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Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/158

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130
EXAMINATION OF THE PRISONERS.

tassels hanging before and behind, and decorations on both sides. He began the conversation, by telling me that they had been very much displeased with my depositions, that I had told them nothing new, and that, from a defendant I became a complainant, throwing all the fault upon the subjects of Her Gracious Majesty. I told him that I had said the truth, and that it was not my fault if the secrets he was looking for had never existed. “They have existed,” interrupted he with rage, “and you know them, for nothing was hidden from you. You are summoned here, to declare immediately the names of the Poles of Red-Russia,[1] who were in correspondence with you, and who had promised to revolt. Remember that we already know all that I am asking you here; that your Poland no longer exists, and that all the ringleaders of the revolution, your Potockis, Kollontays, &c., are in our hands. If you

  1. Thus the Court of St. Petersburg baptized Volhynia, Podolia, and Ukrania, wrested from Poland only eighteen months ago.