lasted till next day at noon : 5000 Poles were slain in the assault, the rest were imprisoned or dispersed. The citizens were now forced to lay down their arms, and their houses were plundered by the merciless Russians; who, after the battle had ceased ten hours, at nine at night set fire to the town, and again began to massacre the people; thus 9000 persons, unarmed men, defenceless women, and harmless infants, perished, either in the flames or by the sword, and nearly the whole suburb was reduced to ashes. During this siege not fewer than 30,000 Poles were put to death. In this exigence count Potocki proposed to treat with the Russians in the name of the republic; but was haughtily answered by Suwarrow, that the empress was not at war with the republic, and that his object was only to reduce her refractory subjects. Deputies were then sent from the magistrates of Warsaw to surrender the city, on the single condition of preserving their lives and property. Suwarrow insisted on the surrender of their arms. This was refused by the Polish soldiers, and their general Wawrzecki, with many others, refused to take part in the capitulation: on which the Russian general allowed the military to leave Warsaw with their arms, but threatened no quarter next time he should meet with them. On the 7th the Supreme Council resigned their authority to the king. Suwarrow on the 9th made his triumphant entry into Warsaw, during which the citizens observed a mournful silence. On the 10th he went with much pomp to pay his respects to king Stanislaus; and, to complete this execrable tragedy, the 1st of December was set apart for solemn thanksgiving, and Te Deum sung for the triumph of powerful oppression. The Polish patriots, to the number of 30,000, who refused to accede to the capitulation, went to Sandomir under Wawrzecki; but were soon forced to disband. Another corps of 6000, under Wawrzecki, Madalinski, and Dambrowski, went to Galicia. A powerful military force was stationed at Warsaw, and cannon pointed at the city in every direction to keep it in subjection. Meantime Kosciusko recovered of his wounds under the care of Madame Chrnozazow. On the 20th of December a courier arrived from the empress, demanding the arrest of count Ignatius Potocki, and several other patriots, whom she sent to Petersburg; and the same messenger brought orders to king Stanislaus to retire to Grodno; he accordingly left Warsaw on the 7th of January, 1795.

Such was the state of Poland, until, in 1806, the victories of Buonaparte brought the French hither, and led their ruler to seek additional means of aggrandisement in the independent spirit of the Poles. At the peace of Tilsit, having stripped Prussia of the greatest part of her possessions here, he gave a small portion to Russia, and erected the rest into the grand duchy of Warsaw, which he assigned to the king of Saxony. In 1809 he compelled Austria to cede part of Galicia to Russia, and a farther part to this new state. But in 1812 the Russians were enabled to occupy Poland; and the congress of Vienna, while it decreed to Austria and Prussia a partial restitution of their late cessions, confirmed to Russia all the Polish and Lithuanian provinces ac

quired before 1795, conferring on her, in addition, the sovereignty of the central provinces, which constitute the present kingdom of Poland Each of the three powers was enjoined by the congress to give to its respective portion of Poland as free a constitution as circumstances should permit. In this some progress has already been made by Russia and Austria; but so backward is the state of civilisation, so debasing are the effects of long servitude, that ages must elapse before the improvement of the Poles can be effectual. The peasantry, when no longer driven to their work by compulsion, have shown themselves so obstinately indolent that the authority of the magistrates has been found necessary to inflict the blows formerly administered by the order of the landholder.

POLAND, THE NEW KINGDOM OF, the only portion of the foregoing country that still retains its ancient name, comprises the central provinces of Poland, or the chief part of that which, from 1807 to 1813, formed the duchy of Warsaw. It is bounded by the respective acquisitions of Russia, Austria, and Prussia. The form of this territory is a square of about 200 miles, in the middle of which stands the capital, Warsaw: there is also a detached tract extending northeast towards Lithuania. Its area is 47,000 square miles, and its population about 3,000,000, divided into the eight palatines of Cracow, Sandomir, Kalisch, Lublin, Plock, Masovia, Podlachia, and Augustow. They participate, in soil and climate, the characteristics common to Poland at large.

