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would willingly restore to the enemy all their prifoners in exchange for you, and there is not an individual in the Council that would not joyfully barter his liberty for your's.

"It is by an uncommon courfe of things, Generaliffimo, that you receive from your cotemporaries that tribute which the latest pofterity will one day render you.

"Such are the fentiments which the Supreme Council charges me, in my quality of prefident for the prefent week, to convey to you; and to thefe I add the feelings of my profound respect.

"(Signed)

THADDEUS DEMBOWSKI, Prefident."

A few days after this, a trumpeter from the enemy brought a letter from Kofciufzko to the Supreme Council, in which he ftated, that the number of officers taken prifoners in the action of the 10th, amounted to 125 perfons, with five generals befide himfelf. He fpoke highly of the treatment he received from general Ferfen, and the care that was taken to heal his

wounds.

Soon after the battle of Brzefc, the Ruffian general Ferfen wrote in these terms to the king of Poland:

"SIRE,

"The total defeat of the Polish corps at Kamech, the making of a great number of privates and officers of every rank, and above all the commander in chief, and author of the revolution of 1794 (Kofciufzko), prifoners of war, were the glorious effects of the arms of her Imperial Majefty on the 10th of October.

"Convinced that your majefty and the republic of Poland have again entered into the former order of things, I apply to the legitimate power of Poland, by a juft reclamation, to demand the liberty of the Ruffian generals, officers, foldiers, and fervants, as well as perfons of the diplomatic body, who, in contempt of the

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moft facred rights of nations, have been detained in the prifon of the capital. I defire they may be fafely conveyed to the corps under my command.

"In the most fincere hope that tranquillity will once more be restored in Poland, and that I fhall in the courfe of this year have the honour of perfonally paying my refpects to your Majesty, I beg your Majefty to condefcend to accept of the anticipated homage with which I am, &c. "BARON FERSEN."

To which infolent application the king thus replied: 66 SIR,

"However painful we find the defeat of a part of the Polish army on the 10th of October, efpecially on account of the lofs of a man valuable in all respects, and whofe merit it has been to have laid the foundation of the independence of his country; yet it cannot fhake the firmness of thofe who have folemnly vowed either to die or to conquer for liberty.

"You need not wonder, Sir, if your demand to us of the liberation of the Ruffian prifoners and hoftages, who ferve as pledges for the Poles feized by the Ruffians, does not meet with our concurrence. If you were to propofe the exchange of your prifoners for our own, I would then voluntarily gratify your withes. STANISLAUS, Rex.”

The Ruffians now haftily advanced towards the capital, and general Ferfen fummoned Warfaw to furrender. This fummons was inclosed in a letter to the king, which he fent unopened to the council. The anfwer was, as might be expected, an abfolute refusal. At this juncture the Polith generals Madelinfki and Dambroufki, by forced marches, retreated from South Pruffia, and, by skilful manoeuvres, threw themfelves into Warfaw.

After the junction of the Ruffian corps of generals Ferfen, Dernfeld, and Denisow, with that of Suwarrow,

they

they proceeded, under the command of the latter general, for Prague, where, on the 4th of November, they made difpofitions for operating a cruel change in the fituation of the Polish inhabitants.

The fuburb of Prague, feparated from Warsaw by the Viftula, was defended by more than a hundred pieces of cannon, difpofed upon thirty-three batteries. It was under the fire of this terrible artillery that general Suwarrow made his troops mount to the affault, in the fame manner as he had done at the taking of Ifmael. He gave alfo general directions, that not a mufket fhot fhould be fired, but that his troops, upwards of 50,000 strong, should employ only the fabre and the bayonet. Each column was preceded by a body of foldiers with scaling ladders and fascines to fill up the entrenchments, and means to carry the affault. But the ardour of the Ruffians rendered this unneceffary; for within 150 paces of the entrenchments, a general cry was raifed at once by all the columns, and the foldiers in the front, flinging away the ladders and fafcines that encumbered them, fprung forward with their comrades to climb the works of the befieged.

