e taken the form of a foreign coercion of a legitimate king
for his unreadiness to make concessions to his revolted subjects, had
not the attention of the three absolutist powers of eastern and central
Europe been directed to another quarter. Just as the revolution of 1820
had spread through southern Europe in spite of Castlereagh's attempt to
maintain that it was not of a contagious order, so that of 1830 awakened
similar outbursts not only at Brussels but in various German states, in
Switzerland, in Poland, and in Italy. The Polish insurrection was, like
the Belgian, a national revolt, and the consequent military operations
were of the nature of a war between Poland and Russia. The revolt broke
out at Warsaw on November 29, 1830, and on January 25, 1831, the Polish
diet proclaimed the independence of Poland. On February 5 a Russian army
crossed the Polish frontier. In France there was a loud popular demand
for intervention. But even the Laffitte ministry would not move without
the co-operation of Great Britain, though the French ambassador at
Constantinople tried to stir up the Porte to hostilities. The ministry
of Casimir-Perier, which came into office in March, proposed a joint
mediation of France and Great Britain, but to this Palmerston would not
assent. He remonstrated with Russia on her violations of the Polish
constitution, which Great Britain, along with the other powers, had
guaranteed at the congress of Vienna, but he could not support the
Polish claim to independence, since Great Britain had made herself a
party to the union of the two countries. As it happened, the
remonstrance was simply a cause of annoyance, which subsequent events
were destined to intensify. It was only on September 8, 1831, that the
Russians under Paskievitch captured Warsaw, an event which was followed
on February 26, 1832, by the abolition of the Polish constitution.
Palmerston protested again but with no more success than in the previous
year.

[Pageheading: _DOM MIGUEL AND DON CARLOS._]

In the Portuguese, as in the Belgian question, Palmerston drifted from
the position of a neutral into that of a partisan. Ever since the year
1828, British subjects accused of political offences had been brutally
ill-treated in Portugal, and as time went on the excesses increased. By
despatching six British warships to the Tagus Palmerston succeeded in
obtaining a pecuniary indemnity and a public apology on May 2, 1831.
Similar insults to France w