cannot bear to see a single farthing pass by its own clutches, would be able to suggest even the semblance of a complaint.

The general account which we have been just giving of the field of employment for our merchant shipping,—even under the operation of the system of reciprocity to which the shipowners choose to attribute grievances of their own creatingof this, we say, mighty field of employment may be the basis and introduction to the few remarks which we can find space for on that part of the subject of navigation which concerns our naval superiority.

Mr. Huskisson did not volunteer the reciprocity system: he would willingly have left other countries to have slept on, in their former supineness to our navigation laws, had they been disposed to do so. When he held out the hand of equal privileges, he did it in order to avoid-what he saw was approaching-a state of universal intercourse, the most hostile imaginable to commerce. Nothing, hardly, can be more anti-commercial than restriction in navigation. The basis of commerce is the diversity of productions in different places: this creates the necessity of moving those productions, in order that they may be universally enjoyed; and the first desideratum of commerce, which undertakes their distribution, is the facility of the removal.

Navigation, therefore, is subservient to commerce; and clear and strong should be the grounds of that institution, which should be allowed to reverse these relations. The necessity to us of a certain quantity of mercantile marine is fully admitted; and the question is-have we not enough of it?

Mr. Huskisson, to the honor of his great name, has left behind him ample proof that he well considered the subject of reciprocity with reference to the adequacy of the degree of maritime strength which would be retained for the country under the operation of a system which he saw so much occasion to introduce and his disinterested and statesman-like opinion upon that subject ought to prevail with the public over all the clamour which a body of interested traders may choose to raise against his measures. He explicitly stated to Parliament the grounds of his proceedings. He exhibited a comparison between the present peace establishment of our navy and its condition at the breaking out of any of our wars; he con

pared the present navies of the other nations of the world with former foreign navies at those epochs; and he brought out the gratifying fact, that our superiority is far more decided than it used to be. He then showed that, exclusive of any trade we might hope to acquire by carrying on a war of duties with the rest of the world, the present quantity of our mercantile marine was far beyond what it had been in those former times, when it was deemed adequate to all the purposes for which it was fostered by any direct assistance from the state. In short, he convinced the House that " navigation" was satisfied, and that "commerce" could be safely re-admitted to claim its rights. Where is the disinterested man who, upon trading principles, would sacrifice commerce to navigation?

Let us put one more question.-Suppose that, for some reason, the protective portion of the timber duty were levied on buildings, and collected, half-yearly, from door to door; and that the produce were distributed in bounties to the shipowners and colonists.-With what temper would a sum, quite equal to the late house tax, be so paid for such a purpose? The mode of collection and distribution does not alter the case ;-and yet people, who almost rebelled against the house-tax, seem to court the charge of the timbertax !

ARTICLE X.

Notes addressed by the Plenipotentiaries of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, to the President and the Senate of the Free Town of Cracow. Dated the 9th and 16th of February, 1836.

Proclamations of General Kaufman, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Troops on the Territory of Cracow. Dated the 17th of February, 1836.

Nouvelle Constitution de la Ville libre de Cracovie. Dated the 30th of May, 1833.

Debate in the House of Commons on the Questions addressed to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs by Sir STRATFORD CANNING, on the 18th of March, 1836.

In our number for last October, we laid before our readers the motives which then appeared to us sufficiently powerful

for inducing the British Government to send, without delay, a diplomatic agent to the free town of Cracow. We urged this measure as much with a view to future changes, as to the performance of the obligations imposed upon us by the treaty of Vienna. Since the publication of that article, events with which the public are familiarly acquainted, and which the official documents at the head of these pages abundantly attest, have shown that our prognostications were not exaggerated or premature. The occupation of Cracow and the abrogation of its nominal privileges have set the seal of truth upon the representations we then made. We shall not indulge in any comments on the conduct of those who, by a month's delay, have sacrificed an advantageous position which might have been preserved for an indefinite period. But the great and merited interest which this event has produced in Europe, warrants us in recurring to arrangements now so foully broken; in reviving recollections now so barbarously effaced; and in renewing remonstrances which have more than once been preferred in vain, but which can never be slighted with impunity. The occupation of Cracow by the northern allies, has done more to excite the indignation and the apprehensions of civil society in the west of Europe than the capture of Warsaw itself. The fall of the capital of Poland was the termination of an unequal conflict, which had filled Europe with the noise of arms; the occupation of Cracow is an act of aggression in the midst of profound peace, and a result of that diplomatic strategy which rarely betrays its purposes until they are consummated. The former was the triumph of an overwhelming vengeance; the latter is the successful display of an insinuating ambition: and Europe is roused to fresh sympathy with Poland when fresh attacks bear witness to her enduring energy and to her protracted misfortunes. We may then claim the attention of our readers while we lay before them some account of the negociations, which accompanied the original creation of the independent republic of Cracow, and of the events which have attended its recent Occupation.