Though subject to the same sovereign as Russia, the kingdom of Poland is governed in every respect as a separate monarchy. The late emperor Alexander gave the Poles, in November 1815, a constitutional charter, so framed as to combine several modern improvements in legislation, with the ancient forms of the Polish constitution. Now, as formerly, there is a king, a senate, and a diet. The regal dignity is vested in the czar, represented by a viceroy, and a cabinet of ministers, in whom the executive government resides. The chief ministerial departments are those of war, finance, police, law, and education. All ministers are accountable to the senate, being obliged to lay reports before it, and to submit to its discussions, nearly in the form observed in the British parliament. The senate consists of ten bishops, ten worgwodes (palatines), and ten castellans, named by the king for life. The lower house, or chamber of representatives, of seventy-seven deputies from the provincial nobility and gentry, and of the members of the cabinet, who have seats here ex officio. The diet, on the model of the smaller Polish diet, is limited to the senate and house of representatives. Its sittings last only a fortnight; and the sovereign is not pledged to convoke it more than once in two years: its consent being only necessary to measures of national interest; namely, the imposition of taxes, and acts affecting the constitution. In the provincial administration, each palatinate has a commission for carrying the laws and public business into effect. It has also subordinate commissions, and a local council. Both civil and criminal justice is ad

ministered by provincial courts; in addition, there are two courts of appeal, with one supreme court. The revenue of this kingdom amounts to about £900,000 sterling, of which £180,000 goes to the civil list. The military force is considera

ble in cavalry. The religion of the majority is the Catholic; but the Protestants are numerous; and the Jews are computed to form a seventh of the population.

POLAR REGIONS. Various causes have conspired, within a recent period, to attract attention to those immense basins of water which appear more or less to surround the poles, and unite the two great oceans of the earth. Civilisation has spread toward the northern shores both of America and of Asia; navigation and commercial speculation have extended still farther their discoveries and temporary conquests; the continent of South America has rapidly advanced in political importance, and is taking a new and most interesting station among the free and commercial governments. During this period China and the East Indies have fully maintained their interest with the western world; a shorter passage to those storehouses of wealth and luxury would, at the present time, be as acceptable to Europe as when Columbus was stimulated to seek it-while a state of general peace has for many years enabled the nations best qualified, and most disposed, to promote the science of physical geography. Russia and the United States of North America have contributed their respective quotas of exertion in this cause; but Great Britain, as by her maritime and commercial station in honor and duty bound, and more, perhaps, than in duty bound, has been foremost to explore these dark but interesting recesses of nature. She has nearly completed the boundaries of the North Polar Sea, and penetrated beyond the arctic and antarctic circle, several degrees further than any other nation.

We feel it therefore demanded of us to devote a distinct article to the progressive geography of these regions; noticing first the discoveries of navigators previous to the late expeditions from this country; and then more particularly the result of those spirited undertakings.

NORTH POLAR REGIONS.-In geography, as in some other of the sciences, the world has been singularly indebted to the sincere pursuit of certain great errors. Columbus was thus allured to his arduous enterprise, by supposing that the East Indies extended westward to many times their present width; and, long after the discovery of the extent of the American continent, it was hoped that some opening, admitting a passage to the east, might be found. In some very early maps, preserved in the king's library, Asia and America are united throughout their whole

extent.

Vesputius, Ojeda, and others, however, beat in vain round the Gulf of Mexico, and when they had traced the vast mass of the American continent stretching southward, the minds of men were reluctantly turned towards the north, as the only quarter in which to hope for a passage.

Within two years from the discovery of America by Columbus, our Henry VII. granted a commission to John Cabot, a Venetian, who resided many years at Bristol, to discover unknown lands, and annex them to the crown of England. In the spring of 1497, after steering directly west on the parallel of Bristol for three weeks, he reached a large island which he called Prima Vista, The First Seen,' by subsequent usage named Newfoundland. On the first day of that saint he discovered the neighbouring island St. John's, and having secured three of the inhabitants of these islands, and several of the productions, he is said to have coasted the whole of the north-east promontory of America between 38° and 56° of latitude, although it is remarkable that we hear of no continental point or place to which he gave name.

