, Catherine II, in agreement with the
perjured Frederick William, has filled up the measure of her crimes."

The treatment of Poland at the hands of Russia and Prussia is then
recapitulated in accents of the burning indignation that such a recital
would necessarily evoke. Of Austria Kosciuszko makes no mention, for the
reason that he believed, erroneously, as he was to learn by bitter
experience, that her sympathies could be enlisted for the national
movement.

"Overwhelmed with this weight of misfortune, injured more by treachery
than by the power of the weapons of the enemies ... having lost our
country and with her the enjoyment of the most sacred rights of freedom,
of safety, of ownership, alike of our persons and of our property,
deceived and played upon by some states, abandoned by others, we, Poles,
citizens, inhabitants of the palatinate of Cracow, consecrating to our
country our lives as the only possession which tyranny has not yet torn
from us, are about to take those last and violent measures which
patriotic despair dictates to us. Having, therefore, the unbroken
determination to die and find a grave in the ruins of our own country or
to deliver our native land from the depredations of tyranny and a
shameful yoke, we declare in the sight of God, in the sight of the whole
human race, and especially before you, O nations, by whom liberty is
more highly prized than all other possessions in the world, that,
employing the undenied right of resistance to tyranny and armed
oppression, we all, in one national, civic and brotherly spirit, unite
our strength in one; and, persuaded that the happy result of our great
undertaking depends chiefly on the strictest union between us all, we
renounce all prejudices and opinions which hitherto have divided or
might divide the citizens, the inhabitants of one land and the sons of
one country, and we all promise each other to be sparing of no sacrifice
and means which only the holy love of liberty can provide to men rising
in despair in her defence.

"The deliverance of Poland from the foreign soldier, the restoration and
safeguarding of the integrity of her boundaries, the extirpation of all
oppression and usurpation, whether foreign or domestic, the firm
foundation of national freedom and of the independence of the
Republic:--such is the holy aim of our Rising."

To ensure its success and the safety of the country Kosciuszko was
elected as Poland's military leader and her