The discovery of this extensive treason struck the people with consternation and dismay. It drove them to a state bordering on desperation. When Poland had sent and was sending her sons, and even her daughters, to the field of death;--when she was sacrificing every thing to achieve her deliverance, and was awaiting the fruits of such sacrifices, sure, if not to conquer, at least to fall with honor,--she sees that all is in vain--that her holy purposes are mocked at, and that all her noble efforts are thwarted! Can we be surprised, then, at the state of the popular mind which ensued? The state of feeling which these events caused was aggravated by the reflection, that the surveillance of certain individuals, of whom distrust had been already entertained, had been more than once demanded; and that from an early period it was urged upon the government, that the Russian prisoners, particularly those of distinction, should be carefully watched, and prevented from holding free communication together, or with others. So far, however, from such care having been taken, the very Jews were permitted to communicate with them constantly, and to bring them intelligence of the events of the war. Can it be wondered then, that the neglect of these repeated warnings, and the tremendous consequences which had well nigh followed this neglect, should have weighed upon the minds of the people, and have even brought the National Government itself into suspicion? It was, in fact, from this moment, that the nation began first to look with dissatisfaction and distrust upon that government, upon prince Czartoriski its head, and even upon the general in chief himself. The melancholy news of the treason of Jankowski filled the minds of the patriots with bitter anticipations; they naturally foreboded, that if such treasons could be perpetrated in the grand army, under the very eyes of the general in chief, the danger might be still greater in the more distant corps. Their forebodings were but too well justified by the events which took place in Lithuania, the intelligence of which was soon received at Warsaw. CHAPTER XXIII.