Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/198

170 those of other prisoners, my personal hatred towards the Empress, the insulting speeches which I had made in the Diet against her, my satirical talking of her, and, in fine, my animosity against all the Poles attached to Russia, deserved even greater severities than those I endured. Mostowski, for fear of grieving me too much, added nothing to what I have just said; but when we were free, he told me that Samoilow, after having enumerated all the complaints of the Russians against me, passed sentence on me as follows: “Let no one speak to me of Niemcewicz again, for to speak of him in the presence of the Empress, is to spoil the cause of all the Poles.” Mostowski's note touched me deeply; I saw that there was no hope for me during the life-time of an Empress who persecuted me so severely. The event proved how far I was right in my supposition. My only consolation was in the reflection, that the same offences, for which they exercised so many severities towards me, were so many titles to the esteem of all honest men. I had spoken against the