uch injurious measures! My decrees and actions up
to now might convince you. Men may blacken me and our Rising, but God
sees that we are not beginning a French revolution. My desire is to
destro the enemy. I am making some temporary dispositions, and I leave
the framing of laws to the nation."[2]

[Footnote 1: T. Korzon, _Kosciuszko_.]

[Footnote 2: _Op. cit_.]

The whole country was now rallying round Kosciuszko. Polish magnates,
whose ancestors had been heads of armies in the old chivalrous days of
the Republic of Poland, who had themselves led soldiers in the field,
came to him, begging to serve in the lowest ranks if so be they might
serve under him. The King's nephew, Prince Jozef Poniatowski, under
whose command two years ago Kosciuszko had fought as a subordinate
officer, now placed himself unreservedly at Kosciuszko's disposal. The
King, the nation, were in Kosciuszko's hands. Yet he remained always the
simple Lithuanian soldier, who wore the garb of the peasants, who lived
familiarly with the peasants in his army, treating them as his brothers.
His letters to his officers are couched in the affectionate and intimate
terms of an equal friendship, reading as though from comrade to comrade.
"Dear comrade," is, in fact, the title by which he addresses them when
giving them his instructions. Instead of orders and decorations, of
which he had none at his disposal, he offered them snuff-boxes, watches,
rings--"I have sent you a ring of cat's-eyes that at night it may light
you on your journey," he writes to Mokronowski--or trifles made by the
hands of Polish ladies, accompanied with a few graceful words spoken
from the heart that gave the gift its value. He is ever eager to bring
to public notice the name of any Pole who had done well by the country;
always silent on his own deeds, turning off the praises and thanks of
his people to the whole nation or to individuals. The style of his
commands bears an invariable hallmark of simplicity. "I conjure and
entreat you for the love of our country," is their usual wording. One
word, indeed, rings with unwearied reiteration through Kosciuszko's
public manifestos, in his private correspondence: the love of country:
It is not he who cries to the sons of Poland to save her; it is Poland
herself, and he voices her call, of which he considered himself but the
mouthpiece, with a touch of personal warmth for those to whom he spoke,
which they requited with a passionate love.

"D