to King Stanislaus, and declaring their intention of preserving their monarchy, the Poles placed themselves under the guidance of their Great Dictator, so long as the struggle against the enemy should continue. The Prussian troops now took an active part in the campaign against the Poles, whom the Russians, single-handed, were plainly unable to subdue. An army of forty thousand Prussians marched upon Cracow, and united themselves with Denisoff's troops. Kosciusko attacked them at Scekocin, on the 8th June, but the disparity of numbers was too great, and, after some gallant fighting, he was obliged to retreat upon Kielce, leaving the road to Cracow open to the enemies. This city was soon obliged to surrender to a Prussian division, and, about the same time, a Polish corps under General Zaginczech, was completely defeated by a Russian force under Defelden. These reverses were met by Kosciusko with unflinching fortitude. His army, though beaten at Scekocin, had not been routed; and while he rested and reinforced it at his camp at Kielce, he issued proclamations and orders to all the Polish generals on the frontiers, bidding them carry the war into the Prussian and Russian territories, and offer liberty to the enslaved and oppressed populations. But, in the meanwhile, scenes occurred at Warsaw which did serious injury to the Polish cause, and threatened to disgrace it as deeply as the cause of freedom had been disgraced in France. The mob of the capital broke out into the most furious violence, when the reverses of the national armies were known. On the same pretexts as those assigned by the Jacobins of Paris in their September massacres, the anarchists of Warsaw attacked the prisons, threatening instant death to all traitors. The magistrates, at imminent danger to themselves, checked the riot, but not before eight of the prisoners had been seized and slaughtered. Kosciusko showed the deepest grief and indignation when informed of these excesses. Count Oginsky, who served under Kosciusko during this war, heard from Kosciusko's own lips how he lamented this blot on the Polish revolution. He did more than lament it. He caused a strict investigation to be made respecting the originators of these crimes, and seven of the ringleaders were executed by his orders. Kosciusko was, indeed, neither a sanguinary party chief, nor a fanatical democrat. He had the good sense to understand that the republican institutions which he had seen introduced into America, were wholly unsuited for the Polish nation. He seems to have thought a limited hereditary monarchy, with a representative house of commons, and with fair privileges secured to the higher nobility, the best adapted for his country. He showed the equity and humanity of his disposition by the efforts that he made to ameliorate the condition of the serfs; though these efforts lost him the good-will and co-operation of some of the great landowners, who looked on their peasants as their chattels, and were more influenced by avarice than by humanity or patriotism. Simple in his habits, unaffected in his manners, amiable and mild to his comrades and associates, chivalrously bold in danger, and sternly resolute when duty required, he was the idol of his soldiers' hearts, and won the admiration and esteem even of his foes. At the end of June an Austrian army entered Little Poland, and though it did not proceed to further hostilities, it necessarily weakened the forces of the defenders, by requiring a Polish corps of observation to be drafted from the other armies and employed in watching its movements. The combined Prussians and Russians now advanced from Cracow upon Warsaw. Kosciusko was too weak to fight a pitched battle with them, and he retreated before them to a strongly-fortified camp, which he had directed to be prepared a few miles from the city. He had also caused the fortifications of Warsaw to be strengthened, and the invaders were repulsed in several assaults upon the city; while, from the judicious position which Kosciusko had taken, he made it impossible for them to carry on a regular siege. After several partial engagements, in which the Polish general showed great skill, and his troops great bravery, the Allies-who, besides their losses in action, suffered severely for want of provisions, retreated from Warsaw on the 5th of September. The Polish provinces, which the late treaties of partition had given to Prussia, now rose in arms. Kosciusko sent one of his best generals, with a considerable number of troops to aid them, and in a short time nearly the whole of Great Poland was in the hands of the patriots; an advantage which seemed to compensate for the loss of Lithuania, which the Russians had reconquered while the first siege of Warsaw was proceeding. But the Czarina was resolved to crush the Polish insurrection at any cost and at all hazards. She therefore ordered her celebrated general, Suwarrow, to march with his army of victorious veterans from the frontiers of Turkey, through the south-eastern provinces of Poland upon Warsaw. Kosciusko, after the deliverance of the capital from the Russian and Prussian troops that had attacked it from the southwest, had followed the retreating enemies for some distance southward of that city, and had established his head-quarters on the left bank of the Vistula. The Russian general, Fersen, who, after the departure of the King of Prussia, assumed the chief command of the allies, and who was speedily reinforced by several divisions of his countrymen, was posted on the opposite bank. The news of Suwarrow's approach on the east, obliged Kosciusko to prepare an army to oppose this fresh antagonist. General Sierakovsky, one of the best of the Polish officers, was accordingly sent with fifteen thousand men to check the advance of Su warrow. At this time ten thousand of the Polish troops were employed in watching the Austrians. Several thousands, under Madalinski, were actively engaged in southern Prussia. Lithuania had exhausted an army; Warsaw required a garrison; and the main Polish army, under Kosciusko, was reduced to seventeen thousand men; and a large proportion of these were recruits, imperfectly armed and disciplined. The want of natural barriers, which characterises Poland, and her want also of frontier fortresses, made the task of defending her with the slender means at