6S7 



BENYOWSKY, COUNT DE. 



BENYOWSKY, COUNT DE. 



his edition of Manilius, which had been prepared for the press no less 

 than forty-five years. 



Bentley's literary career ends here. He recovered sufficiently to be 

 able to amuse himself, and the concluding years of his life were spent 

 in the tranquil enjoyment of the society of his family and of a few 

 attached friends. Mrs. Bentley died in 1740, and Bentley survived her 

 little more than two years. He died July 14, 1742, and was interred 

 in the college chapel. Hia library passed into the hands of his son, 

 Dr. Richard Bentley, a man of learning and talent, but of too desultory 

 habits to obtain eminence in any pursuit. The books were purchased 

 after his death by the house of Lackington, from which they were 

 repurchased by the British Museum, it is said, without any advance 

 of price. 



(Monk, Life of Bentley.) 



BENYOWSKY, MAURITIUS AUGUSTUS, COUNT DE, Magnate 

 of Hungary and of Poland, was born at Werbuena, or Verbowna, the 

 hereditary lordship of his family, in the county of Nittria, in the 

 kingdom of Hungary, at the beginning of the year 1741. He was son 

 of Samuel, count de Beuyowsky, a general of cavalry in the Emperor 

 of Austria's (service, and of Rosa, baroness of Revay, lady and hereditary 

 countess of Thurocz. The young count was educated at Vienna and 

 about the court, and at the early age of fourteen, as the fashion was 

 in thoae days, he entered the Austrian army. The Seven Years' War 

 was then on the point of breaking out. 



In 1756 Benyowsky fought under the celebrated Marshal Braun in 

 the battle of Lowositz, where the Austrians were defeated by the great 

 Frederic in person. In 1757 he was engaged in the desperate battle 

 of Prague, and in the following year he fought at Schweidnitz and 

 Darmstadt. Though now only sixteen years of age, his courage and 

 decision of character were remarkable. 



In the year 1761 he was invited by an uncle, who was a magnate of 

 Poland and starost in Lithuania, to join him in Lithuania. While 

 absent in Lithuania the count's father died, on which his brothers-in- 

 law took possession of all the Hungarian estates, which constituted the 

 main part of his hereditary property. After having in vain summoned 

 them to surrender the land, Benyowsky determined to take the law 

 into his own hands, and do himself right by force. He suddenly 

 appeared in Hungary, and arming the vassals and peasantry on the 

 estates, who were much attached to him, he began to make war on 

 his brothers-in-law, whom he would soon have dispossessed had not 

 the empress and the authorities of the Hungarian diet interfered, and 

 finally obliged him to retire to Lithuania, He repeatedly forwarded 

 memorials to the empress on these affairs, but his appeals were fruitless. 

 It is probable that his rights were not quite so clear to the Austrian 

 government as they seemed to himself. Soon tiring of an inactive life, 

 Benyowsky repaired to the maritime city of Danzig, and made several 

 voyages to Hamburg, and in 1766 sailed from Hamburg to Amsterdam, 

 whence he came to Plymouth. Being in England in 1767, he received 

 letters from certain of the magnates and senators of Poland, engaging 

 him to return and join, in his quality of Polish nobleman, the confede- 

 ration which was then forming to resist the encroachments of the 

 Russians and the Empress Catherine, who had succeeded three years 

 before in securing the elective crown of Poland to her former lover, 

 Stanislaus Poniatowsky. Count Benyowsky set out for Warsaw, where 

 he arrived in July 1767, and took the oath required by the confede- 

 rating nobles. As the moment of action had not yet arrived, he 

 employed his leisure in making a journey to Vienna, and once more 

 pressed his right to the Hungarian estates on the Austrian court ; but 

 his representations were useless, and he departed for Poland with a 

 determination never again to set his foot in Austria, Hungary, or any 

 part of Maria Theresa's dominions. On his way back, while passing 

 through the county of Zips in Hungary, he fell sick of a fever, and was 

 laid up for several weeks in the house of a gentleman of distinction 

 named Hensky. During his sickness and convalescence Benyowsky 

 made love to one of this gentleman's daughters, whom he married 

 shortly after. 



In the beginning of 1768, only two or three months after his marriage, 

 the Polish confederation, known under the name of the Confederation 

 of Barr, took up arms against Russia, on which Benyowsky, without 

 mentioning his intention to his bride, went and joined them in the 

 field, as lie was bound to do by the oath he had taken the preceding 

 year. At the opening of the campaign he was appointed general of 

 cavalry. For some time the Polish confederates were everywhere 

 successful, and the Count contributed to most of the victories. But 

 in the unfortunate battle of Szuka, after being dreadfully wounded, 

 lie was made prisoner by the Muscovites, who treated him not as a 

 brave and honourable enemy, but as a revolted subject or a brigand. 

