ts and a letter from the National Council, conveying
expressions of the highest eulogy and deep sympathy, with a present of
four thousand ducats, of which Kosciuszko gave half to his
fellow-prisoners.

The scene in Warsaw when the news of Kosciuszko's captivity reached it
was, writes a Pole who was then in the town, the saddest sight he ever
saw.[1] In every public place, in every class of society, in every home,
the one refrain, broken by sobs, was: "Kosciuszko is no more." The
leader was gone; but the men and women who were met wandering, weeping,
in the streets, wringing their hands and mourning for the man they and
the country had lost together, had no thought of giving up the struggle
for their nation.

[Footnote 1: M. Oginski, _Memoires_. Paris, 1826.]

"Neither the duty of a citizen nor thy example permits us to despair for
our country," wrote the National Council to Kosciuszko. The war was
carried on, and the citizens of Warsaw went in their thousands to the
ramparts, as in Kosciuszko's time, to hold the town against Suvorov's
siege.

Together with their dispatches to Kosciuszko, the National Council sent
a letter to Fersen, offering to give up all their Russian prisoners in
exchange for Kosciuszko alone. The Russian general refused. Two days
later Fersen received orders to join Suvorov, and the prisoners with a
large detachment of Russian troops under Krushtzov were sent on into
Russia by an immensely roundabout route.

The first part of the march led through Polish territory. The Polish
prisoners watched, powerless, the ravages committed on their unhappy
country by the army with which they travelled. The contents of mansion,
shop, hut, were alike stolen. Even children's toys swelled the booty.
Although the wound on Kosciuszko's head began to improve, he had lost
the use of his legs and could not move without being carried; yet a
Russian guard watched him incessantly. The rumour had gone round the
Polish countryside that he had escaped from Maciejowice, and that the
Russians had some feigned captive in his place. In their halts Krushtzov
therefore insisted on the Polish proprietor of the villages, or the
chief inhabitants of the towns, where the procession passed the night,
presenting themselves in Kosciuszko's room to see with their own eyes
that he was in truth the prisoner of Russia. In strong indignation at
this insult to Kosciuszko, Niemcewicz writes, with excusable bitterness,
that hitherto men had