfs, old and young, sick or well, with 
 the necessaries of life, and, if one of them is found 
 begging, his master is fined. 
 
 The Russian landed proprietors are at least as 
 well educated and intelligent a class as the French 
 or English ones. They are, therefore, generally 
 aware that their own interests and respectability 
 depend upon the condition of their peasants. The 
 abuse of their power is not therefore general, or 
 even common. To increase the value of their 
 property, their fathers used to compel their serfs to 
 marry as soon as they attained puberty, as is prac- 
 tised in Virginia without any ceremony. Peter 
 forbade compulsion in the case ; and Alexander, in 
 1801, fixed the marriageable ages of both sexes at 
 eighteen and sixteen. At present, the proprietors 
 trouble themselves little about the matter. 
 
 Ritchie found the serfs of Prince S. Gargarin, " one 
 of the most humane and intelligent " aristocrats in 
 Russia, at Yassenova, '' as happy and comfortable 
 as any peasantry in the world, with large gardens 
 well stocked with fruit-trees, and their public bath — 
 an unfailing sign of Russia — clean and in good 
 order. 
 
 " The very reverse of this description, however, 
 applied to a village close by, of which the proprie- 
 tor was a lady. This is the dreadful evil of the 
 system : the happiness, or misery, of a great portion 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 237 
 
 of the people of Russia depends upon the moral 
 character of a comparativ^ely small number of indi- 
 viduals." 
 
 In another place, the same author thus describes 
 a scene in Russian rural life : '"I was particularly 
 struck with the neat, and even genteel, appearance 
 of one of the houses ; and, with the aid of an inter- 
 preter, made some inquiries which threw a good 
 deal of light upon the manners of the peasantry. 
 To build the house, we were told, cost a thousand 
 rubles ; which was, in all probability, not half the 
 real sum. Even the lady-mujik who did the honors 
 smiled significantly as she gave us this piece of in- 
 formation ; half in doubt, as it seemed, whether it 
 would be more unpleasant to let us undervalue her 
 acquisition, or to run the risk of the story of her 
 wealth getting to the landlord's ears. Yet her 
 landlord was Prifice S. Gargarin. The explana- 
 tion is, that the obrok is fixed by the master, and 
 may consequently be supposed to correspond with 
 the means of the serf. 
 
 " The building occupied a large space of ground, 
 but the greater part consisted of what, in an English 
 farm, would be outhouses. In a climate like this, 
 every thing must be under one roof. The dwelling- 
 house was composed of three small apartments, in- 
 stead of merely the usual " butt and ben ; " and 
 here resided three respectable and well-doing fami- 
 lies — that of the father, and those of his two sons. 
 In Russia, when a peasant marries, he brings his 
 wife home ; and, though the common nest does not 
 become larger, the old birds make a little room for 
 the stranger, while the grandchildren, being born 
 on the spot, make room for themselves. The 
 atmosphere of the house was incomparably hotter 
 than that of the street, which was baking in the 
 
238 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 sun ; and every door, window, or chink, was kept 
 carefully shut. It is to this artificial atmosphere, 
 and to this alone, that the premature decay of beauty 
 is owing. The vapor bath, I feel convinced, is 
 rather favorable to it than otherwise. 
 
 '' The garden, or rather orchard, was large, and 
 well stocked with the usual kind of fruit-trees. 
 Almost all these, however, were planted from the 
 seeds ; and I observed some apple-trees, which, al- 
 though five years' old, were not more than six feet 
 high. Our conductress pointed out a few slips 
 which had been lately set in the ground, but she 
 appeared to be in some doubt as to their thriving, 
 saying that they did not understand that mode of 
 planting. This woman had the most beautiful 
 teeth I ever saw ; and having hitherto been accus- 
 tomed only to the beauties of the city and of the 
 great roads, I asked her, in surprise, to what this 
 was owing. She replied that she never painted her 
 face ; and that, after being in Moscow for two years 
 as a nurse, finding the use of tea discolored her teeth, 
 she had returned instantly to her village in order to 
 preserve those ornaments, which had been envied by 
 women of the highest distinction. The manners 
 of this peasant were easy and graceful, I was going 
 to say, lady-like ; and, when bidding us adieu, she 
 observed, with an inclination which would have 
 done honor to a duchess, that * if we would repeat 
 our visit in a week or two, when the fruit was 
 ripe, it would give her still more pleasure.' This 
 was very well for a female barbarian." 
 
 True. Had Mr. Ritchie visited a Yankee farm- 
 house, he would have been required to give an ac- 
 count of himself; whence he came, whither he 
 was going, and what his business was, together 
 with the particular details of his birth, parentage, 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 239 
 
 education, and legal settlement. At an English cot- 
 tage, he would probably have been dismissed with 
 a request for " sumniat to drink his honor's 
 health." Nevertheless, the poor mujik did as well 
 as she knew how, and acquitted herself handsome- 
 ly, considering — that her guest was a British 
 traveller. 
 
 The value of a Russian estate formerly depend- 
 ed more on the number of its serfs than on the 
 extent or quality of the soil ; but, owing to the com- 
 pulsory division of estates on the death of proprie- 
 tors, and the increase of population, such is not 
 now the case. The proprietor is sometimes bur- 
 dened with the support of more peasants than he 
 can employ, and has to pay the government tax on 
 them beside. This will account for the general 
 willingness of the nobles to sell the slaves their 
 freedom, and to accept the obrok. In almost all of 
 Great Russia, the proprietors have nothing to do 
 with their tenants but to receive their rent, (obrok.) 
 In the Baltic provinces the landlords keep some 
 part of their estates in their own hands, which is 
 cultivated by the task-work of the peasants on the 
 other portions, who are allowed houses and grounds 
 for their service. 
 
 It may seem that, provided the obrok were mod- 
 erate, whether paid in money or work, and the land- 
 lord allowed the tenant to reap the benefit of his 
 increased industry or economy, there would be little 
 objection, to this system; but its uncertainty spoils 
 all. If the peasant thrives and improves his land, the 
 chance is that his obrok will be raised, or a part of 
 his farm taken away. Even the crown peasants 
 suffer from the extortion of those to whom their 
 lands are let, though the amount of their task-work 
 is fixed by law. Hence labor is avoided, and 
 
240 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 there is little improvement on any lands not man- 
 aged by the actual proprietors, or by free tenants. 
 
 When the population of an estate parcelled 
 among serfs increases, a new distribution must ne- 
 cessarily be made ; and if there is no unoccupied 
 land, room must be made for the new-comers on 
 the grounds already occupied. Then the old occu- 
 pants, if dissatisfied, are licensed to go where they 
 please, still paying their obrok half-yearly. 
 
 The Russian peasant is satisfied with his diet, if 
 he have cabbage soup, with pork boiled in it, and rye 
 bread, which is the staple food of the empire. On 
 holidays, he indulges in butcher's meat ; and at oth- 
 er times, he eats eggs, salt fish, pork, bacon, onions, 
 and mushrooms, which are very abundant in their 
 season. His favorite dish is a salmagundi made of 
 oats and rye flour, fresh or salt meat, redolent of 
 garlic and onions. Salted cucumbers are never ab- 
 sent from his table ; and these, and salted cabbage, 
 are important items of internal commerce. He is 
 compelled to this fodder by the extraordinary num- 
 ber of fasts and fast days ; indeed, there are but 
 about sixty days in the year on which he dares to 
 look at meat. He is very fond of meat ; but fond- 
 er still of brandy. The consumption thereof is 
 eighty millions of gallons a year, and produces a 
 large annual revenue for the government — probably 
 not less than one third. 
 
 Notwithstanding this, the Emperor Nicholas has, 
 at his own expense, published the Rev. Dr. Baird's 
 History of Temperance, besides printing various 
 tracts, which he has distributed throughout his 
 empire. In fine, he gave Dr. Baird every possible 
 encouragement. "We wonder if any other Euro- 
 pean sovereign would have done as much. 
 
 The Russian peasantry are of middle stature, 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 241 
 
 healthy, stout, and firmly built. They live to- 
 gether in log villages, with the gables of the 
 houses to the road. Sometimes the houses are of 
 two stories. They are not uncomfortable, as every 
 American knows. Beds are by no means consid- 
 ered necessaries of life by the Russian peasants. 
 
