The Treaty of Chaumont of 1814 created the Concert of Europe.  At the Congress of Vienna of 1815 the frontiers of Europe were fixed by general consent.  As Prussia, Austria, and Russia refused to recreate an independent Poland, England’s opposition would have broken up the concert, and might have led to further wars.  Unable to prevent the injustice done to Poland by her opposition, and anxious to maintain the unity of the powers and the peace of the world, England consented at last to consider the partition of Poland as a fait accompli, and formally recognized it, especially as the Treaty of Vienna assured the Poles of just and fair treatment under representative institutions.  Article I. of the Treaty of Vienna stated expressly: 

Les Polonais, sujets respectifs de la Russie, de l’Autriche et de la Prusse, obtiendront une representation et des institutions nationales reglees d’apres le mode d’existence politique que chacun des gouvernements auxquels ils appartiennent jugera utile et convenable de leur accorder.

By signing the Treaty of Vienna, England recognized not explicitly, but merely implicitly, the partition of Poland, and she did so unwillingly and under protest.  Lord Castlereagh stated in a circular note addressed to Russia, Prussia, and Austria, that it had always been England’s desire that an independent Poland, possessing a dynasty of its own, should be established, which, separating Austria, Russia, and Prussia, should act as a buffer State between them; that, failing its creation, the Poles should be reconciled to being dominated by foreigners, by just and liberal treatment which alone would make them satisfied.  His note, which is most remarkable for its far-sightedness, wisdom, force, and restraint, was worded as follows: 

The undersigned, his Britannic Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Plenipotentiary to the Congress of Vienna, in desiring the present note concerning the affairs of Poland may be entered on the protocol, has no intention to revive controversy or to impede the progress of the arrangements now in contemplation.  His only object is to avail himself of this occasion of temperately recording, by the express orders of his Court, the sentiments of the British Government upon a European question of the utmost magnitude and influence.

The undersigned has had occasion in the course of the discussions at Vienna, for reasons that need not be gone into, repeatedly and earnestly to oppose himself, on the part of his Court, to the erection of a Polish Kingdom in union with and making part of the Imperial Crown of Russia.

The desire of his Court to see an independent power, more or less considerable in extent, established in Poland under a distinct dynasty, and as an intermediate State between the three great monarchies, has uniformly been avowed, and if the undersigned has not been directed to press such a measure, it