This prince, who appeared not to find victims enough for his cruelty in the army, began to meddle with all the branches of administration, and to control them. Soon the liberty of the press was prohibited, freemasonry was interdicted, and a bureau of spies was established. The chief in this bureau of spies were Rozniecki, the vice-president of the city of Warsaw, Lubowidzki, a man of the name of Macrot, and Schlee. From the documents found upon Schlee and Macrot, it was ascertained that there were in Warsaw alone 900 spies. In the provinces their number amounted to 2000. The expenses and salaries of these spies, according to accounts found among their papers, drew from the public treasury $1,000,000, or 6,000,000 Polish gilders. Thus, our poor country, instead of employing her resources for the happiness of her children, was forced to pay the mercenaries hired to distress them. Soon Warsaw and the whole kingdom became one vast prison. These spies endeavoured to steal into every company, and were present in all public places. They tried to catch every conversation, and distorted every word spoken, with however innocent an intention, in regard to the policy and administration of the country. In order to extort money, they accused some of the most respected and honest persons, who were thrown into prison, and many of whom were never again seen by their families, from the midst of whom they had been dragged in the night-time, in order to conceal the crime from the eyes of the world. Persons who did not take off their hats in the streets before the Grand Duke, were compelled to draw barrows of mud upon the public places. There passed hardly a month in which some students were not arrested, and, without any trial, at the mere denunciation of a hireling spy, thrown into prison, where they lingered for years. Thus faded away in dungeons many fair and hopeful youths, the flower of our nation. In Warsaw, besides the public gaols, there were, beneath almost all of the barracks, prisons, where the victims of tyranny were tortured. The very orangery of the Grand Duke was transformed into a prison, from which some persons were liberated during the revolution, who had been confined there for years. It was in this prison that Lukasinski had been kept for a long time, though subsequently bound to a cannon and carried into Russia. In the gaols below the barracks of the artillery many dead bodies were found.