 About one or two out of five hundred males or- 
 dinarily go to swell the army and navy ; but, in 
 war, two or three males out of five hundred are 
 taken. In one or two instances, one of a hun- 
 dred has been drafted ; but this was the maxi- 
 mum. The seigneurs select the recruits, and, of 
 course, rid themselves of the most troublesome 
 members of the community ; only they must be 
 between eighteen and forty years of age, healthy 
 and able-bodied. 
 
 The conscript becomes a free man, if a soldier 
 can be so called. If he desert, he is enslaved 
 again ; but this rarely happens. His children are 
 educated at public or regimental schools, and, if 
 they deserve it, become officers. Twelve years of 
 faithful service in the ranks entitle the private sol- 
 dier to a commission. There are no capital pun- 
 ishments in the Russian army in time of peace. 
 Corporal punishments, not exceeding twenty 
 strokes of the knout, may be inflicted by officers in 
 command of regiments, but only for very grave 
 offences. At the expiration of their term of service, 
 Russian soldiers receive a small pension. The 
 wounded are maintained in hospitals. 
 
 A soldier who remains in the service after his 
 term has expired, receives double pay, and is ex- 
 empted from corporal punishment. If he serve 
 voluntarily five years, he retires on a pension equal 
 to three times his original pay. 
 
 We believe we have sketched, in a few bold 
 21 
 
242 VINDICATION or RUSSIA AND 
 
 Strokes, the condition of the slaves or serfs of Rus- 
 sia, in all its political phases Catherine desired to 
 abolish it, and did something. " Servants ought 
 not to be treated too harshly," said she in her In- 
 structions ; ''for harshness begets resistance." 
 Alexander was the enlightened friend of the slave, 
 and did something more. From the well-known 
 disposition, and the superior energy and intelli- 
 gence of Nicholas — from what he has already done, 
 we may expect a great deal more. Still, it is unde- 
 niable that he has great difficulties to contend Avith. 
 We prate of the danger and difficulty of immedi- 
 ately emancipating less than three millions ; what, 
 then, must it be where there are between forty and 
 fifty? 
 
 Nicholas has placed the crown serfs — nearly 
 half of the entire Russian peasantry — almost in the 
 condition of rent-paying English peasants,* living 
 in small communes of their own, and governed by 
 individuals of their own body. Still, they are the 
 property of the crown ; but the practice is here 
 again, as with the tenants of individuals, better 
 than the theory. To all intents and purposes, the 
 crown peasants of Russia are, for the time being, as 
 free, as comfortable, and as happy, as any peasantry 
 in Europe. t 
 
 The peasants licensed by their lords to reside in 
 towns learn something of freedom, look with a 
 shudder on the indignities to which their village 
 companions are exposed, and hasten to buy their 
 freedom, that they may themselves be exempted 
 from the like. This, if the pride or caprice of their 
 masters does not prevent them, they soon effect, 
 and then the career of ambition is open to them, 
 
 * London Quarterly, March, 1841. t Ibid. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 243 
 
 The Emperor Nicholas has taken this class under 
 his especial protection. He has ennobled it, by 
 making it an object of general ambition to be en- 
 rolled in it, and he is looked upon by the mujiks as 
 something more than a friend — as a protecting 
 angel. They sometimes assassinate their masters ; 
 but they are, one and all, at all times ready to lay 
 down their lives for their emperor. We must turn 
 to the pages of fiction to form an idea of the devo- 
 tion of these poor creatures. 
 
 It is frequently alleged, in regard to the slaves in 
 the United States, that the great body of them would 
 not accept freedom were it offered to them. This 
 we believe to be true of no body of slaves on earth — 
 least of all, of ours ; but it is unquestionable that a 
 very great many of the Russian serfs are of that way 
 of thinking. If a noble breaks the bonds of a serf, 
 he, of course, resumes his land, which, were justice 
 law, belongs to the serf, for he received it from his 
 ancestors, and on it he and his children were born. 
 To become a tenant, liable to be turned off in a 
 moment, to abandon all his privileges, (secured to 
 him by time and habit,) is a new and startling idea 
 to him. He would stare to be told that he had no 
 property in the value he and his sires had created. 
 If he has any idea of liberty at all, it is that he 
 may enjoy the land without paying rent. 
 
 This is not a mere speculative supposition. It is 
 usual in Russia, when a change of proprietors takes 
 place, for the serfs to beg their liberty of their new 
 lord ; and sometimes they obtain it. In the year 
 1836, Mademoiselle D , one of the most intel- 
 ligent women in the empire, bought an estate Avith 
 five hundred serfs, some of whom asked, and imme- 
 diately obtained, their liberty : and it was proclaimed 
 throughout the estate, that all who should demand 
 
244 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 the same boon should receive it unconditionally. 
 After this, not an application was made.* 
 
 Another small village, of forty or fifty males, 
 
 came into the possession of M. Z , of Moscow, 
 
 who called all his serfs about him, and proffered 
 them their freedom, with the privilege of remaining 
 on the land, as tenants. They all refused.f 
 
 We do not mean to have it inferred that the serfs 
 who would refuse freedom are the bulk of' the 
 Russian peasantry ; far from it. They are the ex- 
 ception, not the rule. The number of licensed 
 mujiks in the cities gives the lie to any such suppo- 
 sition. Even in this country, slaves have been 
 known to remain in voluntary bondage. But we 
 do mean that the class is larger in Russia than in 
 any other slave-holding country in the world ; so 
 great, indeed, that, should the emperor attempt im- 
 mediate emancipation, he Avould probably meet 
 with as much difficulty on the part of the slaves as 
 of the lords. Hence the inference is plain, that the 
 serfs are not heinously abused, generally, and that 
 the lords do not usually transcend the powers the 
 law recognizes in them. 
 
 The serfs of Poland, in its best days, were far 
 more wretched than the Russian peasantry. When 
 the virtuous and truly patriotic Chancellor Zamoyski 
 emancipated his slaves, in 1780, as we have already 
 stated in the fourth chapter, he expressed a fear 
 that they would give themselves up to idleness and 
 licentiousness. The answer returned by the an- 
 cients of the commune contained a volume of phi- 
 losophy. '' When we had no property but the sticks 
 in our hands," said they, " we had no encourage- 
 ment to be orderly and industrious; and we always 
 
 * Ritchie. t Ibid. •<'^.u 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 245 
 
 acted inconsiderately, because we had nothing to 
 lose by it. But now that these lands, and these 
 houses, and these cattle, are our own, the fear of 
 losing them will be a sufficient restraint upon us." 
 
 The success of the chancellor's experiment justi- 
 fied his foresight, as well on his own estates as on 
 those of the younger Poniatowski, who followed his 
 example.* 
 
 There is some doubt in our mind whether we 
 have a right to call the Russian people barbarians 
 or not. We call the Turks infidels. Nevertheless, 
 a man may blaspheme the name of Christ with im- 
 punity in the streets of London, Paris, or New 
 York ; but, if he should do so in Constantinople, 
 or Cairo, it would cost him his head. We call the 
 Chinese, a more industrious and a more peaceful 
 people than any in Europe or America, barbarians, 
 precisely because they are deficient in the most bar- 
 barous of all knowledge — the art of shedding 
 blood ; for, in the essentials of civilization, which 
 we take to be good laws, strictly executed, they 
 are far before France or England ; and, in the useful 
 arts of peace, they are far before Spain, Portugal, 
 Italy, Greece, and Sardinia. We should like to 
 know in what the Russians are more barbarous 
 than other people. It is true, the lower classes wear 
 their linen outside their trousers ; but, then, the 
 Irish peasantry, who are not accounted barbarians, 
 dispense with that luxury altogether. The Rus- 
 sians take no care of their horses : we and the 
 English have the bad taste and brutality to ampu- 
 tate the tails of ours. They like the knout : we 
 prefer the cat-o '-nine-tails, and rejoice in the pillory, 
 the jail, and the gibbet. They have bad laws : 
 
 * Guthrie's Grammar. 
 21* 
 
246 VIxNDICATION OF RtJSSiA AND 
 
 when they have tinkered them as long as we have 
 oiirSj they will probably be as good — if they are 
 not worn out in the mending. We are free : the 
 Russians are civil, polite, and good-tempered. We 
 pretend to be religious : they are so. They live on 
 rye bread and salted cabbage : the Spaniard pam- 
 pers himself with pride and garlic ; the Scot on the 
 food of horses ; the Irishman on potatoes ; the Nor- 
 wegian on pine bark ; and the poor Frenchman on 
 small wine and whatever it pleases the Lord. We 
 have plenty of schools, and do not profit by half of 
 them ; the Russian barbarians fill all they have and 
 cry for more — not exactly as we cry for liberty, and 
 as our children cry for Sherman's Lozenges, but 
 in truth, and right-down, serious earnest. The 
 Russian gains information by silent, attentive listen- 
 ing ; we get it by asking impertinent questions, 
 and from such blockheads, and worse, as English 
 travellers, stump orators, and political newspaper 
 editors. The civilized Poles and Texans call a 
 pirate a patriot, and shout hallelujah : the unculti- 
 vated Russians give him the knout, and pack him 
 off to Siberia. 
 