We are not unaware of the pretensions to the discovery of Newfoundland which have been urged on behalf of the Norwegian navigators of the eleventh century. The story told by Snorro, the northern historian, and once a judge in Iceland, is, that about the year 1001, as one of the Icelandic colonists, named Herjolf, was proceeding with his son Biorn, on a trading voyage, their ships were separated in a squall, and Biora hearing, on the coast of Norway, that his father was gone towards Greenland, steered westward, with the hope of finding him, when a new and severe storm drove him to the southward many leagues, until he reached a fine open country well shaded with wood. Returning to Iceland, Biorn induced a friend and fellow-countryman, of the name of Leif, to go back with him to this new-discovered shore; on approaching which they first observed a barren, rocky island, to which they gave the name of Helleland, and a low sandy coast covered with trees extending beyond it, which they called Markland. A voyage of two days more brought them to new coast of land,' to the northward of which they discovered another and very large island. Here they ascended a river which led to a lake, surrounded with woods, on the banks of which they determined to winter. They described the climate on their return as exceedingly mild and agreeable, the soil fertile, and the fish, particularly salmon, abundant in the river. In the woods they found a wild vine, which was sufficiently welcome to the settlers, to induce them to give the name of Vinland or Winland to the whole country. The shortest da they observed to consist of eight hours sun; the only circumstance of their narrative which indicates the latitude of this district, and which would very well accord with that of the eastern coast of Newfoundland; while, from the other coasts described, it would not appear improbable that.

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these navigators were in reality the first Europeans that reached the western continent. Such obscurity, however, rests over the circumstances of the voyage that that of Cabot has always been taken to be the first authentic discovery of Newfoundland and the neighbouring shores. We should not, indeed, have noticed this ancient record (from the Chronicle of Aldus, Stockholm, 1697) of a circumstance that had dropt from the recollection of mankind until the discoveries of Columbus, and their consequences, but for the singular fact that, after possessing and settling Newfoundland for upwards of two centuries, we have at this day no accurate acquaintance with the interior; no certain information whether there are permanent native inhabitants of the woods or not; and that in a late expedition, undertaken by captain (then lieutenant) Buchan, the commander of one of the British expeditions to the pole, that officer has thrown more light upon this subject than has ever been received in Europe since our possession of the island; and actually found a sort of lake in the country that reminds us of the scenery of this the earliest of all the supposed discoveries of America.

'If it had been Henry's purpose to prosecute the object of the commission given by him to Cabot,' says Dr. Robertson, and to take possession of the countries which he had discovered, the success of this voyage must have answered his most sanguine expectations. His subjects were undoubtedly the first Europeans who had visited that part of the American continent (in modern times); and were entitled to whatever rights of property prior discovery is supposed to confer. On the return of Cabot, however, this monarch was too deeply engaged in his war with Scotland, with insurrections at home, and with a projected alliance with Spain, the sovereign mistress of both Indies, to follow up with any vigor this promising circumstance; and the reigns of his successors, of Edward VI. and of Mary, were too deeply occupied with religious disputes to allow much of the public attention to be afforded to such enterprises. Private individuals, indeed, united with much zeal in the spirit of discovery which was now diffused throughout Europe. In the reign of Henry VIII. the son of John Cabot was despatched by some Bristol merchants to the coast of Brasil, and in that of Edward VI. a company of merchant adventurers for the discovery of regions, dominions, islands, and places unknown,' obtained a charter from the government, and chose this celebrated navigator for their governor. In the same reign we find increasing attention directed to the fisheries of the coast of Newfoundland.

