In the vicinity of Warsaw, along the banks of the Vistula, both above and below the city, small skirmishes almost daily occurred. On the fourth of March, the brave lieutenant Berowski, passing the Vistula opposite Jablonna with his platoon, surprised a squadron of cossacks, and took a hundred prisoners and as many horses. The battalion of volunteer chasseurs of colonel Grotus, posted in the environs of the villages Siekierki, and Wilanow, brought in, almost every day, parties of Russian prisoners, by surprising the different detachments of the enemy placed upon the island of Saxe, opposite to the above mentioned places. This same battalion burnt two batteaux, in which were a party of Russian troops, who were sent during the night with combustibles to burn the bridge between Warsaw and Praga. These boats were sunk, and the Russians who escaped drowning, were taken prisoners. In the environs of the small town of Gora, about twenty miles from Warsaw, a considerable body of workmen who were sent by the enemy to prepare the materials for building a bridge, were surprised by a battalion of the 2d regiment of light infantry. A hundred pioneers and sappers were taken prisoners, and many hundred male and female peasants set at liberty, who had been forced to work for the enemy. At about the 8th of March, marshal Diebitsch demanded the capitulation of the fortress of Modlin, for which object he despatched colonel Kil. This officer was entrusted with a letter to the count Leduchowski, written by the marshal's own hand. His proposition was rejected.[46] Some days after this answer, a part of the garrison of this fortress, sent as a reinforcement to colonel Valentin, surprised the Russians in the town of Serock. They had passed the river Bug, and the Narew opposite that town, to make requisitions of forage in the country around. By a prompt arrangement, the batteaux of the enemy were taken by our troops; and his forces, suddenly attacked and defeated, were compelled to evacuate their position, leaving a thousand prisoners in our hands, which were immediately carried to Modlin, and thence to Warsaw. In this state of things, and while circumstances were continually occurring with uniform advantage to the Polish arms, general Skrzynecki, with the most sincere wish to finish a bloody struggle, and anxious to show that the Poles were always ready to hold out the hand of reconciliation, wrote, with the permission of the provisional government, a communication to marshal Diebitsch, with propositions of that purport. But as these offers of conciliation were rejected by the marshal, the contest was recommenced.[47]