 Still, it is a settled and not to be controverted 
 point, that the Russians are barbarians. They know 
 nothing of architecture, though Moscow is the most 
 gorgeous, and St. Petersburg the most perfect city 
 in Europe. Of course, they are ignorant of the 
 mechanic arts : the traveller in Russia may buy any 
 article of necessity, or convenience, or ornament, 
 made by Russian hands, as good and as cheap as he 
 could in Paris or Birmingham ; but this is all imi- 
 tation. What kind of savages are they, then ? 
 
 The Russian air does not ring with curses like 
 that of Ireland ; the empire has no Peep-o'-day- 
 boys, or Rebeccaites, to illuminate its nights. The 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 247 
 
 Russians have no aborigines to convert, or extermi- 
 nate ; on the contrary, the aborigines (we mean the 
 Circassians and other aboriginal tribes) do their best 
 to exterminate them. 
 
 Their laws are, perhaps, not the best, or the best 
 executed, in detail, but they have never, but once or 
 twice, descended to the degradation of Lynch law. 
 There are no Russian mobs of '' respectable gentle- 
 men," to grind the gaps out of the sword of justice, 
 because it does not cut quick and fast enough for 
 them. 
 
 The Russian Jehovah is not a Moloch : the Rus- 
 sians have not even an Inquisition, nor do they cut 
 each other's throats about religion. The Russian 
 senators do not spit in each other's faces in the 
 senate chamber ; nor are the members of their gov- 
 ernments ever murdered or mangled with pistols 
 and Bowie knives in their seats. 
 
248 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS 1. — THE CHOLERA- 
 MUTINIES. — LETTER FROM DR. BAIRD. 
 
 During the late war with Great Britain, the 
 mothers of Canada abandoned their hereditary- 
 bugaboos, and reduced their froward children to 
 submission with the mystic word Yankee. Sa- 
 tan's name would not have scared them more. It 
 chanced that an American gentleman, travelling 
 from Little York to Montreal, stopped at a road- 
 side inn, to refresh himself. He was shown into 
 the best room, whence he heard a terrible outcry 
 in the kitchen among the children ; and, going to 
 the door to ascertain the cause, he heard the land- 
 lady admonish them to be still, as they valued their 
 lives and their souls' salvation, for there was a 
 Yankee in the parlor! — when all was hush, but 
 the hissing of the bacon and eggs in the frying-pan. 
 
 Much amused by what he had heard, our travel- 
 ler left the door slightly ajar; but all continued 
 still. The children had absquatulated. Presently 
 a tiny face was seen at the parlor window, and 
 soon after, a child entered the kitchen, screaming 
 at the top of his voice, " It's no use to talk to 
 me, mother — I'm not to be had. It's not a Yan- 
 kee ; for I've looked into the window, and it's a 
 gentleman ! " 
 
 Gentle or ungentle reader, if you have read the 
 preceding pages of this little volume, looking for 
 the monstrous autocrat, despot, tyrant, oppressor, or 
 what not that is evil, — the Nicholas who has frighted 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 249 
 
 all Christendom from its propriety, — we hope you 
 have seen at least enough of him to convince you 
 that, like the Yankee, and a certain gentleman 
 whose name is offensive, the Russian emperor is 
 not so black as he has been painted. Unless you 
 are a Pole, we think you will acknowledge that 
 such is the case. 
 
 Nicholas I., son of the Emperor Paul, was born 
 July 6, 1796, and ascended the Russian throne 
 December 1, 1825. He was crowned at Moscow, 
 September 3, 1826, and at Warsaw, May 24, 1829. 
 
 He was married to the Empress Alexandra Feo- 
 dorowna, July 13, 1817. She was formerly Fred- 
 erica Louisa Charlotte Wilhelmine, daughter of 
 the late William III., King of Prussia. They have 
 seven children : — 
 
 1. Alexander, Czarewitsch and Hereditary Grand 
 Duke; born April 29, 1818; affianced December 
 18, 1840, to the Princess Maximilienne Wilhel- 
 mine Augusta Sophia Maria, born August 8, 1824, 
 daughter of the Grand Duke Louis XL, of Hesse. 
 
 2. Maria; born August 18, 1819, and married 
 July 14, 1839, to Duke Maximilian Joseph Eugene 
 Augustus Napoleon, of Leichtenberg, Prince of 
 Eichstadt, who was born October 2, 1817. They 
 live in St. Petersburg. 
 
 3. Grand Duchess Olga; born September 11, 
 1822. 
 
 4. Grand Duchess Alexandra; born June 24, 
 1825. 
 
 5. Grand Duke Constantine ; born September 
 21, 1827. 
 
 6. Grand Duke Nicholas ; born August 8, 1831. 
 
 7. Grand Duke Michael ; born October 25, 1832. 
 Brothers and sisters : — 
 
 1. The reigning Grand Duchess of Saxe Wei- 
 mar, Maria. 
 
fifiO VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 2. The Clueen of the Netherlands, Anna, born 
 1795. 
 
 3. The Grand Duke Michael, born February 
 8, 1798 ; married February 19, 1824, to the Grand 
 Duchess Helena Paulowna, formerly Frederica 
 Charlotte Maria, daughter of Prince Paul of Wur- 
 temberg, niece of the king, born January 19, 1807, 
 and embraced the Greek ritual December 17, 1823. 
 They have three daughters, Maria, Elizabeth, and 
 Catherine. 
 
 The most conspicuous points in the character of 
 Nicholas I., as a sovereign, are unquestionably his 
 iron energy, that shrinks from no responsibility, 
 and spares no effort ; his untiring industry ; and his 
 unflinching moral and physical courage. A stronger 
 proof than he gave of all three of these qualities 
 when he mounted a throne on the brink of an up- 
 heaving volcano, in the midst of a rebellion, which 
 he crushed at once beneath his armed heel, has sel- 
 dom, if ever, been given by a crowned head. How 
 easily, had he faltered in the slightest degree, might 
 he have been hurled from the throne into the grave ! 
 He has been censured for rashness, for throwing 
 himself, unarmed, into the midst of a furious mob, 
 whose appetite for blood had just been whetted by 
 that of General Miloradovitsch ; but it was an oc- 
 casion that justified, nay, required, what would 
 have otherwise been fool-hardihood. It was the 
 crisis of his destiny, the moment that stamped his 
 character — that was to make him the scoflT, or the 
 admiration, of his subjects ; it was, in short, his 
 bridge of Areola, his passage of the Rubicon. His 
 determined perseverance in trampling out the smoul- 
 dering embers of that rebellion probably preserved 
 the throne of Russia to him, and him to the throne 
 of Russia; for, had the Polish insurrection of 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 251 
 
 1830-31 broken out simultaneously in both coun- 
 tries, who shall say what the result might have 
 been ? 
 
 The second time the peculiar energies of Nicho- 
 las, as well as the filial affection of his people, 
 were put to the test, was in the year 1832, in the 
 time of the cholera, when the Ssadowaja (Garden 
 Street) witnessed the first and only barricade ever 
 thrown up by the populace during the existence of 
 young St. Petersburg. It was at the end of the 
 Ssadowaja, just where it enters the spacious area 
 of the Haymarket. The epidemic was raging ; and 
 the lower orders, w^ho make a daily exchange of 
 the Haymarket, had gotten it into their sagacious 
 heads that the disease was not sent by God, but 
 generated and continued, by the medical faculty, by 
 poison. We are not aware what motives they as- 
 signed to the doctors, other than the undeniable 
 fact, that it was their interest that people should 
 be sick ; or whether they had any color for their 
 conjecture ; but it is certain that, after a long dis- 
 content and sullen rage, they rose in open insur- 
 rection against the authorities. Old men, with 
 hoary hair and gray beards, scoured riotously and 
 desperately through the streets, stopped the cholera 
 carriages, and compelled the patients they were 
 conveying to the hospitals to alight, or, if they 
 were unable, dragged them out. They unhar- 
 nessed the horses, and shattered the vehicles into 
 pieces, which they carried to the Foutanka canal, 
 and threw them into the water. Then, to prevent 
 the interference of the police, they barricaded all 
 the avenues to the Haymarket with hay-carts, the 
 end of the Ssadowaja in particular. This they 
 blocked with a pile of carts as high as the houses, 
 behind which several thousand rioters bivouacked 
 
252 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 for the night, determined to take as summary ven- 
 geance on the doctors, in the morning, as they had 
 already done on the sick carts. 
 
