Count Beniowski, a magnate of Hungary and of Poland, was taken prisoner by the Russians, and sent to Kamtschatka. On the very day after his arrival in the little city of Bolska, or BolchÉrietzkoi, which had been assigned him as a residence, he had persuaded seven of his companions in exile, to join with him in an attempt to escape. At first they thought only of procuring a boat for their attempted flight, but they afterwards found it necessary to make many material alterations in their plan. Beniowski was only thirty years old; and to the physical advantages of force, elegance, and address, he united that of a good education, which naturally placed him in the first rank among the other exiles, and he was chosen as their chief without one dissentient voice. The governor employed him as a teacher of languages to his three daughters, the youngest of whom, Aphanasia, fell desperately in love with her master. Beniowski dexterously took advantage of this passion to further his scheme.

The confederates, at first few in number, obtained additions to their ranks every day; but they had many difficulties to surmount. Their prime need, however, was money; and in this respect, chance and the cupidity of their guards came very opportunely to their aid. The three principal personages of Bolska were the governor, the chancellor, and the hetman of Cossacks. The two last had discovered Beniowski’s skill at chess, and they thought that by using him as a kind of employÉ, to play in their interest with the richest merchants of the district, they might make considerable additions to their income. He was obliged, for the sake of his companions and for the furtherance of his scheme, to lend himself to this discreditable trick; but he did not forget his own wants while he was filling the pockets of the hetman and the chancellor. The confederates already possessed some twelve thousand roubles, when the rage of one of Beniowski’s victims at the chess-board nearly led to the discovery of the entire plot.

A merchant, named Casarinow, who had lost considerable sums at the game, presented his conqueror with a quantity of poisoned sugar. On the 1st of January, 1771, the principal confederates assembled, according to custom, to take tea; but they had scarcely swallowed the first cup when they were all seized with frightful pains. One of them died during the night; the rest, escaping by a miracle, tested the sugar on various animals, and when they had satisfied themselves as to its poisonous properties they denounced Casarinow to the governor. The merchant was at once summoned, and when he came before the governor was offered a cup of unsweetened tea. He took it. “See,” said his host, offering him some of the poisoned sugar, “what good fellows these exiles are; they have given me all this, and only yesterday they received it as a present themselves.”

Casarinow grew pale, complained of a sudden illness, and asked to be allowed to retire. He was at once arrested, and, yielding to the evidence of facts, confessed his crime, alleging, as an excuse, that he had attempted it in order to punish Beniowski for plotting to arm the exiles and to escape with them from Kamtschatka. He was indebted for the information to Pianitsin, one of the confederates. Too irritated to pay due attention to this defence, the governor imprisoned Casarinow, and ordered the chancellor to take immediate steps for the confiscation of his property, and his despatch to the mines, according to law. But Beniowski had been present during the interview, though he was hidden in a cabinet, the law forbidding not only the functionaries, but simple citizens, to hold any communication with the exiles. He had, therefore, become acquainted with the guilt of Pianitsin; and on his return to the confederates, finding the traitor present, he denounced him. The unfortunate wretch was at once condemned, and was allowed only three hours to prepare for death. A priest who was in the plot prayed with him during that time, and he was then taken out of the village and shot.

Some time after, the authorities seemed willing to test the truth of Casarinow’s depositions; but they looked in vain for the only person who could enlighten them on the point—Pianitsin. They accordingly suffered the matter to rest, convinced that the whole story was nothing better than a fable, invented by the poisoner to serve his own ends.

We cannot give in detail the different episodes of this history of four months, during which the plot was several times on the point of being discovered. The confederates owed their safety to the presence of mind of their chief, and, above all, to the folly and the corruption of their guardians. But on one occasion certain suspicions excited by Beniowski’s conduct had nearly ruined all. Some days after the affair of Casarinow, poor Aphanasia, in presence of her father and of a crowd of persons invited to a fÊte, declared her passion for the count. Her father was at first in a great rage; but this did not last long; and eventually—it is not easy to say through whose good offices—he was induced to show Beniowski more kindness than ever. He, in fact, threw his house open to the exile, and allowed him to come and go as he pleased. All this soon got rumoured abroad, and one day, on entering his own house, Beniowski found himself confronted by four of the principal conspirators, who summoned him to the general assembly, to give an account of his suspicious intimacy with the authorities. He went at once; and on entering the council-room, found that it was guarded by two conspirators, sabre in hand. A cup of poison stood on the table. Beniowski was accused of intriguing for his liberty by the betrayal of his associates. He easily justified himself, and his accuser was the first to embrace him warmly, and to desire his pardon for having suspected him. In time, thanks to Beniowski’s influence with the governor, all the exiles were declared free as to residence within the country, and were allowed to form a colony in the district of Lopattka. He was thus slowly advancing towards his object, when the governor’s wife, Madame Nilow, insisted that his marriage with her daughter should take place at once; while one of the conspirators, named Stephanow, becoming enamoured of Aphanasia, attempted to kill her lover, and nearly revealed the plot. He was, however, terrified into silence, and then pardoned.

