Kościuszko thus remained master of the situation. Stanislas Augustus was silenced before an integrity that would not bend before him. On August 17th the Russian army entered Warsaw as conquerors. The King was virtually a prisoner, for whom neither side felt compassion or respect, in the hands of Russia. By a rescript of Catherine II the Polish army was drafted into small divisions and scattered through the country, thus rendered powerless. The reforms of the Constitution were set aside. Russia ruled the country behind her puppets, the leaders of Targowica. The second partition was only a question of time.
Radom was designated to Kościuszko as his head-quarters; but his determination to serve no more under the betrayers of his country held firm. He remained two months longer in Warsaw in the seclusion of an abandonment of grief, choosing to stay within walls rather than see the streets of the capital of Poland under the Russian heel. The last piece of business with which he concerned himself in the official capacity he was surrendering for honour's sake was to recommend to the King's notice several officers, including Kniaziewicz, for their gallantry in the late war. Amidst his heavy anxieties he made time to write to a friend, whose name we do not know, but who, to judge from the letter's closing words—"I bid you farewell, embracing you a thousand times with the most tender affection for ever"—was one very dear to Kościuszko, begging him to relieve the necessities of some individual whose position in Warsaw without means had aroused the writer's pity.[1]
"Watering my native soil with my tears,"—thus he writes to Felix Potocki, in an outburst of the patriotic indignation that even his enemies respected—"I am going to the New World, to my second country to which I have acquired a right by fighting for her independence. Once there, I shall beseech Providence for a stable, free, and good government in Poland, for the independence of our nation, for virtuous, enlightened, and free inhabitants therein."[2]
[1] Letters of Kościuszko.
[2] Op. Cit.
He fell sick for sorrow at the thought of his nation's future. From his bed of convalescence in the famous Blue Palace of the Czartoryskis in Warsaw he wrote to Michał Zaleski, acquainting him with his intention to repair as soon as the fever left him to Galicia, thence:
"... possibly to Switzerland or England, whence I shall watch the course of events in our country. If they make for the happiness of the country, I shall return; if not, I shall move on further. I I shall enter no foreign service, and if I am forced to it by my poverty then I shall enter a service where there is a free state—but with an unchanging attachment to my country which I might serve no longer, as I saw nothing to convince me of the amelioration of the government or that gave any hope for the future happiness of our country in the measures at present taken"—meaning, of course, under the rule of the Confederation of Targowica. "I would not enter into undertakings of which the end is unknown: I feared lest, if only indirectly, they should contribute to the unhappiness of the nation. I do not doubt that there are men even among the Targowicians who are trying to serve their country, but I know not if they can, and if they are in the way of doing it. With my whole heart and soul I long that some one experienced in affairs could enlighten me, for I am in the darkness of night."[1]
[1] Ibid.
Told in the light of subsequent events, from standing ground removed from the passion and confusion of a present strife, with, moreover, the diplomatic intrigues of Russia and Prussia laid open before our eyes by modern research, the issues of this period of Poland's history are intelligible enough; but to the combatants in the arena the line was not so defined. Some among the Poles of the period, even including men of no mean capacity, wavered as to whether Catherine II were not genuinely prepared to guarantee a free Poland under Russian protection. The leaders of Targowica have been branded with the name of traitors, and justly; but it seems as though they proceeded rather as hotheaded and unpatriotic malcontents than with the deliberate intention of betraying their country. Kościuszko was ill-versed, either by nature, training, or inclination in the art of politics; but through this tangled web of perplexity and uncertainty, when present and future were equally enveloped in obscurity, his singleness of aim supplied him with the unerring instinct with which through the whole of his life he met and unmasked the pitfalls that were spread before the unhappiest and the most cruelly betrayed of nations. Under the dictates of this pure patriotism he directed himself unfalteringly through the most difficult and involved hours of his nation's history, allowing neither friendship, tradition, nor personal advantage to obscure for one moment the great object he had at stake—his country's good. He now laid down high rank, parted with fortune upon which his hand had barely had time to close, and prepared to face an uncertain future in a foreign land. On the eve of his departure from Poland he wrote to Princess Czartoryska:
"I was faithful to my country; I fought for her and would have offered myself a hundred times to death for her. Now it seems as if the end of my services for her is at hand; perhaps this uniform which I am wearing will be the badge of shame. I will cast it off betimes, and lay my sword in the grave till future better times. ... I will once more bid farewell to you. Princess, whom all adore for your virtues and devotion. I kiss the hands which have often dried tears shed for our country."[1]