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 too far off to render assistance, and the safety of the whole Polish army depending upon Kościuszko, "left to himself," to cite his own words—he invariably employs the third person—he threw up defences and prepared for the Russian attack. Through the day of July 18th he stood with five thousand Poles and eight cannon against a Russian army of twenty thousand soldiers and forty cannon, repelling the enemy with sanguinary loss to the latter. One of his officers who fought by his side told afterwards how he had seen Kościuszko in the hottest fire calm and collected as though taking a stroll. The battle that has been called the Polish Thermopylæ only closed when towards evening the Russian commander, Kachowski, violated neutral territory and fell upon the Poles from the side of Galicia, so that, hopelessly outnumbered, they were compelled to retreat. The retreat through the forest on a pitch-dark night was led by Kościuszko, says an eyewitness, "with the utmost coolness and in the greatest order," directing an incessant fire on the pursuing Russians that told heavily upon them. Kniaziewicz, whom we last saw in a less stern moment of Kościuszko's life, here played a gallant part.

It has been pointed out that the honours of the day fell, not to the winner of the field of Dubienka, but to the vanquished: to Kościuszko, not to the Russian general, Kachowski. Pole and Russian alike speak of the high military talent that Kościuszko displayed, no less than of the valour that fought on, refusing defeat till hope was no more. The immediate result so far as Kościuszko was personally concerned was the acknowledgment of his services by the King in the shape of promotion and the nomination he