osciuszko was a generous enemy. His Russian captives he treated with a
courtesy and kindness that were ill repaid during his own march into
Russia as a prisoner in Russian hands. He directed that services in
their own language and faith should be held for the Prussian prisoners.
A letter of his remains that he wrote to the Lutheran minister of the
evangelical church in Warsaw, expressing his gratitude that this
clergyman's pulpit had been a centre of patriotism, at a time "when
nations who love freedom must win the right to their existence by
streams of blood," and telling the pastor that he has issued orders for
the Prussian prisoners to be taken to church in the "conviction that you
will not refuse them your fatherly teaching."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Tygodnik Illustrowany_. Warsaw, 1881 (Polish).]

This letter and the snuff-box that accompanied it were preserved as
relics in the pastor's family.

The Bohemian and Hungarian prisoners were by Kosciuszko's command
released, "in memory of the bond that united the Hungarians and Czechs,
when free countries, with the Polish nation." We have lived to see the
descendants of that Hungarian generation spreading untold atrocities
through Polish towns and villages as the tool of Prussia in the recent
war.

The triumph over the Prussians was but a temporary respite. The Prussian
army returned to the investment of Warsaw, at some distance from the
town itself. The ambassador of the King of Prussia was treating in
Petersburg with Catherine II for the third partition of Poland. She on
her side sent Suvorov with a new and powerful army against the Poles.
The Austrians were already in the country. Kosciuszko, fighting for life
against Russia and Prussia, had no army to send against the third of his
foes. His generals were engaging the enemy in different parts of Poland,
at times with success, as notably Dombrowski in Great Poland, where
events continued to be the one gleam of hope in these last days of the
Rising, but again with terrible defeats, such as Sierakowski experienced
by the army of Suvorov, near Kosciuszko's old home. Kosciuszko deceived
himself with no illusions: but neither fear nor despair found an entry
into his soul. "He did not lose heart," writes one who never left him.
"He turned and defended himself on all sides."[1] Wherever his presence
was most urgently needed, thither he repaired. Accompanied only by
Niemcewicz he rode at full speed into Lithuania to rally the spi