 In the morning, they actually did storm the great 
 cholera hospital near the Haymarket, and turned 
 all the patients into the street, with the charitable 
 view of delivering them from their supposed tor- 
 mentors. One of the most eminent German phy- 
 sicians was first flung out of a window, and then 
 torn to pieces by the madmen below. At this 
 moment, their fury was arrested by the words, 
 ^^ Na kalenje ! na kalenje ! ''^ (To your knees!) 
 pronounced by a voice of thunder ; and they knelt, 
 as one man, penitent, sobbing, and praying. 
 
 Information of what was passing had been sent 
 to the emperor at Czarskoe Sselo, and he had driven, 
 in his droska, unattended by a single soldier, to 
 the Haymarket, where the barricades vanished at 
 his glance. There, he stood up in his droska, 
 and tamed the multitude with two words, and then 
 proceeded to the church situated on the edge of 
 the Haymarket. After crossing himself and pray- 
 ing, he addressed a few words to the mob, admon- 
 ishing them to pay due reverence to God and the 
 church, and commanding them to implore the 
 Almighty's forgiveness for the sin they had com- 
 mitted, and to beseech him, in his mercy, to re- 
 move the plague from the city. While he was 
 speaking, the ringleaders were apprehended and 
 taken away, by the police, without any resistance 
 on the part of the multitude.* 
 
 A like magnanimous daring carried the emperor 
 into the ranks of the soldier peasants, during the 
 cholera mutiny. The heads of the officers were 
 
 * Kohl. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 
 
 253 
 
 already rolling down the steps of the barracks, 
 when he made his appearance — and how ? — with 
 horse, foot, and artillery ? Alone with Count Or- 
 bff, in his travelling carriage. '' Soldiers ! " cried 
 he, stepping out, '^ you have committed the black- 
 est crimes — instant submission and acknowledg- 
 ment of your guilt alone shall save you." Down 
 dropped the muskets, and prostrate fell the men. 
 " Now that you are once more my subjects," he 
 continued, '^ I forgive you ; but only on one con- 
 dition — that you at once name the men who have 
 misled you." He was obeyed ; the fearful mutiny 
 was quelled, and its instigators set out on their 
 travels for Siberia.* 
 
 The man who can do these things cannot be all 
 evil, were he the essential oil and double-distilled 
 concentration of despotism. 
 
 That this high courage and energy is not di- 
 vorced from the softer feelings, in the breast of the 
 man who writes himself " autocrat of all the Rus- 
 sians," we might assume from the following state- 
 ment, which we make on the authority of the 
 editor of the London Quarterly for March, 1841, 
 who speaks from his own knowledge and experi- 
 ence. '' While we are on the road," says he, "let 
 us also say that Nicholas is the most gallopping per- 
 sonage who ever wore the crown of the czars. No 
 distance stays him ; at St. Petersburg to-day, at 
 Astrakhan in a week. He flies by night and by 
 day, at railway pace, always in his simple caleche, 
 and trusting Caesar's fortunes to the conduct of his 
 wild (though capital) coachmen. In the tens of 
 thousands of miles he has thus travelled, continu- 
 ally changing drivers, — and many of these peasants 
 who do not mount a carriage-box twice in the 
 year, — his majesty has, we believe, never met with 
 22 
 
254 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 more than one serious overturn. The vigor and 
 bodily endurance he has occasionally manifested, 
 are quite wonderful. When commanding the army 
 against Turkey, and already beyond his own ter- 
 ritories, the news of the last illness of the em- 
 press mother arrived. To Petersburg he went, 
 without a halt, though his carriage fell to pieces 
 by the way, and much of the journey was per- 
 formed in carts or tilegas. He attained his object, 
 however, and secured the last embrace and dying 
 benediction of his mother ! This anecdote must 
 have its weight with domestic Englishmen.* Nor 
 will its value be impaired if we follow the imperial 
 footsteps to the German baths,' and there Avitness 
 (as some of our friends did last year) the simple 
 manners of ' M. and Madame Romanoff,' teach- 
 ing, by example, to their children, and offering, in 
 their social circle, a presage that the virtues which 
 adorn the court of Nicholas and his amiable con- 
 sort will be continued in that of their successors." 
 Most writers complain bitterly of the frequent 
 infliction of the lash on the lower orders of society 
 in Russia. Speaking of this, the above-quoted 
 writer says, " As to blows, for aught that we 
 could see or hear, they have gone out of fashion. 
 Though accompanied by Russian authorities, who 
 had the power in their hands, and that over a very 
 wide range of the empire, we never saw but two 
 blows given — the one by a common soldier to a 
 refractory peasant, the other by an inflated little 
 country mayor to a driver who had contradicted 
 him." We beg to impress the fact on some of our 
 prejudiced readers, that the Russians of this day 
 are not cudgelled. Following up the mandates of 
 
 * And with domestic Americans, too. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 255 
 
 Alexander, Nicholas has all but extirpated summary 
 punishments on the road. The postilions are now- 
 declared to be imperial sub-officers, and no one 
 can strike them with impunity. 
 
 While we are on the subject of roads, we may 
 mention that a commodious inn (commodious in 
 every thing but the absence of beds) has been es- 
 tablished, at the emperor's expense, at every station 
 between Moscow and St. Petersburg. They are 
 all on a uniform plan, and all kept by Germans. 
 A leather-covered sofa is the lodging assigned to 
 the traveller ; his servant avails himself of the 
 softest spot on the floor. In time, perhaps, the 
 servant may aspire to the sofa, while his master 
 shall have been promoted to straw or feathers. 
 
 Many other instances might be cited of the 
 strength of the emperor's kindred feelings : we 
 shall be content with the following: — When his 
 first grandchild was born, he passed the night on 
 his knees, in prayer for the safety of his best-be- 
 loved daughter Maria, grand duchess of Leichten- 
 berg ; and his first care, when informed that her 
 labor was happily terminated, was to provide gifts 
 suitable for the mother and child. 
 
 "The high moral character of the emperor has 
 been the pride of the Russian world," says a lady 
 writer, whom we have already quoted with com- 
 mendation. The wife usually takes the tone of 
 her character from her husband ; the court always 
 adopts that of the sovereign, and, accordingly, "the 
 present court of Russia," says the Polytechnic 
 Journal, 'is irreproachable in regard to morals and 
 manners. The czar, indeed, carries his ideas of 
 propriety to an extreme almost puritanical ; and, 
 being an emperor, and a very handsome man, it is 
 not a little singular that he should be, as he really 
 
256 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 is, an example of conjugal fidelity. One evening 
 
 at a court ball, the Princess , a lady who had 
 
 taken infinite pains to make herself agreeable to 
 his majesty, was chosen as his partner. The emper- 
 or, seeing Count Orloff opposite to him, said to the 
 princess, ' What an exceedingly handsome man 
 the count is ! ^ 'Sire,' observed the lady, *no 
 gentleman can appear handsome next to your 
 majesty.' The emperor affected to be offended 
 at this compliment ; and then, raising his voice, 
 he said, in a very low tone, ' Me, madam ! — you 
 jest ! I am only handsome in the eyes of my 
 wife!' The poor princess was confounded at 
 this rebuff, especially when she observed the ma- 
 licious smiles of the surrounding group, by whom 
 it had been heard. 
 
 *'The court of St. Petersburg is composed of 
 two distinct parties; the one superior in rank, the 
 other superior in talent. The former is headed by 
 the empress and her household ; the latter by the 
 grand duchess Helena and her ladies of honor." 
 
 The empress is a most exemplary wife and moth- 
 er ; but is fonder of dancing than is at all good for 
 her health. Her physicians forbade late hours ; 
 but the emperor hit upon an expedient to gratify 
 her taste without violating their orders. He com- 
 manded that the court balls should be opened at 
 8 P. M., instead of at midnight, as previously. 
 This, of course, involved the sacrifice of other 
 evening amusements. 
 