The centinels on the works had but that moment given the alarm, and the cannon of the Poles commenced firing on all fides, but with no effect, as from the darkness of the night their balls paffed harmlessly over the heads of the Ruffians. By good fortune or good conduct, which feldom occurs in fuch operations, it happened that the fix Ruffian columns prefented themselves at the fame moment before the lines of Prague; fo that the Polish generals, occupied at once in all quarters, could not fuccour one place more than

* It will be recollected, that it was general Suwarrow who commanded at the taking of this Turkish fortrefs, where the Ruffians entered by climbing over the dead bodies of their comrades as well as their enemies. The general gave the fame orders in the affault on the suburbs of Prague, and enjoined his foldiers to give no quarter.

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another, and were unable to maintain an unequal conreft against the united attack of 50,000 men.

The cry raised by the columns penetrated the entrenchments on the fide of the Viftula, and added further to the confternation of the Poles engaged with the other columns, who, fearing to be furrounded, were for retiring into Warfaw over a bridge. Here again they were met by the other Ruffian columns, when a dreadful conflict enfued, in which a great part of the garrifon of Prague was miferably flaughtered. The resistance was at an end in the space of eight hours, but the fury of the Ruffians continued the maffacre for two hours longer.

From the windows of the houfes and hotels of Warfaw, the appalled inhabitants were fpectators, at the dawn of day, of the merciless slaughter of their friends, and the pillage committed in the fuburbs, which continued till the noon of the 5th.

The number of unfortunate Poles who perifhed by the fword, the fire, and the water (the bridge over the Viftula having been broken during the action,) were eftimated as follows: Five thoufand men were flain in the affault; the remaining 5000 (for there were only 10,000 foldiers in the town, and the Ruffians were 50,000 ftrong) were taken prifoners or difperfed. After the battle was ended, the Ruffians proceeded to difarm the citizens, and to plunder their houfes. When this was over, and ten hours after all refiftance had ceafed, about nine o'clock at night, they fet fire to the town, and began to butcher the inhabitants. The fick and the wounded perished in the flames: the reft, old men, women, and children, fell by the fword. Nine thousand perfons, of every age and of either fex, are computed to have fallen in the maffacre, and the whole of the fuburb, except a few fcattered houfes, was reduced to ashes.

After this dreadful execution, no hope remained of faving Warfaw. The principal chief of the infurrecon, count Ignatius Potocki himfelf, advifed to treat

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with the Ruffian general; and for that purpofe repaired to the head-quarters of the Ruffians with propofitions of peace, in the name of the republic. But count Suwarrow refufed to hear him, obferving haughtily, that the Emprefs, his fovereign, was by no means at war with the republic; that the only object of his coming before Warfaw was to reduce to obedience thofe Poiifh fubjects who, by taking up arms, had dif turbed the repole of the ftate. He at the fame time infinuated, that he fhould treat with none of the chiefs of the infurrection, but only with perfons who, invested with legitimate authority, fhould come to speak in the name, and on the part, of his Polish majefty.

Count Potocki being returned with this anfwer, it was refolved to fend deputies from the magiftracy of Warfaw to the Ruffian commander. During all this time the fire of the city did not ceafe playing upon the Ruffians in the fuburb of Prague, who answered it but feebly. The deputies, Buzakowski, Strazakowski, and Makarowcz, having repaired to the head-quarters, returned about noon on the 5th. They had been conftrained to furrender the city, at difcretion, into the hands of count Suwarrow, under the fingle condition, that the inhabitants fhould be fecure in their lives and property. The general, having confented to this, added, "That befides fafety to their perfons, and the prefervation of their property, there was a third article, which, without doubt, the magistrates had forgotten to afk, and which he granted-pardon for the past."

The deputies being returned into the city, a proclamation was published to this effect:

"The deputics of the city of Warsaw, fent to general Suwarrow, commanding the Ruffian troops under the city, having reported to the magistracy that they were received amicably by his excellency the faid general, who had declared his difpofition for a capitulation; and alfo that they had obtained fome preliminary articles, figned by him, by which he had promifed the citizens fafety to their perfons and property, and obli

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