General Dwernicki, although this Austrian corps was not formidable to him, yet being anxious to avoid the serious political consequences which might possibly follow resistance, submitted to this unjust demand, which will be an eternal reproach to the Austrian government. The Austrians returned their arms to the Russian prisoners, whom they liberated, and retained the arms of the Polish troops. The whole corps was conducted into the interior, and thus ended the career of that important body of our forces.[55] The conduct of Austria, in regard to the corps of Dwernicki, I am sure will excite the indignation of the reader. If general Dwernicki had entered upon the Austrian territory, he was forced to do it by the Russian corps, which had already passed the frontier; and that cannot be regarded as an intentional invasion of the frontiers which was done without design, and was a mere transition over an indistinct line, made necessary by the position which the enemy had taken. Such a case certainly should have formed an exception to a general rule. To the Russian corps all the prisoners were returned, without any consent obtained from our government, to whom they, in fact, belonged, and should have been considered as belonging, until the end of the war. It was in this manner that those intriguing cabinets repaid the debt of gratitude which they owed to Poland. They had forgotten the times of John Sobieski, who, in 1683, delivered their capital, and their whole territory, from destruction at the hands of the Turks. They had forgotten that they thus owe their very existence to Poland. At present, regardless of all obligations of justice, they concert with our enemy for our ruin. But if by this unjust treatment of their benefactors, the Austrians may have gained some temporary advantages, the reader will acknowledge that in reference to their ultimate good, they have acted with a most short-sighted and mistaken policy. The aggrandizement of Russia can never be an advantage to Austria. There were few more melancholy events in our war than this. The disaster of this corps grievously paralyzed all the fine plans of the general in chief. It reinforced the Russian superior force by 40,000 men;--for the different corps of Kreutz, Witt, Rudiger and Rott, could now rejoin their main army without obstruction.