Poland: the weakness or debased condition of his victim is no justification of the robber. But a true view of the case is highly important, as the means of justifying or explaining to our minds the dispensations or permissions of Divine Providence, which could allow such an unhappy result to be brought about. The original and essential cause, we see, of Poland’s destruction, was her own internal disorder. Thus it is, that moral evil, whether in individuals or in nations, ever leads to physical suffering.
Russia, too, has herself suffered, and must continue to suffer — internally, at least, if not from any foreign aggression — in consequence of so many of her people being held in bondage. A census of Russia, published about the year 1848, rates the whole population at fifty-three. millions, five hundred thousand souls 3 of which number only eleven millions and a half are free persons — the remaining forty — two millions being serfs or slaves. Of the latter, fifteen millions belong to the crown,[1] and twenty-seven millions to private individuals. Thus, in Russia, only one man in five is free: four — fifths of the inhabitants are slaves[2] What widespread suffering must be the consequence of such a state of things! Slaves to the absolute will of masters, who are, many of them, in a semi-barbarous state, in a severe climate, too, like that of Russia, and with the soil but half-cultivated — What sufferings must the serfs often endure from cold and want, as well as from the
