ence,
with the free constitution which had been promised. "The Poles," said
Klopicki, "know how to be faithful; and when all Europe abandoned him
before whose victorious eagles the nations had prostrated themselves,
the Polish battalions, firm in the hour of reverses, never ceased till
the last moment to range themselves round the fallen conqueror. But in
the present instance the power of evil had overstepped all bounds; it
was impossible to convey the language of truth to the head of the state;
flatterers, greedy of reward and prodigal of calumnies, gave us
every day new chains instead of liberty. Never was insurrection more
legitimate. No; the king himself will be forced to admit the justice of
our cause, when he comes to know the extent to which he was abused." But
what could the unhappy Poles have expected from the mercy of the haughty
autocrat Nicholas? They sent two commissioners to St. Petersburg, in
order to attempt to arrange some terms of compromise; but the emperor
refused to listen to their representations, and issued proclamations in
which he threatened to inflict on the Poles the most severe punishment
for what he called "their horrid treason." The year closed with a storm
thickly gathering over the unhappy country of Poland.

In Spain, Ferdinand deeply offended the Carlists by his abolition of the
salique law in favour of the child, if it should be a female, with which
his queen was pregnant, and thus gave rise to a war which long desolated
the northern provinces of Spain, as well as to the quadripartite treaty,
under which it was hoped that the country might enjoy the blessings of
a constitutional government. When the infant was born, it proved to be
a daughter, and the nation was called upon to proclaim Don Carlos
immediately. A civil war commenced; but the Carlists were at the close
of the year so far subdued as to leave the government in apparent
security. In Portugal, Don Miguel, still cut off from direct
communication with European sovereigns, except his brother of Spain,
continued, by means of special commissions, to take vengeance on those
of his subjects suspected of political delinquencies, and to supply
his wants by the confiscation of their property. Blood had, it is
true, ceased to flow; but a more terrible and lingering destruction was
ensured to his victims by their deportation to servitude in the African
settlements. In the beginning of the year about fifty persons, whose
only offence was