 At St. Petersburg, where the emperor can be 
 seen every day, by every body, he is the czar, a 
 very great and very good man, considerably up- 
 wards of six feet high ; — nothing more. At Mos- 
 cow, he moves surrounded with the prestige of 
 novelty, and there he is all but idolized. "Our 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 257 
 
 little father ! " cry the upward-gazing mujiks, too 
 wrapt in admiration to make way for him. 
 
 " Come now, do make a little room for me," 
 says the emperor, with his hand still raised to his 
 hat. *'Do, brother, stand out of the way." 
 
 The palace is surrounded by a crowd from 
 morning till night. There are no guards, to hin- 
 der them from looking at their earthly father and 
 his family. If one of them happens to show him- 
 self at a window, off goes every hat, as if it were 
 Nicholas himself. One day, as the empress was 
 sitting at the window, the emperor came behind 
 her, passed his arm round her neck, and kissed her. 
 " No one unacquainted with the Russian character 
 can conceive the effect of this simple act. The 
 general shout that came from the lips of the people 
 arose from the holiest depths of their hearts, and 
 I venture to say that there was no man of that 
 vast concourse who would not have laid down his 
 life for the czar, and no woman who would not 
 have urged her son, or husband, to do so." * 
 
 The grand duchess Helena's recreation is the 
 study of science and literature. She is one of the 
 most intellectual women of the age, and not less 
 distinguished for her talents than for her beauty. 
 A liberal patroness is she of literature and the fine 
 arts, and receives literary parties two or three 
 evenings in the week. A gentleman, who had 
 received a general invitation, arriving rather too 
 early, was shown into the library, where he 
 amused himself by looking over the books. 
 While thus employed, the grand duchess en- 
 tered, and desired that, as it was her wish to 
 vary the subjects of conversation at her soirees, 
 
 * Ritchie. 
 
 22* 
 
258 
 
 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 he would direct it a little more to history, and a 
 little less to poetry. " If I had seen this library 
 sooner," he replied, ''I should have seen that his- 
 tory is your imperial highness's favorite study, and 
 known your taste ; but I naturally fancied that 
 poetry was the most attractive branch of literature 
 to a lady." " Then my library has informed you 
 of your error ? " " It has — the books most within 
 reach, and which appear to have been most used, 
 show who your highness's favorite authors are. I 
 see here the works of Robertson, Karamsin, Thier- 
 ry, Barante, and Von Muller. The poets, on the 
 contrary, are on the upper shelves ,• they glitter in 
 bindings of untarnished brilliancy, and the order 
 in which they are arranged implies that they are 
 not often disturbed. From all this, I infer that 
 your highness reads a great deal of history, and 
 not much of poetry." The grand duchess ad- 
 mitted that the inference was correct.'* 
 
 " Conspicuous among the group of officers, with 
 orders, stars, and cordons glittering around them," 
 says the Baltic lady, speaking of the new year's 
 festival, at the Winter Palace, " was the Grand 
 Duke Michael, the emperor's brother, a magnificent 
 figure, with immense length of limb, and a peculiar 
 curve of outline, which renders him recognizable 
 at any distance among hundreds in the same uni- 
 form, — who was seen pacing slowly backwards and 
 forwards on the marble-like parquetCj and bending 
 fierce looks on the soldiery." This prince does not 
 seem to have found favor with the fair writer, or 
 rather, her admiration of the emperor is so great 
 that she has little, if any, to spare for any body 
 else. She describes the grand duke as having " a 
 
 * Polytechnic Journal. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 259 
 
 fine bravo style of face, with somewhat ferocious 
 moustaches — a terrestial Kkeness of the emperor j 
 earthly passions written on his high brow ; but 
 none of Jove's thanderboUs. 
 
 The grand duke is a strict disciphnarian. 
 
 The naslednik heritier, or heir apparent, Alexan- 
 der, " the slender prototype of his father's grand 
 proportions," is thus described : " He inherits his 
 father's majestic person, and somewhat of the regu- 
 larity of his face ; but with the utter absence of the 
 emperor's unsympathizing grandeur. On the con- 
 trary, the son has a face of much sentiment and 
 feeling ; the lips full, the eyelids pensive ; more of 
 kindness than of character in his expression. 
 
 " The grand duchess Olga, second daughter of 
 the emperor, was (in 1840) a most beautiful girl of 
 sixteen, just restored from a dangerous fever, the 
 traces of which were visible in the exquisite deli- 
 cacy of her complexion, and in the light, girl-like 
 cap worn to hide the absence of those tresses which 
 had been sacrificed to her illness." 
 
 On the same occasion, "the emperor — the plain- 
 est-dressed, but the most magnificent figure present, 
 wanted no outward token to declare the dignity of 
 his presence. He passed slowly on, accommo- 
 dating his manly movements to the short, feeble 
 steps of the empress, who, arrayed in a blaze of 
 jewels, dragged a heavy train of orange-colored 
 velvet after her, and seemed hardly able to support 
 her own weight." 
 
 Great minds can seldom accustom themselves 
 to etiquette and ceremony. Napoleon threw off 
 ceremony in the camp, and was adored by his sol- 
 diers. He wanted etiquette in his court, but 
 gained nothing by it. No truly great man ever 
 cared for trifles. Nicholas, from all accounts, ap- 
 
260 VlNDICAflON OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 pears to disregard mere appearances, and to be the 
 most homely (in the Scotch sense of the word) 
 personage in all Russia. He habitually commands 
 at parades. Enveloped in dust, the cavalcade 
 dashes along like a mighty thunder-cloud, from 
 which flash forth the lightnings of arms and of or- 
 ders. The soldiers present arms, while all the 
 spectators uncover at the approach of majesty. 
 "Good day, my lads! " cries the emperor. '' We 
 thank your majesty," is the reply that bursts like 
 thunder from every mouth. 
 
 " But it is by no means necessary to go to the 
 parade to see the emperor. He appears so often on 
 foot, on horseback, in droska, or in one-horse 
 sledge, that he is precisely the person whom you 
 are sure to meet oftenest in the streets of St. Peters- 
 burg. There is not a monarch in the world whom 
 so many occupations lead into the streets, or who is 
 pressed by such a prodigious mass of business — dai- 
 ly inspections of the hundred institutions of his 
 capital J visits to the offices of the different minis- 
 ters ; reviews ; participation in popular amusements 
 prescribed by ancient custom ; personal directions 
 for building public edifices ; visits to high person- 
 ages, and even to sick old ladies, and a hundred 
 other matters. 
 
 " On all ordinary occasions, wherever the emperor 
 makes his appearance, it is in the plainest and most 
 unostentatious manner in the world. Natives of 
 the West, as well as Orientals, are surprised to see 
 how much greatness, power, and majesty, can submit 
 to be drawn along the streets in a single sledge, by 
 a single horse. On his journeys in the interior of 
 the empire, the sovereign is frequently seen in a 
 common, rudely-made tilega, such as is used by 
 the serfs j and one can scarcely conceive how it 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 261 
 
 happens that he is not afraid of diminishing his 
 consequence. I am convinced that the pettiest 
 prince in Germany would make some scruple, if 
 he were asked to step into a small, low droska, 
 such as the emperor of all the Russias is seen in 
 every day. One is the more puzzled to account 
 for this, because, at other times, the court of Russia 
 displays a splendor and magnificence not surpassed 
 by any.* 
 
 "At St. Petersburg, Nicholas has often gone 
 home, when it rained, in a hired droska. Once, 
 when he happened to have no money about him, and 
 the driver did not know his quality, the man kept 
 his cloak till his fare was sent to him."f 
 
 On Easter morning, it is the custom of the Rus- 
 sians to salute each other with, "Christ is risen." 
 One Easter, on coming out of the palace, he gave 
 the customary salutation to the sentry at the door, 
 
 " Indeed, your majesty, he is not," replied the 
 soldier. 
 
 ic Why ! —What ! — I said, ' Christ is risen.' " 
 
 "And I replied, 'He is not.' " 
 
 " Who, and what, in God's name, are you, then ? " 
 
 " A Jew, by your majesty's favor." 
 
 In no one thing has the emperor shown himself 
 to more advantage than in the encouragement he 
 has given to learning. Not to speak of improve- 
 ments on former institutions, which it would be 
 impossible to trace, let us simply say, that almost 
 all the vast plans of national education, devised by 
 Alexander, were left by him for Nicholas to accom- 
 plish. 
 
