Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/38

10 regiment, and a Major of Engineers, who was sent to reconnoitre the country and draw a plan of it. This wretch, more dead than alive, was Podczaski, a Pole from the palatinate of Braclaw. He told us that, having been compelled by misery, he had, long ago, entered the Russian service, and could never obtain his discharge. We would have been justified in ordering him to be hanged, but we satisfied ourselves with requiring from him information regarding the state and situation of the enemy's camp, which he gave with the utmost sincerity and good faith. He drew us the plan of the Russian camp, and specified the number of men and cannon. We saw distinctly that the enemy were four times stronger than we in men and artillery; we saw it, but did not wish to believe it. In the evening, Captain Molski arrived from General Dombrowski's army, with tidings of the defeat of the Prussians at Bromberg. We immediately published this news in our little army, and exhorted them to equal, by their