TWO:The condition of Washington was inconceivably depressing. The time for the serving of the greater part of the troops was fast expiring; and numbers of them, despite the circumstances of the country, went off. Whilst Washington was, therefore, exerting himself to prevail on them to continue, he was compelled to weaken his persuasions by enforcing the strictest restraint on both soldiers and officers, who would plunder the inhabitants around them on the plea that they were Tories. Sickness was in his camp; and his suffering men, for want of hospitals, were obliged to lie about in barns, stables, sheds, and even under the fences and bushes. He wrote again to Congress in a condition of despair. He called on them to place their army on a permanent footing; to give the officers such pay as should enable them to live as gentlemen, and not as mean plunderers. He recommended that not only a good bounty should be given to every non-commissioned officer and soldier, but also the reward of a hundred or a hundred and fifty acres of land, a suit of clothes, and a blanket. Though Congress was loth to comply with these terms, it soon found that it must do so, or soldiers would go over to the royal army.The Diet issued a counter-proclamation rebutting[398] Catherine's long catalogue of charges seriatim, and denying the right of any nation, under any pretence whatever, to interfere with the internal changes of another nation executed by the proper authorities and representatives of the people. Stanislaus Augustus issued an address to the Polish army, calling upon it to defend the national rights from the domination of Russia. But, unfortunately, Poland was in no condition to cope with the might of Russia. No pains had been taken to organise the army in years past on any scale capable of defending the nation; the new rights conferred on the people were too new to have given them yet any interest in them. Poland, therefore, in all haste, made solicitations for help to Prussia, Austria, Britain, Sweden, and Denmark; but in vain. Sweden and Denmark had, now that Gustavus was dead, determined to have no concern in wars resulting in any way from the French Revolution. Frederick William of Prussia pretended to have foreseen this offence to Russia in the alarming measures of the Diet, and protested that had it not been for these, Russia would never have taken the decided step which she had now done. He, however, coldly professed himself ready to unite with Russia and Austria to restore the former state of things in Poland. As for Austria, she lay cold and neutral in appearance; but though Poland was not aware of it, both Prussia and Austria were in the secret league for the dismemberment of that unfortunate country.
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