United States or Mauritius ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
“Those were the times of Kosciuszko; my lord supported the Constitution of the Third of May,40 and was already gathering the gentry in order to go to the aid of the Confederates, when suddenly the Muscovites encircled the castle by night; there was barely time to fire an alarm signal from the mortar, and to close the gates below and fasten them with a bar.
Lafayette and Kalb, with the Poles, Kosciuszko and Pulaski, who had come some time before, and the German Steuben, who came in the following December, were the five most eminent foreigners who received commissions in the Continental army.
By this time military adventurers in large numbers began to flock to America to offer their swords to the rebellious Colonials. Among them were a few de Kalb, Pulaski, Steuben, and Kosciuszko who did good service for the struggling young rebels, but most of them were worthless adventurers and marplots.
The heroic patriot Kosciuszko headed a popular rising against Russia; but after a remarkable resistance to the combined forces of the three partitioning powers, the insurrection was finally suppressed in torrents of blood.
Referring to Kosciuszko, Jefferson said: "On his departure from the United States in 1798 he left in my hands an instrument appropriating after his death all the property he had in our public funds, the price of his military services here, to the education and emancipation of as many of the children of bondage in this country as this should be adequate to.
It was really a farewell scene, for this interview of the prince with the Emperor was their last; and soon the nephew of the last king of Poland found, as we shall soon see, a death equally as glorious as deplorable under the waves of the Elster. Nephew of Stanislas Augustus, the last king of Poland. He commanded the Polish army against Russia, 1792, and served under Kosciuszko, 1794.
And Poland herself became the prey of Prussia, Russia and Austria some 170 years later, notwithstanding the constitution of May 3 and the heroic resistance of Kosciuszko. The regeneration of the Czechs at the end of the eighteenth century meant the resumption of friendly relations between Czechs and Poles.
Besides the four engineers who have been before named, and these two officers, we must also mention, amongst the foreigners employed in the service of the United States, Pulaski, a Polish nobleman, who had taken a conspicuous part in the confederation of his own country, and who, after the success of the Russians, had arrived in America with letters of introduction to the congress, General Washington, and General Lafayette; Kosciuszko, his countryman, who was a colonel of engineers in America, and who afterwards acted such a grand and noble part during the last revolutions in Poland; Ternant, by birth a Frenchman, who has served the United States, Holland, and France with great ability; La Colombe, aide-de-camp to Lafayette, who has been subsequently so usefully employed in the French revolution; the Marquis de la Royerie, whom disappointed love brought to the United States, and who has since taken part in the counter-revolution; Gimat, aide-de-camp to Lafayette, who has since had the command in the French islands; Fleury, who distinguished himself in the defence of Fort Mifflin, and in the attack of the fort of West-Point, and who afterwards died a field-marshal in France; Mauduit-Duplessis, an extremely brave officer of artillery, who has since taken part against the French revolution, and was massacred at Saint Domingo; Touzard, an officer of artillery, who lost his arm at Rhode Island, where he was acting as aide-de-camp to Lafayette; Major Lenfant, employed as engineer; Baron Steuben, a Prussian officer, a good tactician, who arrived at the commencement of 1778, and was of essential service in disciplining the American troops.
The Poles, taken unawares by the second partition of their country, speedily recovered from their surprise and collected all their strength for an energetic opposition. Kosciuszko, who had, together with Lafayette, fought in North America in the cause of liberty, armed his countrymen with scythes, put every Russian who fell into his hands to death, and attempted the restoration of ancient Poland.
His few forces, in spite of great valor, were no match for the veteran allies, and the defense was vain. "Freedom shrieked when Kosciuszko fell." King Stanislaus Poniatowski resigned his crown and betook himself to Petrograd. Poland ceased to exist as an independent state.
Word Of The Day