Towards the close of the fifteenth century, and in 1500 and 1501, Cortereal, a Portuguese, also sailed along the coast of Labrador, which is hence in early maps called after him Corterealis, and probably he even traced the entrance of Hudson's Bay. It is certain that he returned with sanguine hopes of discovering a passage, for he soon after set out on a new expedition; but the issue was fatal; he returned no more. His brother Miguel, who went in search of him, shared the same fate. A third, who desired to follow, was stopped by the express orders of the

king. With this enterprising and unfortunate family, seems to have expired the zeal of the Portuguese for northern discoveries.

But the reign of the maiden queen was destined to extend our geographical knowledge, our navy, and our colonies, in the happiest union of efforts. Elizabeth, it is well known, directed her attention to these objects immediately on her accession. She encouraged the company of Merchant Adventurers in their attempts to discover the north-west passage to India; she cultivated the new connexion which had been accidentally opened with Russia by one of the captains; and patronised three successive voyages of Martin Frobisher to the north-east coast of America. In the first of these he reached the coast of Labrador in about six weeks, and shortly after entered the straits in lat. 63° 8' which now bear his name. It is the Lumley's Inlet of Davis, and many writers, having Cape Walsingham on the north, and Resolution Island on the south; and has often been confounded with Hudson's Strait, the larger opening at Cape Chedley, in the south. Frobisher speaks of discovering on this coast, at a distance, a number of smal things floating in the sea, afarre off, which 'he supposed to be porposes, or seales, or some kind of strange fish; but which proved to be men in their canoes, covered with skin.' Having attracted one of them toward him by the sound of a bell, which he appeared to offer as a present, Frobisher caught this strange infidel fast, and plucked him with main force, boat and all, into his bark, out of the sea. Whereupon, when he found himself in captivity, for very choler and distain he bit his tongue in twaine within his mouth.' This man afterwards died in England. The voyage was principally regarded at the time for diffusing a fallacious hope of finding gold in these regions. One of the sailors had accidentally picked up a stone much like to a sea coal in color,' and his wife, on his return, happening to throw a part of it into the fire, and afterwards to quench it with vinegar it glistened with a bright marquesset of gold.' This event soon spread in a credulous age. The gold-finers of London,' says Hakluyt, assayed the stone, and gave it as their judgment that it contained a large quantity of gold. This circumstance actually became the main encouragement to a second voyage, and Frobisher was especially directed by commission' to search for more of this gold ore,' rather than for any further discovery of the passage.' We need, therefore, only further observe, that after taking out 'gold-finers,' to search for ore, and lading their ships on this second voyage with almost 200 tons,' though at first the delusion of having found the all-needful and all-rewarding object of anxiety continued both amongst the crews and at home, upon trial it proved to be no better than black lead; and verified the proverb-that all is not gold that glisteneth.'

Flattered by these partial successes of her commander, queen Elizabeth gave the name of Meta Incognita to the newly-discovered regions, and ordered a third expedition to be prepared to colonise them. Fifteen ships were accordingly destined to the service, twelve of which were to

bring back cargoes of gold ore, and the three others to remain, with 100 men, who were to form the settlement for one whole year. Frobisher was made supreme naval and military commander, and received a gold chain from the queen on his appointment.

The fleet destined for this earliest project of colonising the western world sailed from Harwich on the 31st of May, 1578, passed Cape Clear on the 6th of June, and discovered the coast of West Friesland on the 20th of that month, which was now named West England. All was well' until they reached the mouth of Frobisher's Strait, when the Dennis, a vessel of 100 tons, which had on board a principal part of the house which was designed for the winter settlers, was crushed by an island of ice, and went to the bottom. To this disaster succeeded a violent storm, which dispersed the whole fleet, driving some of the vessels up into the strait, in which they were afterwards locked up by the ice, and others into the open sea. Fogs, mists, and irresistible currents now perplexed them, and threw the admiral's experience itself out of all calculation. The fleet, after parting with two more ships, re-assembled with great difficulty in the countess of Warwick's Sound, and determined, under all the circumstances, to make the best of its way homewards, and abandon for the present the thought of establishing a colony.

