dispatched ambassadors to Pichegru's head-quarters with new proposals

for peace.

The French Generals, desirous to avoid the appearance of subjugating the Dutch, were pausing in their career, expecting that revolutionary movements would manifest themselves in the principal towns, to which, indeed, they incited the inhabitants by encouraging proclamations. The event justified their expectations. On the 18th of January, 1795, the popular party in Amsterdam surrounded the burgomasters in the townhall, at the moment when the advanced guard of the French army reached the gate of that city. The magistrates, in alarm, resigned their authority; Democratic leaders were installed in their places; the tricolor flag was hoisted on the Hôtel-de-Ville, and the Republican troops entered the town amid the shouts of the multitude. The conquest of this rich and powerful city, which had defied the whole power of Louis XIV, and imposed such severe conditions on France at the treaties of Utrecht and Aix-la-Chapelle, was of great importance to the French government. Utrecht, Leyden, Haarlem, and all the other towns of Holland soon underwent a similar revolution and received the French troops as deliverers. But an event, still more marvellous, succeeded these rapid and surprising conquests: namely, the capture of the Dutch fleet of fifty vessels, by a squadron of French cavalry! The ships were at the time frozen up in the Texel; and the Republican forces, after having crossed the lake of Biesbos on he ice and made themselves masters of the arsenal of Dordrecht, containing six hundred cannons, ten thousand muskets and immense stores of ammunition, passed through Rotterdam and took possession of the Hague. A body of cavalry now crossed the Zuyder Zee, and summoned the fleet: the commanders, confounded at the hardihood of the enterprise, immediately surrendered to this novel kind of assailants. The province of Zealand capitulated about the same time, Friesland and Groningen were successively evacuated, the British troops embarked for England, and the whole of the United Provinces submitted to the Republican arms.

CHAPTER IX.

POLAND.

THE kingdom of Poland formerly extended from the Borysthenes to the Danube, and from the Euxine to the Baltic. She was the Sarmatia of the ancients, and embraced, within her borders, the original seat of those nations which subverted the Roman Empire. Prussia, Moravia, Bohemia, Hungary, the Ukraine, Courland and Livonia are all fragments of her once mighty dominion. The Goths, who appeared as suppliants on the Danube, and were ferried across by Roman hands never to be driven back; the Huns, who under Attila spread desolation through the Empire; the Sclavonians, who overspread the greater part of Europe-all emerged from her vast and uncultivated plains. But her subsequent progress has ill corresponded to such a commencement: her greatest triumphs have ever been succeeded by her greatest reverses; the establishment of her

internal freedom has led to nothing but external disaster, and the deliverer of Europe in one age, was in the next swept from the book of nations.

These extraordinary facts have arisen from one cause: that Poland retained, until a modern period, the independence and equality of her ancient savage life. She was neither subjugated by more polished States, nor did she vanquish more civilized ones; the simplicity and bravery of the pastoral character remained unchanged in her native plains for fifteen hundred years. And as Poland then was, she ever continued-a race of jealous freemen and iron-bound slaves; a wild democracy ruling a captive people. After representative assemblies had been established for centuries in Germany, France and England, the Poles adhered to their ancient custom of summoning every freeman to discuss, sword in hand, the affairs of the Republic. An hundred thousand horsemen met always for this purpose in the field of Volo, near Warsaw; and this terrible assembly, where all the proprietors of the soil were convoked, constituted at once the military strength of the nation in war, and its legislature in peace. In the estimation of this haughty race, the will of a freeman was what no human power should attempt to control; and, therefore, it was the fundamental principle of all their deliberations, that no resolution could be adopted but by a literally unanimous vote. This relic of savage equality was productive of incalculable evils to the Republic; yet, so blind are men to the cause of their own ruin, it was ever adhered to by the Poles with enthusiastic obstinacy, and is even spoken of with admiration by their national historians. Unanimity, however, is a virtual impossibility in human legislation; and as it could not occur in Poland more than elsewhere, and as it was indispensable, nevertheless, that the affairs of their government should go on, the Poles adopted the only other method of expediting their deliberations: they massacred the minority. This appeared to them an evil incomparably less than carrying measures by a majority: "Because," they reasoned, "the acts of violence are few in number, and affect only the individual sufferers: but if once the precedent is established of compelling the minority to be governed by the majority, there is an end to the liberty of the people."

