Thaddeus of Warsaw

ow the season for cheerfulness and festivity, now rolled away

f land which lies between the Dwina and Borysthenes; and Frederick William marked down another sweep of Poland. to follow the fa

table interrupted and appropriated by the depredators to their own use. Sobieski remonstrated on this last outrage; but incensed at reproof, and irritated at the sway whi

emands, he would lay all the estates, possessions, and habitations of the members of the Diet under an immediate military execution. Nay, punishment should not stop there; for if the king joined the Sobieski par

o their resolution. With the same firmness they repulsed similar fulminations from the Prussian ambassad

sitting with two battalions of grenadiers and four pieces of cannon, and then issued orders that no Pole should pass the gates without being fired on. General Rautenfel

, deprived as they were of five of their principal members, whom the ambassadors well knew they had arrested on their way to the Senate? Sobieski and four of his friends being the members most inimical to the oppression going on, were these five. In vain their liberation was requir

the present tyrannous measures of the two ambassadors; and seeing that any attempt to inspire them even with decency was us

erity as a free cession by the Poles of all those rights which they had received from nature, ratified by laws, and defended with their blood. [Footnote: Thus, like the curule fathers of Rome, they sat

of the private palaces; and, indignant and broken-hearted

, which would be attended by universal ruin, and finally insulted by a thousand outra

e extorted an acquiescence, even from the heart of a conqueror's power. But the Diet were deceived: they found such power was unaccompanied by humanit

f their destroyer. Fresh insults have been heaped upon their heads and new hardships have been imposed upon them. To prevent all deliberations on this debasing treaty, they are not only surrounded by foreign troops,

flictions, and also we, the members of the Diet, declare that, being unable, even by the sacrifice of our lives,

boring nation is alleged to have committed against rational liberty, they behold, not only with apathy but with approbation, the ravages which are now desolating Poland. Posterity must avenge

r rank in Europe; her "power delivered up to strangers, and her beauty into the hands of her enemies!" Ill-fated people! Nations will weep over

ous events which so deeply involved her own comforts with those of her country. Her father was in prison, her son at a distance with the army. S

ered and kept together a handful of brave men, still faithful to their liberties. His name alone collected numbers in every district through which he marched. Persecution from their adversary as well as admiration of Thaddeus had given a resistless power to his appearance, look, and voice, all of which had such an effect on the peasantry, that they eagerl

ar, allowed him to escape with banishment to Siberia." But every reproach thus levelled at the palatine he found had been bought by some new success of Thaddeus; and instead of permitting their malignity to intimidate his age or alarm his affection, he told the officer (who kept guard in his chambers) that if his grandson were to lose his head for fidelity to Poland, he should behold him with as proud an eye mounting the scaffold as entering the streets of Warsaw with her freedom in his hand. "The only difference wo

, rallied; and not only to retard the approach of the pursuers, but to ensure their defeat from the army in view, they broke down the wooden bridge by which they had escaped themselves. The Poles were at a stand. Kosciusko proposed swimming across, but owing to the recent heavy rains, the river was so swollen and rapid that the young captains to whom he mentioned the project, terrified by the blackness and dashing of the water, drew back. The general, perceiving their panic, c

miles south-west of Warsaw, the more modern capital of the kingdom, and also the centre of its own province.] carrying redress and protection to the provinces through which they marched. But they had hardly rested a day in that city before dispatches were rece

ould immediately order General Brinicki to lay the city in ashes. The king remonstrated against such oppression, and to "punish his presumption," his excellency ordered that his majesty's garrison and guards should instantly be broken up and dispersed. At the first attempt to execute this mandate, the people flew in crowds to the palac

, who was alone in one of the rooms of his palace, sank in despair on the floor; he heard the mingling clash of arms, the roar of musketry, and the cries and groans of the combatants; ruin seemed no longer to threaten his kingdom, but to h

t doom which was to overwhelm devoted Poland, Thaddeus Sobieski, panting with heat and toil, flew i

people?" ask

foreign guards are beaten from the palace; yo

deliverer, he exclaimed, "I thank Heaven, my unhappy country is not bereft of all hope! Whilst a Kosciusko a

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