, beseeches
and conjures you to do this. Surely at her voice all delays, all
considerations, should perish."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Letters of Kosciuszko_.]

Impressing upon a young prince of the Sapieha family, at the outset of
the Rising, that he "must not lose even a minute of time ... although,"
Kosciuszko says, "the forces be weak, a beginning must be made, and
those forces will increase of themselves in the defence of the country.
I began with one battalion, and in a few days I had collected an army.
Let the gentry go out on horseback, and the people with scythes and
pikes." Let the officers who had been trained to a different service
abroad put aside preconceived ideas, and fight in the methods demanded
of a popular army.[1]

Or, far on towards the end of the Rising, Kosciuszko, calling upon the
citizens of Volhynia to rise for the Poland from which they had been
torn away, speaks thus: "You have no army in your own land, but you have
men, and those men will soon become an army." He tells them that the
Poles who rose in Great Poland were not deterred by the differences of
religious belief between them. "These hinder not at all the love of
country and of freedom. Let each honour God according to his
faith"--Kosciuszko himself was a devout Catholic--"and there is no faith
that would forbid a man to be free."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Letters of Kosciuszko_. April 14, May 12.]

[Footnote 2: K. Bartoszewicz, _History of Kosciuszko's Insurrection_.]

One of the earliest measures that Kosciuszko inaugurated as the head of
the provisional government of his nation was in relation to the object
only less dear to him than the liberation of Poland: that of the serfs.
With time the Polish peasant had sunk to the level of those in
neighbouring countries, although the condition of the serf in Poland was
never as deplorable as, for instance, that which obtained in Russia.
France had only just effected the relief of her lower classes--and this
by an orgy of revolt and ferocity. Kosciuszko now came forward with his
reforms. The forced labour of the peasant who could not bear arms was
reduced to less than a half of his former obligation, and for those who
could take part in the national war, abolished. The peasant was now to
enjoy the full personal protection of the law, and "the right of
locomotion when he chose. Possession of his own land was assured to him,
and heavy penalties were inflicted upon the landlords should they be
guilty o