It is well known that the question of Poland long occupied the Congress of Vienna, and kept all the powers, assembled upon that memorable occasion, in suspense. Russia had suc

cessively repudiated the project of creating an independent Polish kingdom, as well as of a new partition of the Duchy of Warsaw a state which remained at the close of the war in the exclusive occupation of her armies. She had at last succeeded in obtaining possession of the Duchy under the title of the kingdom of Poland, when a fresh difficulty, scarcely less serious, arose with regard to the City of Cracow.

At that time Cracow belonged to the Duchy of Warsaw; but it had been subject to Austria during the whole period, which elapsed between the third partition of Poland in 1795 and the peace of 1809, when it was added to the Duchy. The Emperor Alexander conceded to Prussia that considerable portion of the Polish territory, which has since been called the Grand Duchy of Posen. Austria at first laid claim to an equivalent concession; but she soon desisted from her own pretensions, in order to insist with greater force on an arrangement destined to prevent Russia from advancing in a direction which threatened the only line of communication between Vienna and Gallicia. The road between the capital of the Austrian empire and that province passes within a league and a half of Cracow. The position of the town commands a passage of the Vistula: the town itself is protected by the river. It is evident that the possession of Cracow would give Russia an immense advantage over Austria, since it must enable a Russian army to issue from the gates of the city, and to cut off Gallicia from the rest of the empire by a single march. Austria was so deeply interested in obviating this exposure to attack, that the contracting powers were induced to sanction the existence of an independent intermediate state, on that point of territory. With a view to increase its importance, a proposal was made to extend its frontiers, and to confer it upon the Prince Gustavus Vasa, the legitimate heir to the throne of Sweden, by way of compensation for the kingdom he had lost. The Emperor Alexander perhaps recollected that the Vasas had more than once worn the crown of Poland during the seventeenth century, and he dreaded the

This road was the only line of communication before the construction of the two military roads, which now cross the Carpathian Mountains from Hungary to Gallicia; these routes are usually rendered impracticable in winter by the snow.

influence associated with their name; perhaps other motives operated to restrict the boundaries of the projected state. But it was finally determined by the Congress that Cracow should be constituted a FREE TOWN, with a territory of 496 square miles on the left bank of the Vistula, and a population of 110,000 inhabitants. Austria obtained a confidential assurance by which Russia pledged herself never to post a body of troops in that part of the kingdom of Poland which lies beyond the Nida, a river flowing within about fifty miles of Cracow. Austria on her side, "granted* to the riveraine town of Podgorze (opposite to Cracow and belonging to Austria) the privileges of a free trading town in perpetuity;" and promised never to establish, within that town or within a distance of "500 toises, any military posts which may threaten the "neutrality of Cracow +."

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When the general basis of this arrangement was determined, the political condition and the privileges of the new State of Cracow, were regulated and recognised in the following official acts:

First. In the treaty relating to the whole of Poland, concluded between Russia and Austria, on the 3rd of May, 1815. Secondly. In a similar treaty concluded between Russia and Prussia, and bearing the same date.

Thirdly. In the additional treaty relating to Cracow, concluded between Russia, Austria, and Prussia: same date. Fourthly. In the constitution of the free town of Cracow, annexed to the last-mentioned treaty.

Fifthly, and lastly.-In the general act of the Treaty of Vienna, which repeats the principal stipulations of these partial treaties in its first fourteen articles, and declares afterwards, Art. 118," That they are considered as integral parts of the "arrangements of the Congress, and shall have everywhere

Art. 8, Acte Général du Traité de Vienne.

In conformity with this reciprocal engagement, no Russian or Polish troops were posted beyond the Nida, from the conclusion of the treaty of Vienna to the year 1831. The Polish insurrection furnished the Russian troops with a pretext for invading Cracow; and after they evacuated the territory of the Republic, a large body remained upon the frontier. The Austrians construed this position of their neighbours in their own way; and in direct contradiction to Art. 8 of the treaty, they maintain a strong garrison in the town of Podgorze.