and made prisoners by the Cossacks, who inundated the field of battle; while the remains of the army, now reduced to seven thousand five hundred men, fell back in confusion towards Warsaw. CHAP. XVII. 1794. 49. shut them After the fall of Kosciusko, who sustained in his single person the fortunes of the republic, nothing but a series The patriots of disasters overtook the Poles. The Austrians, taking selves up in advantage of the general confusion, entered Gallicia, and Warsaw. occupied the palatinates of Lublin and Sandomir; while Suwarroff, pressing forward towards 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. Suwarroff 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 any thing was done at all it should be immediately attempted, Suwarroff, who was habituated to successful assaults in the Turkish wars, resolved to storm the city. On the 2d November, the Russians made their appearance before the glacis of Praga, and Suwarroff, having in great haste completed three powerful batteries, Jom. vi. and breached the defences with imposing celerity, made Toul. v. 89. his dispositions for a general assault on the following day.1 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 with their fascines, broke down the defences, and, pouring into the intrenched camp, carried destruction into the ranks of the Poles. In 1 292, 295. XVII. 1794. 50. CHAP. vain the defenders did their utmost to resist the torrent. The wooden houses of Praga speedily took fire, and, amidst the shouts of the victors and the cries of the inhabitants, Storming of the Polish battalions were borne backward to the edge of Praga and Warsaw by the Vistula. The multitude of fugitives speedily broke Atrocious down the bridges; and the citizens of Warsaw beheld, massacre by with unavailing anguish, their defenders on the other side Suwarroff. the Rus sians. Nov. 4. perishing in the flames, or by the sword of the conquerors. Ten thousand soldiers fell on the spot, nine thousand were made prisoners, and above twelve thousand citizens, of every age and sex, were put to the sword-a dreadful instance of carnage, which has left a lasting stain on the name of Suwarroff, and which Russia expiated in the conflagration of Moscow. The tragedy was at an end. Warsaw capitulated two days afterwards; the detached parties of the patriots melted away, and Poland was no more. On the 6th November, Suwarroff made his triumphant entry into the blood-stained capital. King Toul. v. 89, Stanislaus was sent into Russia, where he ended his days in captivity, and the final partition of the monarchy was effected. 1 297, 299. 91. Lac. xii. 275. Such was the termination of the oldest republic in existence, such the first instance of the destruction of a member of the European family by its ambitious rivals. As such, it excited a profound sensation in Europe. The folly of preceding ages, the long period of wasting anarchy, the madness of democratic ambition, the irretrievable defects of the Sarmatian constitution, were forgotten. Poland was remembered only as the bulwark of Christendom against the Ottomans; she appeared only as the succouring angel under John Sobieski. To behold a people so ancient, so gallant, whose deeds were associated with such heart-stirring recollections, fall a victim to Imperial ingratitude, Prussian cupidity, and Muscovite ambition, was a spectacle which naturally excited the utmost indignation. The bloody march of the French Revolution, the disasters consequent on domestic dissension, were forgotten, and the Christian world was penetrated with a "Oh! bloodiest picture in the book of time, Dropp'd from her nerveless grasp the shatter'd spear, And Freedom shriek'd-as Kosciusko fell !" CHAP. 1794. victim to madness and oppression. But the truth of history must dispel the illusion, and 52. unfold in the fall of Poland the natural consequence of its It fell a national delinquencies. Sarmatia neither fell unwept nor democratic without a crime; she fell the victim of her own dissensions of the chimera of equality insanely pursued, and the rigour of aristocracy unceasingly maintained; of extravagant jealousy of every superior, and merciless oppression of every inferior rank. The eldest-born of the European family was the first to perish, because she had thwarted all the ends of the social union; because she united the turbulence of democratic to the exclusiveness of aristocratic societies; because she exhibited the vacillation of a republic without its energy, and the oppression of a monarchy without its stability. Such a system neither could nor ought to be maintained. The internal feuds of Poland were more fatal to human happiness than the despotism of Russia, and the growth of improvement among its people was slower than among the ryots of Hindostan. To any one who has either studied in history, or experienced in real life, the practical working of the principle of self-government among mankind, in situations where democratic equality is really established, the destruction of Poland will appear far from surprising. In truth, the only wonderful thing is, that her people so long succeeded in maintaining their independence. It is the fretting against control, the "ignorant impatience of taxation" in man 53. Real cause of the ruin of Poland. XVII. 1794. 