 The University of Kieff, or St. Wladimir, was 
 founded and endowed by him, in 1834, to supply 
 
 * Kohl. t Ritchie. 
 
262 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 the place of that of Wilna, which he found it neces- 
 sary to suppress after the insurrection of 1830-31. 
 In 1838, it had eighty-eight professors and subordi- 
 nate functionaries, and two hundred and three pu- 
 pils. In 1835, it had a revenue of 250,000 rubles. 
 There are four governments under the jurisdiction 
 of this university, in which there were one lycenm, 
 seven gymnasiums, and twenty-five free schools, 
 with four hundred and sixty pupils. Fifty pupils 
 are educated at the public expense at this institu- 
 tion, of whom twenty-six are intended for teachers. 
 The remaining twenty-four are instructed in the 
 law, to enable them to fill judicial and other offices 
 in the old Polish provinces. 
 
 The university district of White Russia had, in 
 1835, no university ; but it had twelve gymnasi- 
 ums and a high school. We have no accounts of 
 it since that period. 
 
 The university of Helsingfors, in Finland, was 
 founded, in 1829, in the place of that of Abo, de- 
 stroyed by fire the same year. It had forty pro- 
 fessors, and four hundred and twenty-five pupils, in 
 1832. There are nearly four hundred establish- 
 ments of learning in Finland. 
 
 There was a lyceum in Odessa in 1835, and five 
 gymnasiums and thirteen high schools within its 
 jurisdiction. 
 
 In the Transcaucasian district, there is a gym- 
 nasium, a free school, and twelve central schools. 
 
 There are also a great many schools founded for 
 particular purposes, such as military schools in St. 
 Petersburg, Moscow, and other places, especial 
 schools for the nobility, medical and theologicsd 
 schools, &c. 
 
 These last are intended for the children of the 
 clergy. We have no means of ascertaining which 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 
 
 263 
 
 of these are old, and which are new ; but there is 
 a very great improvement throughout, as will be 
 seen by the following table, which only embraces 
 the first ten years of the present emperor's reign : — 
 
 
 1804. 
 
 1824. 
 
 1838. 
 
 
 SchooU 
 
 Pupils. 
 
 School* 
 
 Pupils. 
 
 Schools 
 
 Pupils. 
 
 Schools under the Minis- > 
 ter of Pub. Instruction, 5 
 Military Schools, . . . 
 Ecclesiastical do. . . . 
 Special do. . . . 
 
 499 
 
 15 
 
 100 
 
 13 
 
 33,481 
 
 29,000 
 15,000 
 31,775 
 
 1,411 
 
 117 
 
 544 
 46 
 
 2,118 
 
 69,629 
 
 102,295 
 50,000 
 41,300 
 
 1,681 85,707 
 
 152 179,580 
 
 601 i 67,424 
 
 1,522 127,864 
 
 Total, 
 
 627 
 
 109,256 
 
 203,224 
 
 3,956 460,575 
 
 Of the 460,575 schools existing in 1825, 2841 
 were maintained at the expense of the government. 
 Not less than 252,311 of the pupils were educat- 
 ed gratuitously, and the total school expenses in- 
 curred that year by the government amounted to 
 28,734,141 rubles. If we add to the pupils at 
 school those educated at home, it Avill be admitted 
 that education has made very rapid progress in 
 Russia. 
 
 The board of education at St. Petersburg have 
 recently established eleven hundred and fifty-nine 
 schools in Poland. It has been asserted, again and 
 again, that the emperor is inimical to education in 
 Poland. On the contrary, on the 25th of August, 
 he addressed the following missive to Field-marshal 
 Prince Theodorowitsch : — 
 
 '' Prince John Theodorowitsch : Considering 
 that there is a great want of the necessary aids to 
 instruction (viz., books) in the district of the Uni- 
 versity of VVarsaw, I have thought fit to present to 
 it a collection, expressly selected, of about thirteen 
 thousand volumes. The minister of public in- 
 struction is to a:ive directions respecting the con- 
 
264 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 veyance of these books for the learned and scien- 
 tific institutions in the district under the Warsaw- 
 University, in concert with the university library. 
 May this present serve as a new proof of my care 
 for the prosperity and education of the youth of 
 Poland, and may it excite in them the most zealous 
 endeavors to answer my paternal intentions." 
 
 Next in importance to the university at St. Pe- 
 tersburg is the '' Pedagogic Institution," designed 
 solely for the instruction of teachers of all kinds, 
 masters of popular, circular, and gymnasial schools, 
 and professors for the universities. It was founded 
 ill 1832, to suppress or reform the system of in- 
 struction in Poland, and to take it out of the hands 
 of the Jesuits. Boys of twelve are admitted, and 
 all who apply are taken ; but for the details of this 
 institution, and of education generally, in Russia, 
 we must refer the reader to ^' Russia and the Rus- 
 sians," by J. G. Kohl, where he will find all the 
 information he needs. 
 
 Those who, deriving their impressions from Po- 
 lish fugitives, take the emperor of Russia for a 
 man of harsh and repulsive nature, are grossly de- 
 ceived. We could fill a large book with anecdotes 
 of his benevolence. He gave a poor tradesman a 
 pension of two thousand rubles, and an order, for 
 saving the lives of persons endangered at the con- 
 flagration of the Katscheli theatre, where three 
 hundred persons perished. 
 
 At Helsingfors, the emperor may be said to have 
 played the part of a benignant Providence, in or- 
 daining the happiness of the poor, but passing fair, 
 Baroness K., and a meritorious, but equally pover- 
 ty-stricken Russian officer. Moved by the faithful 
 love and fading charms of the baroness, the em- 
 peror gave her a pension, to make the course of true 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 
 
 265 
 
 love run smooth. The experiment was as success- 
 ful as the one tried by the mock doctor in " Le 
 Medecin Malgre Lui.^'' 
 
 The peasants of Russia owe it to Nicholas that 
 their lords are obliged to provide for them in dis- 
 tress. He also ordered that vagrants and beggars 
 should be set to work. Even the Siberian author- 
 ities are obliged to prevent any individual commit- 
 ted to them from suffering want. Similar charity 
 has been extended to Poland. 
 
 At one time, the emperor sent a very handsome 
 contribution to the " distressed Poles in England." 
 The distressed Poles sent it back again. We rec- 
 ollect but one like instance of distressed magna- 
 nimity. It was when relief was sent from Boston 
 to the sufferers by a fire in the south, with a re- 
 quest that it might be distributed "without regard 
 to color." The sufferers sent the almsgiving back, 
 with, " Thank you ! — we don't want any of your 
 advice." 
 
 Of the emperor's liberal encouragement of the fine 
 artSy of the talents he has drawn from obscurity, 
 the number of artists he has sent to be educated in 
 Italy, the voyages of discovery he has fitted forth, 
 a great deal more might be said than we deem at 
 all necessary. We have not the means of ascer- 
 taining the number of times the imperial hand has 
 been put forth in aid of struggling merit and public 
 improvement — we can only judge of his general 
 course by its results. We do not say that Russia 
 has advanced as much under his reign as it did 
 in that of Peter the Great — such sudden changes 
 can occur but seldom in the history of a people ; 
 but we may say that as much has been effected for 
 the general good, in the twenty years of Nicholas's 
 rule, as from the commencement of the reign of 
 23 
 
266 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 Catherine to the end of that of Alexander. Every 
 writer, even the most prejudiced, bears us out in 
 the supposition. 
 
 It is, we believe, the nature of mankind to take 
 the part of the wronged ; it is ours, at least. The 
 excess of the abuse lavished on Nicholas Romanoff 
 first induced us to inquire how far it was deserved. 
 The result has been the preceding pages. 
 
 We have had the emperor's portrait taken, and 
 placed where it is seen and admired by thousands ; 
 just as we should strive to make George Washing- 
 ton, or Benjamin Franklin, or any other great ben- 
 efactor to the human race, conspicuous. It is the 
 universal mistake to take the thousands for the 
 people, instead of the millions. We find the Em- 
 peror Nicholas cursed by the soi-di&ant Polish na- 
 tion, the small and arrogant aristocracy ; and unpopu- 
 lar with the advocates of conservatism every where ; 
 while the millions of Poland and Russia, the la- 
 boring classes, the people^ bless his name, with one 
 voice. 
 
