Kościuszko: A BiographyGardner, Monica M. (Monica Mary)
History
Kościuszko: A Biography
Gardner, Monica M. (Monica Mary)
Kościuszko, Tadeusz, 1746-1817
Washington had just ceased to be President. His successor, Adams, wrote
congratulating Kościuszko on his arrival, "after the glorious efforts
you have made on a greater theatre."[1] Washington wrote also:" Having
just been informed of your safe arrival in America, I was on the point
of writing to you a congratulatory letter on the occasion, welcoming you
to the land whose liberties you have been so instrumental in
establishing, when I received your favour of the 23rd. [A letter of
Kościuszko's with a packet he had been requested to convey to
Washington.] ... I beg you to be assured that no one has a higher
respect and veneration for your character than I have; and no one more
sincerely wished, during your arduous struggle in the cause of liberty
and your country, that it might be crowned with success. But the ways of
Providence are inscrutable, and mortals must submit. I pray you to
believe that at all times and under any circumstances it would make me
happy to see you at my last retreat, from which I never expect to be
more than twenty miles again."[1*]
[Footnote 1: _Op. cit_.]
[Footnote 1*: _Writings of George Washington_, ed. Jared Sparks.]
The story of the meeting between Washington and Kościuszko, of
Kościuszko's words, "Father, do you recognize your son?" is a myth. They
met neither in Philadelphia nor elsewhere. The above letter is the last
indication of any intercourse between them. Washington at this period
was regarded with no favour by the democracy. Kościuszko's sympathies
were with the latter and with Jefferson, and he never accepted the
invitation to Washington's home in Mount Vernon.
Yellow fever breaking out in Philadelphia, Kościuszko went for a time
elsewhere: first to New York, to the beautiful house of his old friend
and commander, Gates, later to New Brunswick, where he stayed with
another friend of the past. General White, in a family circle that
attracted his warm regard. He was still confined to his sofa, and amused
himself by his favourite pastime of drawing and painting, tended by the
ladies of the house with a solicitude which drew from him after he had
gone back to Philadelphia a charming "hospitable roof" letter. I have
been unable to see the original English in which Kościuszko wrote this
letter, which is given in a privately printed American memoir. I am
therefore obliged to translate it from the Polish version, which is in
its turn a translation into Polish from Kościuszko's English. We
therefore lose the flavour of Kościuszko's not wholly correct
manipulation of our language:--
"Madam,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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