In 1578 we find a gentleman of considerable talents and connections, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, receiving a commission from the crown, to undertake western discoveries, and to possess lands unsettled by Christian princes or their subjects, provided that he took possession of them within six years from the discovery. In this year he is said to have undertaken a voyage to Newfoundland; but no details of it remain. In 1583 Elizabeth incorporated a younger brother of Sir Humphrey's, with himself, Adam Gilbert, and other associates into a company to be called The Colleagues of the Fellowship for the Discoverie of the North-West Passage; and Sir Humphrey set sail to take formal possession of Newfoundland, and the Northern coast of America. The Portugals, it is observed in Hakluyt, having a notable trade of fishing,' at this period, on the Newfoundland banke, where there are sometimes more than a hundred sail of ships.'

Sir Humphrey's fleet, consisting of five ships, of from two to ten tons burden, sailed from Cawsand Bay on the 11th of June. Amongst his men were included divers minerall men and refiners,' smiths, carpenters, and artificers; and 'for the solace of our people, and allurement of the savages, we were provided with musicke in good varietie; not omitting the least toyes, as morrice-dancers, hobby-horses, and May-like conceits, to delight the savage people, whom we intended to winne by all faire means possible.' At the harbour of St. John's they were welcomed by several English traders and foreigners, who had already settled here, and in whose presence they took possession of the port, and 200 leagues every way, in the name of the queen of England. Sir Humphrey re-embarked to pursue his discoveries southward. His ship, the Delight, a wretched bark of ten tons, was ultimately

wrecked on Sable Island: and he again set sail for England in the Squirrel frigate. After a variety of uninteresting adventures, he passed the Azores in a perilous condition, on the 9th of September, and was observed to be nearly overwhelmed in a great swell of the sea. He still, however, persevered in making for home; bravely observing, that he would not forsake his little company,' with whom he had passed so many storms and perils.' The last tidings that were heard of him speak of his being seated abaft of the binnacle, with a book in his hand, calling out, Courage, my lads! we are as near to heaven by sea as by land!' This gentleman was half-brother to Sir Walter Raleigh. The first charter of a British colony was granted to him and his companions.

Captain Davis, one of the most successful of our early navigators, was engaged in 1585 on a new expedition to the north; the merchants of the metropolis, being convinced of the likelyhood of the discoverie of the north-west passage;' and that the former commanders had only been diverted from the design by the pursuit of irrelevant objects. Two barks, one of eighty tons called the Sunshine, and another the Moonshine, of thirty-five tons, were placed under his command; the former manned with twenty-three persons, and the latter with nineteen. Touching on the coast of West Greenland this little fleet passed over to the north-east shore of the westerni continent, and saw land in lat. 64° 15', the weather being temperate, and the sea clear of ice. It was a cluster of islands, among which were many faire sounds, and good roads for shipping." The first in which they anchored they called Gilbert's Sound, and found the natives easily attracted by their music and friendly gesticulations. They are a very tractable people, void of craft or double-dealing,' says the narrator; and easie to be brought to any civilitie or good order.' Here they found plenty such oare as M. Frobisher brought from Meta Incognita ;' but seem to have understood its value, or rather want of value, better than he. Standing to the north-west on the 1st of August, in six days they discovered land, and a clear shore, in lat. 66° 40'-' a very fair rode under a brave mount,' to which they gave the name of Mount Raleigh. The north foreland they called Deer's Cape, and the south Cape Walsingham. This latter is to be distinguished from the Cape Walsingham of Frobisher, which is the southernmost point of Hall or Hale Island, at the southern side of Cumberland Strait. The great bay between these headlands they called Exeter Sound. August 8th they returned to the south; and, coasting round Cape Walsingham, reached another southern extremity of the land, now called Cumberland Land, or Island, to which they gave the name of God's Mercy, as being the place of our first entrance for the discovery.' They now sailed west, keeping this land to the north, and found a fine open passage from twenty to thirty leagues in width, the water of the very color. nature, and quality of the main ocean, which gave us the greater hope of our passage.' About sixty leagues up this strait they met with another archipelago of islands; and the weather