 We have not altogether relied upon our own 
 judgment, either. We have induced others to 
 think, to inquire, and to examine, and the result 
 has invariably been the same. Any one who will 
 take the pains to think, and to compare the evi- 
 dence for and against Russia and its emperor, must 
 come to the conclusion we have reached. 
 
 We have made inquiry, too, of our countrymen 
 who have voyaged in Russia — the fruit of our in- 
 quiries may be found scattered over the preceding 
 pages. It may not be amiss, in this connection, 
 to quote a letter from our esteemed friend and fel- 
 low-countryman, the Rev. R. Baird, D. D., which 
 was addressed to us in answer to our inquiries re- 
 specting the emperor of Russia. We present the 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 267 
 
 views of Dr. Baird with peculiar pleasure and satis- 
 faction, inasmuch as they are the result of his personal 
 observations during his residence in Russia. Such 
 authority cannot be questioned. 
 
 « New York, September 19, 1844. 
 
 ^' My Dear Sir: 
 
 " In answer to your inquiries concerning the Em- 
 peror Nicholas, I would say, — 
 
 *^ 1. He is an able, sagacious, laborious, and patri- 
 otic prince and ruler. He devotes himself most 
 assiduously to the proper task of a ruler, and looks 
 after every thing as far as it is possible for a mortal 
 man to do so. It is certainly no easy task to gov- 
 ern, as an absolute sovereign, 62,000,000 of people, 
 most of whom are imperfectly civilized, speak- 
 ing more than 30 languages and dialects, and 
 scattered over a territory more than four times and 
 a half greater than the settled portions of the terri- 
 tory claimed by the United States. In such a gov- 
 ernment, and such a variety of nations and lan- 
 guages, and in a country of such vast extent, there 
 must necessarily be a great deal committed to sub- 
 ordinates ; and as these are proverbially dishonest, 
 and often extremely incapable, there must necessa- 
 rily be a great deal of mal-administration. Fla- 
 grant injustice is often, very often perpetrated, in 
 cases which never reach the emperor's ears, or, if 
 they do, he knows not what to do, in order to 
 attain what would be strict justice. 
 
 "2. Good men of every nation whom I have 
 known in Russia — English, Americans, Swiss, 
 Germans, as well as natives, have agrfeed in this 
 opinion respecting the emperor, viz., that his aim 
 and effort is to do what is right so far as he knows, 
 and that he has at heart (perhaps more than any 
 
268 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 Other maa in Russia) the best interests of the empire. 
 He may do many things which are wrong, many 
 which are perhaps unwise, even some which are un- 
 just ; but it is from want of knowledge, which in- 
 deed it would be expecting more than ought to be ex- 
 pected from any man, to suppose him, in evei-y case, 
 to possess. By all disinterested and well-informed 
 men, such as intelligent and good foreigners of 
 every nation, he is believed to be the best sover- 
 eign — I mean the most wise, efficient, and capable 
 sovereign — Russia has ever had. 
 
 " 3. Facts prove that he is more desirous of ad- 
 vancing the civilization of his empire than its ex- 
 tension by military conquests. He has done al- 
 most nothing at all to enlarge his dominions ; 
 whilst he has done, and is doing, much to promote 
 education, the useful arts, and every good thing, 
 among his people. In this he has far exceeded all 
 his predecessors, unless we except Peter the Great j 
 and I know not that he ought to be excepted. i 
 
 " 4. The emperor may be deceived and misled by 
 those around him, and doubtless often is ; but he is 
 governed by no favorite — which can be asserted of 
 none of his predecessors, and of few absolute inon- 
 archs that have ever lived. 
 
 " 5. As to his moral character, it would be hard 
 to find a kinder father, or a more affectionate 
 husband. And, without claiming for him a true 
 moral character, in the sense in which we use the 
 expression, it may nevertheless be Eisserted that he is 
 afar more exemplary man, in his words and actions, 
 than most public men in this or any other country. 
 
 " 6. There is, probably, no monarch in the world 
 who exceeds him in strength of mind or in readi- 
 ness of comprehension ; though in acquired knowl- 
 edge, he is inferior to the kings of France, Prussia, 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 269 
 
 and Holland ; for he came early to his throne, and 
 has had little leisure for reaiing since. 
 " I have the honor to be, 
 
 " Yours most truly, 
 
 'R. Baird." 
 
 We have little left but to endeavor to communi- 
 cate some personal idea of the emperor, which we 
 shall best accomplish by citing the impression of 
 the lady letter-writer from the Baltic. What she 
 relates took place at a masquerade at the Great 
 Theatre, at St. Petersburg. 
 
 " I was now becoming impatient for a nearer 
 view of that awful personage whom all united in 
 describing as le plus bel homme qii'un puisse sHm- 
 aginer,^ and who, whether seen from the dimin- 
 ished heights of the Salle Blanche, or dashing 
 along, his white feather streaming, and muffled in 
 his military cloak, in his solitary sledge with one 
 horse, or striding with powerful steps, utterly 
 unattended, in the dusk of the early evening, the 
 whole length of the Nevski, wore a halo of majesty 
 it was impossible to overlook. An opportunity for 
 a closer view soon presented itself. 
 
 " The heritier, the grand duke Michael, the duke 
 de Leichtenberg, were all seen passing, in turn, each 
 led about by a whispering mask. '' Mais on est done 
 Vempereurl " '* II n'y est pas encore,^'' f was the 
 answer ; but scarce was this uttered when a tower- 
 ing plume moved, the crowd fell back, and, en- 
 framed in a vacant space, stood a figure, to which 
 there is no second in Russia, if in the world itself; 
 a figure of the grandest beauty, expression, dimen- 
 sion, and carriage, uniting all the majesties and 
 
 * The handsomest man imaginable, 
 t " But where, then, is the emperor r " " Not here yet." 
 23* 
 
270 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 graces of the heathen gods (the little god of love 
 alone perhaps excepted) on his ample and symmet- 
 rical proportions. Had this nobility of person be- 
 longed to a simple mujik^ instead of to the autocrat 
 of all the Russias, the admiration could not have 
 been less, nor scarcely the feeling of moral awe. It 
 was not the monarch who was so magnificent a 
 man, but the man who was so truly imperial. He 
 stood awhile silent and haughty, as if disdaining 
 all the vanity and levity around him ; when, per- 
 ceiving my two distinguished companions, he strode 
 grandly towards our box, and, just lifting his 
 plumes, with a lofty bow, stooped and kissed the 
 princess's hand, (who in return imprinted a kiss on 
 the imperial cheek,) and then, leaning against the 
 pillar, remained in conversation. 
 
 " The person of the emperor is that of a colossal 
 man in the full prime of life and health ; forty-two 
 years of age, about six feet two inches high, and 
 well filled out, without any approach to corpulency ; 
 the head magnificently carried, a splendid breadth 
 of shoulder and chest, great length and symmetry 
 of limb, with finely-formed hands and feet. His 
 face is strictly Grecian — forehead and nose in one 
 grand line, the eyes finely lined, large, open, and 
 blue, with a calmness, a coldness, a freezing dig- 
 nity, which can equally quell an insurrection, daunt 
 an assassin, or paralyze a petitioner ; the mouth 
 regular, the teeth fine, chin prominent, with dark 
 moustache, and small whisker ; but not a sympathy 
 on his face. His mouth sometimes smiled, his 
 eyes never. There was that in his look which no, 
 monarch's subject could meet. His eye seeks ev-» 
 ery one's gaze ; but none can confront his. 
 
 " After a few minutes, his curiosity, the unfail- 
 ing attribute of a crowned head, dictated the words, 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 271 
 
 '' Kto eta ? " '' Who is that ? " — and being satis- 
 fied, (for he remarks every strange face that enters 
 his capital,) he continued, alternately in Russian and 
 French, commenting upor the scene. 
 
 " Personne ne rii' intrigue ce soir,^^ he said. " Je 
 7ie sais pas ce que faj fait pour per dre ma reputa- 
 tion ; mais on ne veut pas de moty * As he stood, 
 various masks approached ; but, either from excess 
 of embarrassment, or from lack of wit, after rousing 
 the lion, found nothing to say. At length a couple 
 approached, and stood irresolute, each motioning 
 the other to speak. '' Donnez moi la jnain,^^ f 
 said a low, trembling voice. He stretched out his 
 noble hand : " Et voila V autre pour vous^''^X said he, 
 extending the other to her companion ; and on they 
 passed, probably never to forget the mighty hand 
 that had clasped theirs. Meanwhile, the emperor 
 carefully scanned the crowd, and owned himself 
 in search of a mask who had attacked him on his 
 first entrance. " Quand je Vaurai trouve, je vous 
 Vaminerai ; " || and so saying, he left us. 
 
