In the meantime, in the month of April the Emperor made the offer of an amnesty to Poland, granting “a free pardon to all those of our subjects in the Kingdom implicated in the late troubles who have not incurred the responsibility of other crimes or misdemeanours committed on service in the ranks of our army, and who may before the 1st (13th) of May lay down their arms and return to their allegiance.” This offer the Central Committee, who now called themselves the Provisional Government, in insulting terms contemptuously refused. They published a proclamation which said: “Poland is well aware what confidence she can place in this pretended amnesty, and in the promises of the Russian Government. But to avoid any mistake, we formally declare that we reject all these false concessions. It was not with the intention of obtaining more or less liberal concessions that we took up arms, but to get rid of the detested yoke of a foreign government, and to reconquer our ancient and complete independence.” The treatment by the Poles of the Emperor’s magnanimous offer furnished the answer to the officious advice given by Lord Russell. There was one class of unfortunates who suffered by the Polish insurrection of whom little or nothing has been said or written, and whose troubles have therefore excited no commiseration out of Russia. The landed proprietors of Poland, wishing to introduce into the country improved agricultural methods, imported from Germany a number of Protestant labourers. These men during the rebellion were persecuted with all the animosity of bigoted Catholicism and conscious inferiority by the Schliachta, or petty nobility, seconded by the jealousy of the peasants, who naturally looked upon them as interlopers—“blacklegs” as men say nowadays—and as having no right to cumber the country. Their dwellings were destroyed, their families murdered, and the survivors dared not go back to their homes. The Imperial Government, having been compelled to take the case in hand, resolved to send 1,800 of these poor fellows to the government of Samatra, a rich province to which many of the exiled Poles had already been sent. There is no doubt that if the Russians acted with severity, the Poles outdid them in cruelty. The two were well matched, and between them it is fearful to think what must have been the general average of misery!