in
words adequate to my obligation and my gratitude. Let this suffice, that
I shall never forget it, and that its memory will never be extinguished
for even one moment in my heart."[1]

[Footnote 1: T. Korzon, _Kosciuszko_.]

He gave these ladies some of the splendid presents he had received from
the Russian Tsar: magnificent furs, a necklace of Siberian corals, and
to White himself the Duchess of Devonshire's ring. His memory went down
through the family, and Mrs. White's grandson often heard his
grandmother tell of her Polish guest, and how she held no other man his
equal--with the patriotic exception of Washington! White was a valuable
auxiliary to Kosciuszko in a somewhat intricate piece of business. To
live on the gift of money which Paul I had given him was an odious
position that Kosciuszko would not tolerate. It was his intention to
return it, and to claim from Congress the arrears of the stipend owing
to him from 1788, and that through some mischance had never reached him.
With White's assistance a portion of the American sum was handed over to
him; but the return of the Tsar's present was not so easy. Niemcewicz
pointed out that such a proceeding would infallibly rouse the revenge of
the Tsar upon the Poles in his dominions. This decision was against
Kosciuszko's personal feeling on the matter. He bided his time, and, as
we shall see, at a more propitious moment took his own counsel. A bevy
of visitors and admirers again surrounded Kosciuszko in Philadelphia.
Among them were the future Louis Philippe, with the Princes de
Montpensier and Beaujolais. They called themselves citizens of France,
and sported the tricolour. They often spent the evening with Kosciuszko,
and on their farewell visit Kosciuszko gave the younger prince a pair of
fur boots. But the man with whom Kosciuszko was on the closest and
warmest terms of intimacy was Thomas Jefferson. The pastel portrait that
Kosciuszko painted of this dear friend is preserved among Poland's
national relics. "He," wrote Jefferson to Gates, "is the purest son of
liberty among you all that I have ever known, the kind of liberty which
extends to all, not only to the rich."[1] To Jefferson Kosciuszko
confided the testament of his American property, which he had been
granted from Congress on the close of the War of Independence, and which
lay in Ohio on the site of the present city of Columbus; to Jefferson,
again, was entrusted the conduct of Kosciuszko's secret depa