 " I watched his figure, which, as if surrounded 
 with an invisible barrier, bore a vacant space about 
 it through the thickest of the press. In a short 
 time, a little mask stepped boldly up to him, and, 
 reaching upwards to her utmost stretch, hung her- 
 self fearlessly upon that arm which wields the des- 
 tinies of the seventh part of the known world. He 
 threw a look to our box, as if to say, '' I have found 
 her," and off they went together. In five minutes 
 they passed again, and his majesty made some 
 effort to draw her to our box ; but the little black 
 
 * " Nobody tries to puzzle me this evening. I don't know what I 
 have done to lose my reputation ; but nobody wants any thing to 
 do with me." 
 
 t " Give me your hand." j " And there's the other for you." 
 II " When I have found her, I will bring her to you." 
 
272 VINDICATION or RUSSIA AND 
 
 sylph resisted, pulling in a contrary direction at his 
 lofty shoulder with all her strength ; on which he 
 called out, '' Elle ne vcut pas que je 7n^approche de 
 vous ; elle dit que je suis trop mauvaise socUte.^^ * 
 Upon the second round, however, he succeeded 
 in bringing his rebellious subject nearer ; when, 
 recognizing his manoeuvre, she plucked her arm 
 away, gave him a smart slap on the wrist, and say- 
 ing, " Va fe7i ; je ne veux plus de /oz,"t '^^^^ ii^^^ 
 the crowd. The emperor, they assured me, was in 
 an unusual good temper this evening. I think 
 there can be no doubt of it. 
 
 ^' When a mask has pleased his fancy, the em- 
 peror never rests till he has discovered her real 
 name, and sets his secret police upon the scent 
 with as much zest as after a political offender. The 
 mask whom we had observed, at the theatre, on 
 such familiar terms with him, was recognized, a 
 few days after, to be a little modiste from the most 
 fashionable milliner's in St. Petersburg, whose fre- 
 quent errands to the empress had furnished her with 
 a few graphic touches of the imperial character. 
 
 " In a country where, unfortunately, neither pro- 
 motion, nor justice, nor redress, generally speaking, 
 is to be had without interest, this means of direct- 
 ly reaching the imperial ear, or that of the chief 
 officers of the state, (of presenting a living anony- 
 mous letter — of dropping information which they 
 are bound, if not to favor, at all events not to take 
 amiss,) is immensely resorted to. The emperor has 
 been known to remonstrate loudly at being annoyed 
 with business or complaint in these few hours of 
 relaxation ; but this is rather to the awkwardness 
 
 * " She won't let me come near you ; she says I am too bad 
 company," 
 
 t " Go along — I want no more of you." 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 273 
 
 or embarrassment of the poor petitioner, who, feel- 
 ing the welfare of a father or brother, or of a 
 whole family, hanging upon the force of her slen- 
 der words ; addressing, for the first time, the awful 
 individual whose word makes and unmakes a law ; 
 and ashamed, perhaps, of the disguise to which she 
 has been compelled ; can neither command the 
 calmness nor adroitness necessary to smooth the 
 way for her blunter petition. 
 
 '' On the other hand, where the complainant, by 
 a happy address or a well-timed flattery, has dis- 
 posed the imperial palate for the reception of more 
 sober truths, her case has been listened to with 
 humanity, and met by redress. More than once 
 the emperor was observed engaged with a mask in 
 conversation, who had evidently digressed from 
 levity into a more serious strain, and was overheard 
 to thank the mask for her information, and promise 
 the subject his attention. . 
 
 " In consequence of the taste that his majesty 
 ha§ of late years evinced for this species of 
 amusement, the masked balls have greatly increased 
 in number and resort. Previous to being incapaci- 
 tated by bad health, the empress also equally par- 
 took of them ; and, it is said, greatly enjoyed being 
 addressed with the same familiarity as any of her 
 subjects. Her majesty has even been the cause of 
 severe terrors to many an unfortunate individual, 
 who, new to the scene, or not recognizing by filial 
 instinct the maternal arm which pressed his, has 
 either himself indulged in too much license of 
 speech, or given the imperial mask to understand 
 that he found hers devoid of interest." 
 
 The Emperor Nicholas is doing more to en- 
 courage agriculture, commerce, and the arts, than, 
 
274 VINDICATION OF RUSSIA AND 
 
 any other living monarch. Amid the pressing and 
 weighty cares of government, he is introducing 
 and fostering, by his purse and the presence of his 
 person, every department of science and mechan- 
 ism. We have it on the best authority, that he 
 neglects no valuable invention, or fails to encour- 
 age and sustain whatever may be useful to the 
 improvement and well-being of his people. The 
 able and intelligent editor of the New York Ex- 
 press, E. Brooks, Esq., thus speaks of a Fair he 
 recently attended at Moscow : — 
 
 " From the Treasury I was favored with a visit 
 to a grand exhibition of all the varieties of goods 
 manufactured in Russia ; and no ways prejudiced 
 as I am in favor of the country I am in, but heart- 
 ily disliking it altogether, I must say, that I have 
 never seen at home an exhibition half as creditable. 
 I did not expect to see any thing in Moscow that 
 would eclipse the annual exhibition of the Ameri- 
 can Institute in New York ; nor should I, if the 
 government at Washington or at Albany afforded 
 half the favors to domestic skill and industry that 
 are afforded by the government here. Such an ex- 
 hibition in Moscow is an occurrence of but once 
 in three years ; and there is an exhibition in St. 
 Petersburg as often, and in some other of the cities 
 of the empire, — making an annual exhibition. 
 
 '' To enumerate all the articles exhibited, would 
 be like enumerating all the trophies of the Treas- 
 ury. There are few kinds of goods not manufac- 
 tured here, and few, the workmanship of which 
 would not be creditable to any country. A build- 
 ing of three times the space of Niblo's Garden was 
 occupied with the various kinds of workmanship, 
 all neatly and tastefully arranged. There was no 
 crowd or bustle, and the avenues were so arranged. 
 
THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 275 
 
 that a person entering at one end of the building, 
 was obliged not only to make his egress from 
 another, but to see every thing that he passed. 
 The work in gold, and silver, and platina, was 
 most beautiful. The cloths were of a superior 
 order, and even the cotton goods were well, strong- 
 ly, and often beautifully made. In much of the 
 fancy-work exhibited, both in dress and in more 
 substantial materials, the manufactures seemed to 
 exhibit a capacity equal to the nations regarded as 
 very far in advance of the one we were in. The 
 musical instruments, too, were equal to the best of 
 those of Germany, and as much may be said of 
 almost every kind of work presented for public 
 favor. I had seen few such specimens of improve- 
 ment out of the fair as within ; and though it was 
 obvious the very best of every thing was here, and 
 arranged in the best manner to make an imposing 
 display, yet every piece of goods, and every article 
 of ware presented, would pass the severest ordeal 
 of inspection." 
 
 The emperor has favored our countrymen with 
 various responsible and important posts of honor 
 and emolument. A son of New Hampshire has 
 been created a count, and is an admiral in th^ 
 Russian navy ; while other equally exalted as well 
 as subordinate offices are held by Americans. Of 
 the great railroad, now being completed from St. 
 Petersburg to Moscow, Mr. Whistler (an able en- 
 gineer from Connecticut) has the entire super- 
 vision, and in this magnificent enterprise there are 
 also many natives of America. Other roads are in 
 contemplation, which are to be constructed as soon 
 as that road is finished. The emperor has also 
 largely patronized our mechanics by building war 
 
276 RUSSIA AND THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 
 
 Steamers and purchasing millions of dollars' worth 
 of our steam engines, &c. &c. 
 
 The delightful duty of defending the " Autocrat 
 of all the Russias " has been impartially but im- 
 perfectly executed; and should it be the means of 
 changing the views of our countrymen in relation 
 to his character and government, our labor will be 
 abundantly rewarded. With the memorable words 
 of Constantino, (and we know the impartial reader 
 will unite with us,) we desire ''that the Most High 
 may watch over the precious health of his Majesty, 
 that He may prolong his days, and that his glory, 
 and the glory of his crown, may be transmitted from 
 generation to generation." 
 
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