The Polish insurrection, then in progress, furnishes the motive of this cartoon, which serves to recall the good will shown by Russia for the Union, when it stood without other friends among the nations. How substantial was this good will furnishes the cue to a chapter in our history which yet remains to be written. A part of this chapter the writer once had from the lips of the late Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania. Just before General Cameron went to Russia as American Minister in the early part of 1862 he was charged with a secret commission. He was directed, upon the presentation of his letters to the Russian Chancellor in St. Petersburg, to say that President Lincoln asked that the Minister might have a personal and confidential interview with the Czar. If this was accorded he should say to the Czar that the President was troubled about the possibility of interference by England or France in behalf of the Confederacy, and that if the friendship of Russia was such as to justify the monarch in conveying, confidentially, any intimation of his feelings and attitude in such a contingency, the President would be grateful. The interview was accorded, the message was delivered and the answer was cordial, and in about these words: "The friendship of Russia for the United States has long continued, and is such as to justify the President's request. The reply of Russia is ready. You will convey to Mr. Lincoln my personal regards, and say that the danger of interference by any European nation is exceedingly remote; but in that improbable contingency, or upon the appearance of real danger of it, the friendship of Russia for the United States will be made known in a decisive manner, which no other nation will be able to mistake."