1771 its sovereign to such desperate circumstances that he would have been con- d Tooke. 2. 48. POLAND * "The empress Elizabeth," we are informed by Tooke, "had three children by her clandestine marriage with the grand-veneur, Alexèy Gregorievitch Razumofsky. The youngest "of these children was a girl, brought up under the name of princess Tarrakanof. Prince "Radzivil, informed of this secret, and irritated at Catharine's trampling under foot the rights of "the Poles, conceived that the daughter of Elizabeth would furnish him with a signal means of revenge. He thought that it would not be in vain if he opposed to the sovereign, whose "armies were spreading desolation over his unhappy country, a rival whose mother's name should "render her dear to the Russians. Perhaps his ambition might suggest to him yet more lofty 66 "hopes. POLAND. THE revolution in the French ministry not only frustrated all the views of Dumouriez, but threw a damp on the operations of the confederates in the campaign.-Perceiving the duke d'Aiguillon's intention to his measures by secret artifice, whilst he preserved an external appearance of fair dealing, he requested to be recalled as a minister, and entered as volunteer into the service of the confederates, accompanied by several other French officers. The engagements which Choiseul had made respecting "hopes. Perhaps he might flatter himself with being one day enabled to mount the throne on "which he intended to place the young Tarrakanof. However this be, he gained over the persons to whom the education of this princess was committed, carried her off, and conveyed "her to Rome. "Catharine, having intelligence of this transaction, took immediate steps to frustrate the designs of prince Radzivil. Taking advantage of the circumstance of his being the chief of "the confederacy of the malecontents, she caused all his estates to be seized, and reduced him to "the necessity of living on the produce of the diamonds and other valuable effects he had “carried with him to Italy. These supplies were soon exhausted. Radzivil set out in order to "pick up what intelligence he could concerning affairs in Poland, leaving the young Tarrakanof at Rome, under the care of a single governante, and in circumstances extremely confined.— "Scarcely had he reached his own country, when an offer was made to restore him his possessions, on condition that he would take his young ward to Russia. He refused to submit to so dis"graceful a proposal; but he had the weakness to promise that he would give himself no further concern about the daughter of Elizabeth. This was the price of his pardon. "Alexis Orlof, charged with the execution of the will of the empress, seized the first moment on his arrival at Leghorn, of laying a snare for the princess Tarrakanof. One of those intriguers "who are so common in Italy repaired immediately to Rome; and, after having discovered the "lodgings of the young Russian, he introduced himself to her in a military dress and under the name of an officer. He told her that he had been brought thither by the sole desire of paying "homage to a princess whose fate and fortunes were highly interesting to all her countrymen. "He seemed very much affected at the state of destitution in which he found her. He offered "her some assistance which necessity forced her to accept; and the traitor soon appeared to this "unfortunate lady, as well as to the woman that waited on her, in the light of a saviour whom "Heaven had sent to her deliverance."-The result of this intrigue, the particulars of which are too numerous to be related here, was, that Alexis Orlof himself was soon after introduced to the princess-that he flattered her with the prospect of being raised to the Russian throne, as heiress to the late empress.-That he profaned the marriage rites by marrying her under pretence of an intention to maintain her right-that, after having been received and honoured as his princess, she was seduced on board the Russian fleet at Leghorn-that she was carried to Petersburg and confined in a fortress there, and was never afterwards heard of.-Tooke. 2. 62, 1771 1771 pecting pecuniary remittances were, in consequence, not performed: those with the court of Saxony vanished into air: and the confede rates were again left to maintain themselves, with very slender foreign aid, against an army of Russians commanded by Suwarrow, a general of talents. The confederates, on the other hand, were commanded by generals Pulaski, Miaczinski, and other chieftains, assist d with the councils of Dumouriez.—The events of the campaign, not being memorable in themselves, nor having any material influence on the situation of the belligerent parties, do not deserve a recital. Our attention will be better employed in observing the conduct of the neighbouring powers, and the domestic occurrences of this unhappy country. The uneasiness which had been created among the people by the movements of the Prussian and Austrian troops in the autumn, by the visit which prince Henry of Prussia had made to the court of Petersburg, and the interview between their imperial and Prussian majesties at Neustadt, had been increased by the hints thrown out, of pretensions which the Austrian house had to certain districts on the confines of Hungary and Poland. '— Their fears, however, were much relieved by the empress queen's declaration, that she meant only to protect the territories in question, whilst the Russian forces were in Poland, and that her troops should be withdrawn as soon as those of the empress had left the kingdom. The effect of this was greatly enhanced by a letter which Maria Theresa wrote with her own hand to the Polish king, † giving the strongest assurances