'he would exert himself in the cause of Poland, when he saw the country possessed of its ancient territories, and having a free constitution.' Fouche tried every means to carry him to Poland. An appeal to the Poles, which appeared under his name in the Moniteur of November 1, 1806, he declared to be spurious.
Having purchased an estate in the neighborhood of Fontainebleau, he lived there in retirement until 1814. April 9, 1814, he wrote to the emperor Alexander, to ask of him an amnesty for the Poles in foreign lands, and to request him to become king of Poland, and to give to the country a free constitution, like that of England. In 1815, he traveled with lord Stuart to Italy, and, in 1816, he settled at Soleure. In 1817, he abolished slavery on his estate of Siecnowicze, in Poland. He afterwards lived in retirement, enjoying the society of a few friends. Agriculture was his favorite occupation. A fall with his horse from a precipice, not far from Vevay, occasioned his death, October 16, 1817, at Soleure. He was never married. In 1818, prince Jablonowski, at the expense of the emperor Alexander, removed his body, which, at the request of the senate, the emperor allowed to be deposited in the tomb of the kings at Cracow. A monument was also erected to his memory, and the women went into mourning for his loss.
NATHANIEL GREENE.
Nathaniel Greene, a major-general in the American army, was born,
May 22, 1742, near the town of Warwick in Rhode Island. His father
was an anchor smith, and, at the same time, a Quaker preacher, whose
ignorance, combined with the fanaticism of the times, made him pay little
attention to the worldly learning of his children, though he was very careful
of their moral and religious instruction. The fondness for knowledge,
however, of young Greene was such, that he devoted all the time he could
spare to its acquisition, and employed all his trifling gains in procuring
books. His propensity for the life of a soldier was early evinced by his
predilection for works on military subjects. He made considerable proficiency
in the exact sciences; and, after he had attained his twentieth
year, he added a tolerable stock of legal knowledge to his other acquisitions.
In the year 1770, he was elected a member of the state legislature,
and, in 1774, enrolled himself as a private in a company called the
Kentish Guards. After the battle of Lexington, the state of Rhode
Island raised what was termed an army of observation, in order to assist
the forces collected in Massachusetts, for the purpose of confining the
British within the limits of Boston, and chose Greene its commander, with
the title of major-general. His elevation from the ranks to the head of
three regiments, may give some idea of the estimation in which his military
talents were held. June 6, 1775, he assumed his command before
the lines of Boston; and, not long afterwards, General Washington arrived,
to take the command in chief of the American forces. Between
these two distinguished men an intimacy soon commenced, which was
never interrupted. Greene accepted a commission from congress of brigadier-general,
although, under the state, he held that of major-general;
preferring the former, as it promised a larger sphere of action, and the
pleasure of serving under the immediate command of Washington. When