The clergy, that important body who have done so much for the freedom of Europe, never formed a separate order, or possessed any spiritual influence in Poland: the order was confined to the nobles, who had no sympathy with the serfs, and disdained to admit them to any of their sacred offices. The inequality of fortune, too, and the rise of urban industry, the source of so much benefit to all the other European powers, was in Poland productive of positive evil. Fearful of being compelled to divide their power with the inferior classes when they chanced to be elevated by riches and intelligence, the nobles affixed the stigma of dishonor to every lucrative or useful profession. Their maxim was, that nobility is not lost by indigence, or even by domestic servitude, but is destroyed by commerce and industry their constant policy was, also, to debar the serfs from the use of arms; for, though they continued to despise, they had also learned to fear them. In short, the freemen, or nobility of Poland, strenuously resisting every kind of power and every attempt at superiority on the part of the lower orders, as a usurpation, and, on their own part, every kind of industry as a degradation, remained, to the close of their career, at open variance with all the principles on which the prosperity of society depends.

:

The crown of Poland, though held long by the great families of the Jagellons and the Piasts, had always been elective. The king disposed of all offices in the Republic, and a principal part of his duty consisted in going from province to province to administer justice in person. The nobility carried his sentences into execution with their own armed force; and as there was never any considerable standing army in the service of the Republic, the military force of the throne was altogether nugatory.

Nothing can so strongly demonstrate the wonderful power of democracy and its desolating effects when unrestrained, as the history of John Sobieski. The force, which this illustrious champion of Christendom could bring into the field to defend his country from Mohammedan invasion, seldom amounted to fifteen thousand men; and when, previous to the battle of Kotzim, he found himself, by an extraordinary effort, at the head of forty thousand, of whom hardly one-half were disciplined, he was inspired with such confidence, that he attacked without hesitation eighty thousand Turkish veterans strongly intrenched, and gained over them the greatest victory that had been achieved by the Christian arms since the battle of Ascalon. The troops which he led to the rescue of Vienna were but eighteen thousand native Poles, and the combined Christian armies amounted to only seventy thousand combatants; yet with this force he routed three hundred thousand Turks, and broke the Mussulman power so effectually, that the crescent of Mohammed steadily receded before the other European powers, and from that period, historians date the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Yet after these glorious triumphs, the ancient dissensions of the Republic revived and paralyzed its strength, the defence of the frontiers was intrusted to a few undisciplined horsemen, and the Polish nation, to their eternal disgrace, allowed this heroic king to be besieged by innumerable hordes of barbarians for months, before they would advance to his relief. Sobieski, worn out at last with inef fectual endeavors to create a regular government, or establish a permanent force for the protection of Poland, foretold the fate of the Republic in his death-bed address to the Senate, wherein he assured them that their dangers as a nation arose not from external enemies, but from the vices of their own unenlightened government; and he predicted that within forty years the Republic would cease to be. His prophecy was not literally fulfilled, for the glories of his reign prolonged the existence of Poland nearly a century; but, though he erred as to the time, he was right as to the fact of its speedy dissolution.

Never did a people exhibit a more extraordinary spectacle than the Poles after this period. Two factions divided the kingdom, and kept it in a perpetual war: each faction had its army, and each army was a foreign army. The inferior noblesse introduced the Saxons, and the superior called the Swedes to their aid; so that, from the time of Sobieski's death, strangers never ceased to reign in Poland; its national forces were continually diminishing, and, at length, totally disappeared. When, therefore, the adjoining states of Russia and Austria effected the first partition of Poland, in 1772, they were not required to conquer a kingdom, but only to take shares of a state which had fallen to pieces. The election of Stanislaus Poniatowski to the remnant of the throne of Poland, in 1764, took place literally under the buckler; but it was the buckler of the Muscovite, the Cossack and the Tartar, who overshadowed the plain of Volo with their arms.

The next struggle of the Poles, like all that preceded it, originated in their own dissensions. The partisans of the ancient anarchy revolted against the new and more stable Constitution of Poniatowski: they took up arms at Targowice, and invoked the aid of the Empress of Russia to restore the disorder from which she had already gained so much. A second dismemberment took place on the 14th of October, 1793, and, in the disordered state of the country, it was effected without opposition. Prussia and Russia took this partition upon themselves, and their troops were at first quietly cantoned in the provinces which they had severally

seized.

There is a certain degree of calamity which subdues man's courage; but there is also another degree which, by reducing men to desperation, leads to the greatest enterprises: and to this latter state the Poles were now reduced. Abandoned by all the world, distracted with internal divisions, destitute of fortresses and resources, the patriots of that unhappy country resolved to make a bold effort to recover their freedom. The first movement was made by a band of these brave men, at Warsaw, and they made choice of Kosciusko to direct their efforts.

