The Poles are still, so far as our accounts can
be relied on, in a fair way. Some apprehension, however, is felt lest General DIRBITSCH may have feigned a retreat, on the same principle that he did so previous to crossing the Balkan, in order to lead his enemy away from his vantage-ground, and by a rapid Rank move- ment to get between him and it. From the Warsaw Gazette, it appears that he had suddenly turned from the banks of the Wieprz, which, it was supposed, he intended to pass, and, marching to- wards the great road from Warsaw to Siedlec, that his forces were once more at the latter. We do not pretend to understand the value of these manoeuvres. We must wait the event with patience. It is the event, in war above all departments of art, that justifies the means.
Nicnotas has published an ukase, the principal value of which is the facts which its fulminations let out. Certain portions of Wilna are admitted to be disturbed ; and we may easily guess the disturbances are not small, from the punishments threatened against their leaders. Nobles are to be tried by a Court-martial, and shot, their property confiscated, their male children placed at the Emperors disposal: all persons of inferior rank taken in arms are to be sent to Siberia; their male children are to be reared as soldiers. Our humane law takes the property and abrogates the titles of traitors, but it spares the persons of their offspring. Will any casuist deny that such a proclamation, which professes to treat the nobles and people of Poland as beasts or worse—for he who kills the deer lets the lawn go free—justifies the use of any weapon by which the weak can reach the strong ? If a King proclaim himself a common executioner, what should hinder his victims from turning common stalkers in the desperation of their defence ?
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