of friendship to himself and the republic. -The convention which the court of Vienna entered into this year with the Porte had a correspondent tendency to remove the apprehensions which the Poles might have entertained of hostile intentions towards themselves, with whom the sultan was on terms of strict amity. Men who were not practised in the duplicity of courts, after receiving such professions and such testimonies of an amicable disposition, could not suspect that the Austrian court had, at this instant, commenced a negotiation with Russia, through the medium of his Prussian majesty, for the partition of Poland. Those who revered the virtuous, the pious, the heroic Maria Theresa, and respected the yet unsullied character of her son, were chagrined when the objects of the present transactions between the courts of Berlin, Vienna, and Petersburg were laid open. The inimical designs of the Russian empress towards their freedom were well known to them: nor did the conduct of his Prussian majesty, who, with a rapacity unparalleled in the annals of the world, had carried off 12,000 families from Great Poland to people his own dominions, excite such astonishment or indignation, as the perfidy of the Austrian court, which was preparing to deceive those states to which it now made the greatest professions of fidelity. If, from these political intrigues we carry our attention to the present state of Poland, we shall find still greater occasion to commiserate the people. Whilst their frontier was surrounded by the Austrians and Prussians, whose inroads they had already experienced, and every measure of government was dictated by the Russian ambassador, the plague continued its ravages; and their luxuriant lands, which, with proper cultivation, might have enriched the inhabitants, and have afforded plentiful supplies of grain to other nations, were scarcely able to support the armies of the confederates and those of the Russians, which marauded on them by turns. Such was the miserable condition of the Polish nation, when a most flagitious attempt was made against their sovereign; who seemed to be raised to the throne only that he might be a more conspicuous object of our pity. We have seen, in the preceding year, that the confederates, who hated him as an adherent of the Russian empress, had sworn to dethrone him and in the action which we are about to relate, we may remark the gradual progression of villany, the rage inspired by faction, and the fatal consequences that ensued from a separation of interests between a monarch and his people. Viewing in the person of their sovereign an instrument for establishing the tyranny of a foreign power and a religious faith which superstition had taught them to hold in abhorrence, forty of the confede-, rates, headed by three chiefs, named Lukawski, Strawenski, and Kosinski, under the directions of general Pulaski, swore in the most solemn manner that they either would deliver the king alive into his hands; or, if that were impossible, would put him to death. Entering Warsaw in the disguise of peasants, they lurked in different parts of the city till the hour appointed for the execution of the plot.t The 1771 + November 3. 2 1771 The king had been on a visit to his uncle, prince Czartoriski; and was returning at his accustomed hour, accompanied by an aid de camp in his coach, and having about fifteen attendants, when he was attacked by these ruffians. The coachman refusing to stop, they fired several balls through the coach, and mortally wounded a protestant heyduc, who was the only attendant that did not abandon his master. His majesty, opening the door, would have escaped under cover of the extreme darkness; the streets not being lighted with lamps. But whilst one of the villains fired a ball at him so near that he felt the heat of the flash, and another struck him with a sabre over his head, two of them, on horseback, seizing him by the collar, dragged him five hundred paces through the streets: then placing him on a horse, they hurried him along to the ditch which surrounds the city; which they obliged him to leap his horse over. By these means they eluded the guards and others, who went in pursuit of them as soon as the affair was announced at the palace, and an alarm was made through the city.-Having rifled the king of the order of the Black Eagle and other valuables, all the conspirators except seven, actuated by fear or some other motive, made their escape.—The remainder, striking out of all road, wandered with him through the neighbouring meadows.-On their way, it was repeatedly proposed by some of them, that he should be dispatched; but it was opposed by others. These might be deterred by remorse from the completion of their villany; or they might, perhaps, refrain, because their chief object might be to deliver the king alive to the confederates, that he might become an hostage for the performance of some requisitions to be made from his protectress. Proceeding with him, sometimes on horseback and at others on foot, till they came to the wood of Bielany, about a league from Warsaw, they were alarmed by the approach of the Russian patroles, which guarded the roads to the city. Affrighted by their challenges, the ruffians all abandoned him, except Kosinski.-They were at the door of the convent of Bielany, when his majesty, observing some perturbation in Kosinski, said to him, "I see you are at a loss which way to proceed: let me enter the "convent, and do you provide for your own safety." "No," replied Kosinski, "I have sworn."-Humanity, which here yielded to principle in the breast of this conspirator, soon however gained an ascendant. When they had rambled d Wraxall. Appendix. Cox. 1. 45. |