This illustrious hero, who had received the rudiments of military | education in France, and had afterward served with distinction in the American war for independence, was every way qualified to head the last struggle for freedom of the oldest republic in the world. Having, by aid of the regiments which had revolted, and the junction of some bodies of half-armed peasants, collected a force of five thousand men, Kosciusko left Cracow and advanced into the open country. He encountered a detachment of three thousand Russians at Ralsowice, on the 8th of April, 1794, and routed them with great slaughter. This action, inconsiderable in itself, was important in its consequences. The Polish peasants

exchanged their scythes for the arms found on the field of battle, and the insurrection, encouraged by this gleam of success, soon extended into the adjoining provinces. Stanislaus in vain disavowed the acts of his subjects; the passion for independence spread with the rapidity of lightning, and soon every patriot in Poland was in arms.

Intelligence of the victory at Ralsowice reached Warsaw on the 12th of April; a violent agitation ensued, and on the morning of the 17th, the brigade of Polish guards, under direction of their officers, attacked the governor's house and the arsenal, and was speedily joined by the populace. The Russian and Prussian troops in the neighborhood of the capital were about seven thousand men, who, after a prolonged contest in the streets for six-and-thirty hours, were driven across the Vistula, with the loss of three thousand men in killed and prisoners. Immediately, the flag of independence was hoisted on the towers of Warsaw.

Kosciusko now did everything that courage and energy could suggest to put on foot a formidable force to protect the revolt: a provisional gov. ernment was established, and in a short time, forty thousand men were raised-an effort highly honorable to the patriotism of the Poles, although the army was inconsiderable, compared with the forces that Russia and Prussia could bring into the field.

No sooner was the King of Prussia informed of the Revolution at Warsaw, than he moved forward at the head of thirty thousand men to besiege that city, while the Russian General Suwarrow, with forty thousand veterans, prepared to overrun the southeastern parts of the

kingdom. Aware of the necessity of striking a blow before the enemy's forces were concentrated, Kosciusko, with twelve thousand men, marched to attack the Russian General Denisoff; but on approaching his corps, he discovered that he had already effected a junction with the king of Prussia. He retreated immediately, but was pursued by the allies, overtaken near Sckoczyre, and after a gallant defence, defeated; upon which Cracow fell into the hands of the conquerors. This check was the more unfortunate, as about the same time General Zayonschuk was defeated at Chelne, and compelled to cross the Vistula, leaving the whole right bank of that river without defence.

The combined Russian and Prussian armies now advanced against Warsaw, where Kosciusko occupied an intrenched camp with twentyfive thousand men. During the whole of July and August they pressed the siege of this capital, at the end of which time, the king of Prussia, despairing of success, raised the siege and withdrew his army, leaving a portion of his sick and stores in the hands of the patriots.

Encouraged by this event, the Poles were enabled to recruit their forces to nearly eighty thousand men under arms; but they were injudiciously scattered over too extensive a line of country, and exposed to being beaten in detail. Indeed, the enthusiasm occasioned by the raising of the siege of Warsaw had not subsided before Sizakowski, with ten thousand men, was defeated by the Russians under Suwarrow, on the 17th of September. This celebrated general, to whom the principal conduct of the war was now committed, followed up his success with the utmost spirit. The retreating army was again assailed on the 19th, and, after a brave resistance, driven into the woods below Janow and Biala, with a loss of four thousand men and twenty-eight pieces of cannon. On receiving intelligence of this disaster, Kosciusko resolved to concentrate his forces and fall upon General Fersen before he could join Suwarrow, who was now advancing against Warsaw. With this view, he ordered General Poninsky to come up with his forces, and himself moved on to the attack. But when he arrived at the Russian position, he found that Poninsky had delayed his march, and was not there to join in the combat. Nevertheless, fearing to retreat, he was forced to make his dispositions for the battle, which took place on the 4th of October. The Poles contested the ground most gallantly; but they were inferior to the enemy, both in numbers and discipline, and were at length defeated with a loss of nearly half their number, and Kosciusko was himself made prisoner. The retreating army, reduced to seven thousand five hundred men, fell back in confusion toward Warsaw.

After the fall of Kosciusko, nothing but a series of disasters awaited the Poles. The Austrians overran the yet unconquered provinces; and Suwarrow, with his entire army, advanced upon Praga, where twenty-six thousand Poles, with one hundred pieces of cannon, defended the bridge of the Vistula and the approach to Warsaw. On the 4th of November the Russians, in seven columns, assailed the ramparts, rapidly filled up the ditches with their fascines, broke down the defences, and poured their battalions into the intrenched camp. The defenders in vain did their utmost to resist the torrent. The wooden houses of Praga took fire, and amid the shouts of the victors and the cries of the inhabitants, the Poles were borne back to the edge of the Vistula. Ten thousand soldiers fell on the spot, nine thousand were made prisoners, and twelve thousand citi

C