thousand men, a part of whom were
recently raised and imperfectly disciplined; while Fersen was at the
head of twelve thousand veterans, including a most formidable body of
cavalry. Nevertheless, the Poles in the centre and right wing made a
glorious defence; but the left, which Poninsky should have supported,
having been overwhelmed by the cavalry under Denisoff, the whole army
was, after a severe struggle, thrown into confusion. Kosciuszko,
Sizakowsky, and other gallant chiefs in vain made the most heroic
efforts to rally the broken troops. They were wounded, struck down, and
made prisoners by the Cossacks who swarmed over the field of battle;
while the remains of the army, now reduced to seven thousand men, fell
back in confusion toward Warsaw.

After the fall of Kosciuszko, who sustained in his single person the
fortunes of the Republic, nothing but a series of disasters overtook the
Poles. The Austrians, taking advantage of the general confusion,
entered Galicia, and occupied the palatinates of Lublin and Sandomir;
while Suvaroff, pressing forward toward the capital, defeated
Mokronowsky, who, at the head of twelve thousand men, strove to retard
the advance of that redoubtable commander. In vain the Poles made the
utmost efforts; they were routed with the loss of four thousand men; and
the patriots, though now despairing of success, resolved to sell their
lives dearly, and shut themselves up in Warsaw to await the approach of
the conqueror. Suvaroff was soon at the gates of Praga, the eastern
suburb of that capital, where twenty-six thousand men and one hundred
pieces of cannon defended the bridge of the Vistula and the approach to
the capital. To assault such a position with forces hardly superior was
evidently a hazardous enterprise; but the approach of winter, rendering
it indispensable that if anything was done at all it should be
immediately attempted, Suvaroff, who was habituated to successful
assaults in the Turkish wars, resolved to storm the city. On November 2d
the Russians made their appearance before the glacis of Praga, and
Suvaroff, having in great haste completed three powerful batteries and
breached the defences with imposing celerity, made his dispositions for
a general assault on the following day.

The conquerors of Ismail advanced to the attack in the same order which
they had adopted on that memorable occasion. Seven columns at daybreak
approached the ramparts, rapidly filled up the ditches wi