made to break stones or wheel barrows on the streets or highways like
galley slaves. Persons of rank were frequently taken from their homes,
immured in prison, and dismissed after several weeks' incarceration
without knowing what alleged offence had provoked such a wanton exercise
of power contrary to the charter and the privileges of Poland; state
offenders were carried out of the country to Russian prisons and
attempts were made to give them a journey to Siberia, which were only
prevented by the threat of suicide on the part of the victims. The
resources of the kingdom were squandered entirely for Russian objects;
and the people were oppressed to maintain a Polish and a Russian army.
Peculation and pillage was the order of the day. The president of the
town of Warsaw, with a salary of between 500l. and 600l. contrived
to amass a fortune of 100,000l. in fifteen years, besides living in
splendour and squandering twice his legal income. The same unprincipled
peculation was practised by other municipal or state officers. The
Russian generals were in league with the magistrates and billet-master,
to divide the booty received from the inhabitants as the price of
exemption from the oppressive quartering of troops on their houses.
Spies were employed by the police to watch every man of the least
consequence in society, and the nobility were often driven to the
country to avoid such dangerous intruders. In several instances
members of the diet were banished to their estates, and made to pay
the troops that guarded them, for having ventured in the assembly,
whose discussions ought to have been free, to express a suspicion of
the government, or to hint an opinion contrary to the taste of the
grand duke.

"The following statement of facts on this head, to which we have seen no
allusion made in the public prints, but the authenticity of which may be
relied on, will give a better idea of the system of Russian government