m we owe our country! To him we owe the
uplifting of ourselves, to his virtue, to his zeal and to his
courage."[1]

[Footnote 1: K. Bartoszewicz, _History of Kosciuszko's Insurrection_.]

The burden that rested on the shoulders of Kosciuszko was one that would
have seemed beyond the mastery of one man. He had to raise an army, find
money, ammunition, horses, provisions. He had to initiate and organize
the Rising in every province, bearing in mind and appealing to the
distinctive individualities of each, dealing in his instructions not
merely with the transcendentally difficult material matters of the
Rising, but with involved moral questions. He was the military chief,
responsible for the whole plan of action of a war for national
existence. He was the civil chief, chosen to rule the nation when the
most skilful steering of the ship of state was requisite--when the
government of the country, owing to dismemberment, foreign intrigues,
foreign invasion, internal disunion, was in a condition of chaos. The
soundest political acumen, the most unerring tact, was exacted of him.
He must needs adopt whatever political measures he deemed necessary, no
matter how hard of execution: many of these were innovations that he
daringly carried out against every prejudice and tradition, because it
was the innermost conviction of his soul that they would save his
nation. No doubt Kosciuszko's great talent for organization and
application, and the robust strength of his character, would, in part at
least, have borne him through his herculean task; but it was in the
power of the idea that we must find the key to his whole leadership of
the struggle for his nation which in the history of that nation bears
his name. Where Poland was concerned obstacles were not allowed to
exist--or rather, were there merely to be overcome. Personal desires,
individual frictions, all must go down before the only object that
counted.

"Only the one necessity," he writes to Mokronowski, reassuring the
General in brotherly and sympathetic style as to some unpleasantness
that the latter was anticipating--for, with all his devotion to the
common end, Kosciuszko never failed to take to his heart the private
griefs, even the trifling interests, of those around him--"the one
consideration of the country in danger has caused me to expect that,
putting aside all personal vexations, you will sacrifice yourself
entirely to the universal good. ... Not I, but our country