The reader will pardon me, if I fatigue him with farther reflections upon this stage of our affairs. I shall not exaggerate in saying that this enormous mass of the enemy's forces would in an equal period have been absolutely annihilated, if we had then had a commander in chief of greater talent, and a general plan of operation differently arranged,--for the different operations in detail were, generally speaking, perfectly executed. The commander in chief, prince Radzivil, was an individual of the most estimable character, but as he afterwards himself avowed, not possessed of military talent. General Chlopicki, who was always near him, and who in fact virtually commanded, if he had in the early part of his life exhibited military talent, in his present advanced age had certainly lost much of his energy, and was unfit to undertake things which demanded the most active intellect, and the most absolute devotedness of mind and body to the cause. We cannot too strongly express our astonishment that general Chlopicki, who had formed the plan, and a very judicious one it was, of drawing the enemy on to the walls of Warsaw, to give him there a decisive battle, should have neglected to fortify the natural positions upon his route, by which the enemy's loss would have been doubled or even trebled. Serock and Zagroby (4), [_See Plan_ VI], situated upon points of the greatest importance, especially the first, were evacuated by our forces, for the want of proper defences. Not the slightest fortification was constructed at the different passages of the Narew (N), the Bug (B), the Liewiec (L), and the Swider (S), nor upon the region between those rivers, which was full of forests and impenetrable marshes, and in which proper fortifications would have presented the most important obstructions to the enemy's passage. No concealed passages or by-roads through those forests were constructed, as they should have been, by which a body of troops could be led in ambuscade and brought to act suddenly on the enemy's flanks or otherwise, in critical moments, and with decisive effect. Such works would have required but little expense, and could have been made by the Jewish inhabitants, of whom there are some millions in Poland, (twenty thousand in Warsaw alone,) and who could have no claims for exemption, for they render no service to the country, but on the contrary lead a life of profitable fraud and deception, practised upon the inhabitants. The Jews, indeed, with some very few exceptions, did not in the least aid in the war, but often frustrated our exertions by their espionage; and there are in fact instances of their having fought against us,--against those who had given them an asylum upon their soil. In the towns of Nasielsk and Makow this occurred. This part of our population, who had an equal interest with us in the protection of the country, as far as property was concerned, could have been thus employed with perfect justice and propriety.