But for all his native modesty Kościuszko was too conscious of his obligation to his country to brook any infringement of the power he held. Writing a sharp rebuke to "the whole principality of Lithuania and especially to the Provisional Council of Wilno," which he had reason to believe was arrogating to itself his functions, he declares that he would be "unworthy of the trust" that his nation had confided to him if he did not "know how to use and maintain" his authority.[2] A little later, desirous to mitigate this sternness with the suavity more congenial to him, he spoke to his native district in a different key.
[1] T. Korzon, Kościuszko.
[2] K. Bartoszewicz, History of Kościuszko's Insurrection.
"The last moment of Poland, her supreme cause, salvation or eternal ruin and shame, personal freedom and national independence, or a terrible slavery and the groaning of millions of men ... the destruction of the Polish name, or her glorious place in the ranks of nations: these are the considerations that must take hold of the Polish nation, of you, citizens of Lithuania. ... Poles, now is the moment for the amendment of eternal errors. Now is the time to be worthy of your ancestors, to forget yourselves in order to save the country, to stifle in yourselves the base voice of personal interest in order to serve the public. Now must you draw forth your last strength, your last means, to give freedom to your land. ... Let us know how to die! And what is earthly life? A transitory and passing shadow, subject to a thousand accidents. What Pole can live, if he must live in the state in which till now, with his compatriots, he has been compelled to live? ... Oh, fellow-countrymen! If you spare your lives, it is that you should be wretched slaves; if you spare your possessions, it is that they should be the spoils of the invaders. Who can be so deprived of reason or so fearful, as to doubt that we shall surely conquer, if we all manfully desire to conquer?
"Lithuania! My fellow-countrymen and compatriots! I was born on your soil, and in the midst of righteous zeal for my country more especial affection is called forth in me for those among whom I began life. ... Look at the rest of the nation of which you are a part. Look at those volunteers, already assembling in each province of all the Crown, seeking out the enemy, leaving homes and families for a beloved country, inflamed with the watchword of those fighting for the nation: Death or Victory! Once again, I say, we shall conquer! Earlier or later the powerful God humbles the pride of the invaders, and aids persecuted nations, faithful to Him and faithful to the virtue of patriotism."[1]
[1] K. Bartoszewicz, Op. cit. Kościuszko. Periodical Publication.
The moment had now arrived—in the May of 1794—to regularize the Rising and to establish the temporary government on a stable and more conventional basis. Kościuszko explained himself fully in his proclamation of May 21st to the "citizens of Poland and Lithuania":
"It has pleased you, citizens, to give me the highest proof of confidence, for you have not only laid your whole armed strength and the use thereof in my hands, but in addition, in the period of the Rising, not deeming yourselves to be in the condition to make a well-ordered choice of members for the Supreme National Council, you confided that choice to me. The greater the universal confidence in me that I behold, the more solicitous I am to respond to it agreeably to your wishes and to the necessities of the nation.
"I kept to that consideration in the nomination of members of the Council. I desired to make the same choice that you yourselves would have made. So I looked for citizens who were worthy of the public trust: I considered who in private and public life had maintained the obligations of unstained virtue, who were steadfastly attached to the Rights of the Nation and the Rights of the People, who at the time of the nation's misfortunes, when foreign oppression and domestic crime drove at their will the fate of the country, had most suffered for their patriotism and their merits. It was such men whom for the most part I summoned to the National Council, joining to them persons honoured for their knowledge and virtue, and adding to them deputies capable of assisting them in their onerous obligations."
He then says that the reason he did not nominate the Council earlier was because he was awaiting the whole nation's confirmation of the Act of the Rising that had been proclaimed in Cracow, and thus "during the first and violent necessities" of the Rising he was driven to issue manifestos and ordinances on his own responsibility.