The conspirators were at last perfectly organized. They had arms and munitions, and they only awaited the breaking of the ice to embark in a vessel already prepared for them, when circumstances again rendered the authorities suspicious. Beniowski, learning from various signs that all might be compromised in a moment, engaged Aphanasia, to whom he had confided the secret of the plot, to send him a piece of red riband whenever she judged that danger was imminent. All the confederates, meanwhile, were ready and armed; but a day or two preceding that fixed for their departure, Beniowski received a piece of red riband from Aphanasia, while, at the same time, a sergeant brought him a note from the governor, asking him to breakfast. One may easily judge whether the daughter’s present inclined him to accept the father’s invitation. He pretended to be ill, and put off the visit till the next day. But the sergeant had the imprudence to tell him that he would do well to come by fair means, unless he wished to be dragged to the governor’s table by force.

“You had better confess yourself, friend,” replied the exile, haughtily, “before you bring me another message like that.”

At midday the hetman arrived at Beniowski’s house, and was very civilly received; but his air of confidence and of good nature, unskilfully assumed as it was, did not avail to conceal his real purpose from the penetrating glance of the exile. On Beniowski’s refusal to go to the fort, the poor hetman so far forgot his rÔle as to get into a violent passion, and to threaten the unwilling guest with his Cossacks. Beniowski laughed in his face, and the hetman called two of his men. Beniowski whistled, and in an instant five of his companions appeared, and hetman and Cossacks stood disarmed and bound.

At five o’clock in the evening the governor sent a message, urging Beniowski to throw himself on the clemency of the throne, and threatening him with death if he did not instantly set the captives at liberty. The count gave an evasive reply, in order to gain time, and meanwhile seized the chancellor’s nephew and two other persons, whose influence he feared. He would have seized the chancellor himself had he come within his reach. These acts marked the beginning of the insurrection.

On the next day the governor despatched four men and a corporal to arrest the count, who, however, managed to arrest them instead, and to shut them up in his cellar. These were duly followed by a regular detachment of troops, who approached the house with as much circumspection as though it had been a fortress. Beniowski went out to meet them, and killed three of their number; the rest ran away. Then came another detachment, with a cannon. The officer in command allowed Beniowski to approach within fifteen paces, as though willing to hold a parley; but when they had got so near, the confederates suddenly opened fire, and those of the soldiers who did not fall down in terror, ran away outright, so that the cannon became the property of the insurgents. The latter then re-formed their ranks and marched straight upon the fort. The sentinel, seeing the cannon in their hands, mistook them for the detachment which had left in the morning, and lowered the drawbridge. Beniowski, as soon as he found himself inside the place, ran to the governor’s room, with a view of saving him from the violence of the confederates; but the enraged official, incensed at finding himself outwitted, snapped a pistol in his preserver’s face, and sprang at Beniowski’s throat with such violence that the latter was about to defend himself, when one of the confederates spared him the trouble by shooting the unfortunate governor dead. Towards nightfall, however, the Cossacks approached the fort, and prepared to assault it; but their ladders were too short, and the flashes from their muskets serving to betray their position, the confederates were enabled to point their cannon upon them with very destructive effect. On the following day the exiles shut up in a church all the women and children of the city, to the number of about a thousand, and sent word to the eight hundred Cossacks who invested the place, that if they did not at once surrender their arms and give hostages for their peaceable behaviour, the building should be fired. The Cossacks accepted the conditions, and the insurgents remained masters of the place, the former having seven of their number seriously wounded, and nine killed.

Some days after, the exiles took possession of the war corvette, St. Peter and St. Paul; and after they had rendered the last honours of war to the poor governor, they occupied themselves in fitting out the vessel. The hostages were then sent back to the city, with the exception of the chancellor’s secretary, who was detained on board to serve as cook, as a punishment for his malicious intentions.

At length, on the 11th, Beniowski went on board, raised the flag of the confederation of Poland, which was saluted by the guns of the corvette, and quitted Kamtschatka—not as a prisoner escaping, but like a sovereign leaving one of the ports of his empire.