Kosciusko's disposal peculiarly difficult. The rivers Vistula and Bug offered the only lines of defence; and while Kosciusko himself kept the western Russian army, under Fersen, from crossing the former, he trusted to Sierakovsky preventing the eastern Russian army, under Suwarrow, from passing the latter stream. But Sierakovsky was no match for the conqueror of Ismail. Suwarrow came on him by surprise, and almost destroyed his army in a series of engagements, which were all desperately fought, but all completely lost by the Poles. Suwarrow advanced rapidly as far as Bresck, and Kosciusko was obliged to quit his own position near the Vistula, in order to protect the capital. Leaving Prince Poninski, with a third of his army, to guard the Vistula against Fersen, he himself took a central station at Lukow, and concentrated the scattered Polish forces for the purpose of making a bold effort to crush Suwarrow, who had moved forward to Bresck with such haste, that only a portion of his troops had been able to keep up with him. But Fersen completely out-manoeuvred Poninski, and, on the 8th of October, succeeded in placing his whole army on the right bank of the Vistula, so that only a few score miles of open country now separated the two Russian armies from each other. Kosciusko felt the instant necessity of fighting his enemies before their junction could be completed, and, for that purpose, leaving one of his generals, Mokranovski, with some troops to retard Suwarrow, he himself hastened, with about eleven thousand men, to Maciovice, where he ordered Poninski to join him, with the intention of then attacking Fersen, whose troops were near that town. But Fersen attacked Kosciusko himself before Poninski came up. The decisive battle was fought on the 8th October. The numerical superiority of the Russians was not very great, but Fersen's men were veterans, and he had a large force of cavalry and of guns, while Kosciusko was almost entirely destitute of artillery and horse, and his soldiers were chiefly half-disciplined and half-equipped volunteers. Still the battle was long and well-contested, and the Polish infantry held their ground stubbornly for hours, in the hopes of Poninski's division coming up to aid them. At length the superior fire of the Russian artillery, and the charges of their horse regiments on the flank of the Poles, broke the left wing of Kosciusko's army, and spread confusion throughout his line. Collecting his principal officers round him, Kosciusko made a desperate effort to redeem the day by a charge, which he headed in person, against the Russian centre. But his little band was overwhelmed with numbers, and cut down almost to a man: he himself received several severe wounds, and fell to the ground, exclaiming, "Finis Poloniæ !" His words were too true. Within a few days after his defeat and capture, the Russians drove the remnants of the Polish armies before them into Warsaw. On the 4th of November, Suwarrow stormed Praga, the fortified suburb of that city. Warsaw itself capitulated on the 6th, and the final treaty of partition ensued, by which Austria, Russia, and Prussia, divided the last remains of Poland among them, and one of the most ancient, and at one time of the most splendid and powerful states of Christendom, ceased to exist. Kosciusko himself was recognized and respected by the Russian soldiery on the fatal field of Maciovice. His wounds were cured, and though the Empress Catherine caused him to be imprisoned at St. Petersburg, her successor Paul released him in 1796. He declined rank in the Russian service; and, after passing some time in the United States and in this country, he lived for many years in retirement in the neighbourhood of Paris. He saw through the selfish ambition of Napoleon, and honourably refused either to serve under him himself, or to try to persuade his countrymen to become soldiers of fortune under the French eagles. When solicited to do so, he replied, "What, despotism for despotism? The Poles have enough of it at home, without going so far to purchase it at the price of their blood." In 1814, he wrote to the Emperor Alexander in favour of the Poles, asking for an amnesty for all exiles, for a free constitution, like that of England, to be given to Poland, and that schools might be founded for the education of the serfs. Disappointed in the hopes that he had formed respecting Alexander's treatment of his country, Kosciusko retired to Soleure, in Switzerland, where he closed his blameless and honourable existence in 1817. ODE TO THE ANCIENT BRITONS. BY A DESCENDANT OF THE MAWRS.* When wild in woods the noble savage ran. DRYDEN. And modern Britons justly praise their sires. BYRON. In Albion's ancient days, midst northern snows, And, borne in chains from Cambria's mountains bleak, RICHARDS. I.-1. ALL hail to the race of the hero and bard, Who the Gaul and the Saxon defied ! Who in freedom—not fame-sought the warrior's reward, Hail to the race !-though rolling ages, since, Saw your lost land by feudal tyrants fill'd, Powerless they pass'd-brave nation!-patriot prince !- 2. Vain was thy vengeance "ruthless king," To sweep from Memory's page The record of the brave and just, See in the land whence exiled long, A Bard arise, to whose high song A Bard who Cambria's wrongs bewail'd, A Bard whom Cambria's BARDS had hail'd As worthy of their band! Mawr, signifying in the Welsh language Great, was the surname of the ancient British princes. + The bard of years to come, Who harps of Arthur's and of Owen's deeds, Alluding to the massacre of the Bards by order of Edward I., and Gray's magnificent ode on that subject. And ne'er-the minstrel sings-thy race Or could that crime atone, Until again the British blood Was mingled with the Saxon flood, Rolling on, in its widening course, Still there, but enrich'd by their tides, The pure wave that first sprang from the source ! 5. British, but royal now no more, • Weave the warp and weave the woof, + The British blood was restored in Owen Tudor, the grandfather of Henry the Seventh. It was the common belief of the Welsh nation that King Arthur was still alive in Fairyland, and would return again to reign over Britain. "Both Merlin and Taliessin had prophesied," says Gray," that the Welsh should regain their sovereignty over this island, which seemed to be accomplished in the House of Tudor." |