emigrant in vain.

Some time after this, General Kosciusko, the justly celebrated hero
of Poland, came to England, on his way to the United States; having
been released from his close imprisonment in Russia, and in the
noblest manner, too, by the Emperor Paul, immediately on his
accession to the throne. His arrival caused a great sensation in
London, and many of the first characters of the times pressed forward
to pay their respects to such real patriotic virtue in its adversity.
An old friend of my family was amongst them; his own warm heart
encouraging the enthusiasm of ours, he took my brother Robert to
visit the Polish veteran, then lodging at Sablonière's Hotel, in
Leicester Square. My brother, on his return to us, described him as a
noble looking man, though not at all handsome, lying upon a couch in
a very enfeebled state, from the effects of numerous wounds he had
received in his breast by the Cossacks' lances after his fall, having
been previously overthrown by a sabre stroke on his head. His voice,
in consequence of the induced internal weakness, was very low, and
his speaking always with resting intervals. He wore a black bandage
across his forehead, which covered a deep wound there; and, indeed,
his whole figure bore marks of long suffering.

Our friend introduced my brother to him by name, and as "a boy
emulous of seeing and following noble examples." Kosciusko took him
kindly by the hand, and spoke to him words of generous encouragement,
in whatever path of virtuous ambition he might take. They never have
been forgotten. Is it, then, to be wondered at, combining the mute
distress I had so often contemplated in other victims of similar
misfortunes with the magnanimous object then described to me by my
brother, that the story of heroism my young imagination should think