But it happened, in the early manhood
of Thaddeus Kosciusko, that the dangerous political Stromboli which
surrounded his country, and often aroused an answering blaze in that
since devoted land, slept in their fires; and Poland being at peace,
her young military students, becoming desirous of practising their
science in some actual campaign, resolved to try their strength
across the Atlantic. Hearing of the war then just commenced between
the British Colonies in America and the mother country, Kosciusko, as
a deciding spirit amongst his ardent associates, brought them to this
resolution. Losing no time, they embarked, passed over the wide ocean
of the Western world, and landing safe and full of their object,
offered their services to the army of independence. Having been
readily accepted, and immediately applied to use, the extraordinary
warrior talents of Kosciusko soon shone conspicuous, and were
speedily honored by his being appointed special aide-de-camp to
General Washington. His subsequent conduct in the camp and field was
consonant to its beginning, and he became a distinguished general in
rank and command long before his volunteered military services had
terminated. When the war ended, in the peace of mutual concessions
between the national parent and its children on a distant land, (a
point that is the duty of all Christian states to consider, and to
measure their ultimate conduct by,) the Poles returned to their own
country, where they soon met circumstances which caused them to call
forth their recently passed experience for her.
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