1 Sidney Smith. CHAP. kind, when practically intrusted with self-government, which was the real cause of the calamity. No lessons of experience however severe, no calls of patriotism however urgent, no warnings of wisdom however emphatic, could induce its plebeian noblesse to submit to any present burden to avert future disaster. Like the Americans at this time, who refuse in many States, at all hazards to their public credit, to tax themselves to defray the interest of their State's debt, they preferred "any load of infamy however great, to any burden of taxation however light.”1 So strong is this disinclination to submit to present burdens to prevent future evil, among men in all ages and countries, that it may fairly be considered as insurmountable; and therefore any society in which supreme power is really vested in the people, bears in itself the seeds of early ruin. Democratic bodies often exhibit extraordinary energy, if they can derive their resources from foreign plunder or domestic confiscation; but they will never, except in the last extremity, burden themselves. Real self-taxation is in truth a delusive theory: where it is attempted to be put in practice it invariably fails; what was so long mistaken for it was the taxing of one class by another class of the many by the few. These are unpalatable truths-but they are not the less truths; nor is it less on that account the duty of the historian to state them. If any one doubts their accuracy, let him contemplate the abandonment of the Sinking Fund, in consequence of the enormous and uncalled-for reduction of indirect taxation since popular influence began to predominate in Great Britain, and the recent repudiation of the States' debt by a large part of the American people. 54. Striking contrast afforded by the steady growth of Russia. In this respect the history of Muscovy presents a striking and instructive contrast to that of Poland. Commencing originally with a smaller territory, yet further removed from the light of civilisation-cut off in a manner from the intelligence of the globe, decidedly inferior to its heroic rival in its earlier contests-the growth of Russia has been as steady as the decline of Poland. The Polish republic fell at length beneath a power which it had repeatedly vanquished, whose capital it had conquered ; and its name was erased from the list of nations at the very time that its despotic rival had attained the zenith of power and glory. These facts throw a great and important light on the causes of early civilisation, and the form of government adapted to a barbarous age. There cannot in such a state be so great a misfortune as a weak, there cannot be so great a blessing as a powerful government. No oppression is so severe as that which is there inflicted by the members of the same state on each other; no anarchy so irremediable as that which originates in the violence of their own passions. To restrain the fury, and coerce the dissensions of its subjects, is the first duty of government in such periods; in its inability to discharge this duty is to be found the real cause of the weakness of a democratic-in the rude but effective performance of it, the true secret of the strength of a despotic state. CHAP. 1794. 55. spirit of the Such, however, are the ennobling effects of the spirit of freedom, even in its wildest form, that the remnant of the Gallant Polish nation, albeit bereft of a country by their own exiled Polish insanity, have by their deeds commanded the respect, and bands. by their sorrows obtained the sympathy of the world. The remains of Kosciusko's bands, disdaining to live under Muscovite oppression, sought and found an asylum in the armies of France; they served with distinction both in Italy and Spain, and awakened by their bravery that sympathy which, with other and more selfish motives, brought the conqueror of Europe to the walls of the Kremlin. Like the remains of a noble mind borne down by suffering, they have exhibited flashes of greatness even in the extremity of disaster; and while wandering without a home, from which their own madness or that of their fathers had banished them, obtained a respect to which their conquerors were often strangers at the summit of their glory. Such is the effect even of the misdirected VOL. III. 2 L |