 Tlie Russians loaded him with chains, and threw him, with eighty of 

 bis comrades, into the dungeon of a fortress, that had no light or air 

 except a little that straggled through a chink which opened upon the 

 casements. From this dreadful confinement Benyowsky was marched 

 with a large body of Polish prisoners to Kievv, and thence to Kazan, 

 in the interior of Russia. While in the latter city, some Russian 

 noblemen, who had organised an extensive conspiracy against the 

 Empress Catherine, seeing the influence he possessed over the minds 

 of the Polish prisoners, who far outnumbered the Muscovite garrison 

 of the place, treated privately with Benyowsky in order to induce him 

 to join in their plots. The count had many interviews with the 

 BIOO. DIV. VOL. r. 



conspirators, among whom were many of the Russian clergy, and 

 engaged to join his arms to theirs in case they should be successful in 

 their first rising at Kazan, and should give him and his Poles the neces- 

 sary weapons, ammunition, and appointments. These facts certainly 

 g'o far to account for Catherine's implacable enmity towards him, 

 though they neither excuse her brutality, nor, considering the position 

 in which he stood, cast any moral stain on his character. The plot 

 however was betrayed to the governor of Kazan. Benyowsky was 

 accused, but escaped at midnight A major of the Polish army was 

 the companion of his flight, which Benyowsky managed throughout 

 with wonderful address and talent. Instead of attempting to hida 

 himself in the provinces, he determined to go straight on to the 

 crowded capital, where he fancied he could lie concealed until some 

 foreign vessel should be found to carry him out of Russia. After 

 many curious adventures he reached St. Petersburg, where he hired 

 apartments in a hotel, making his companion, the major, pass himself 

 off as his valet-de-chambre. The system of espionage established 

 by the Empress Catherine was almost perfect, yet Benyowsky was 

 well nigh mocking all its vigilance. He made the acquaintance of a 

 German apothecary, who negociated a passage for him and his friend 

 with the master of a Dutch vessel then at St. Petersburg. The 

 Dutchman agreed to receive them on board and smuggle them out of 

 the harbour, and as he said he was ready to sail early the following 

 day, he appointed to meet the count and his frieud on the bridge of 

 Neva at midnight, and did meet them, as agreed, but only to deliver 

 them into the hands of a party of twenty Russian soldiers. Benyowsky 

 and his friend were carried to the lieutenant-general of police, who, 

 well knowing who they were, subjected them to a long and brutal 

 examination. Eventually however he was given to uuder.tand, that 

 by engaging never more to enter her imperial majesty's dominion?, 

 and never again to bear arms against her or any of her allies, he 

 should be permitted to leave the country. Having signed a solemn 

 engagement to this effect, he was put into a rude carriage, which set 

 off under a strong escort of Cossaks. At first he was given to under- 

 stand that he was being cairied to Siberia, but he eventually found 

 that his destination was the still more savage country of Kamtchatka. 

 On the 16th of October 1770, the exiles reached Okhotsk, where they 

 embarked to perform the remainder of the journey by water. During 

 the voyage across the ocean the count's exertions and nautical skill 

 saved the ship from wreck. They did not arrive in Kamtchatka until the 

 2nd of December, and they were no sooner there than Beuyowsky, who 

 had conferred with many other exiles during the journey, and obtained 

 some geographical information, resolved to attempt his escape byway of 

 Japan or China. His plans were facilitated by the unsuspecting Russian 

 governor, who engaged him to teach the Latin, French, and German 

 languages in his family. After a number of adventures and narrow 

 chances of failure, having repaired the vessel in which they arrived, 

 and salted twenty-two bears for sea-stock, on the llth of May 1771, 

 Benyowsky set sail from Kamtchatka with eighty-five men, who were 

 nearly all exiles, and some few of them people of rank like himself. In 

 the mouth of September in the same year, the ship arrived at Macao 

 in China. The voyage had been very disastrous; for two months 

 they had suffered hunger and thirst ; only sixty-two of those who had 

 embarked were alive, and of the sixty-two only some ten or a dozen 

 could stand upon deck. In China Benyowsky found two ships of the 

 French East India Company, in which he embarked with all his 

 people, having determined to seek employment at the court of 

 France. 



During the homeward voyage he spent a fortnight at the island of 

 Madagascar, and this circumstance influenced the rest of his life. In 

 the month of August 1772, he reached France. At the end of the 

 same year the French government engaged him to form an establish- 

 ment in Madagascar, and on the 14th of February 1774, he arrived in 

 that island, where he soon ingratiated himself with the natives in the 

 neighbourhood of the bay of Anton-Gil, on which he fixed his little 

 colony. He however imprudently engaged with these allies in their 

 wars with some of the other people of Madagascar, and seems to have 

 abandoned his plan of forming merely a commercial settlement for the 

 more ambitious project of making conquests in the island. Certain it 

 is, that M. de Kerguelen, a naval commander, landed the crews of his 

 ships ; that a destructive and barbarous warfare was carried on against 

 the blacks of Madagascar ; and that almost as soon as the ships 

 withdrew, the blacks drove Benyowsky and his companions from the 

 island, and destroyed his establishment, which had existed for nearly 

 ave years. 



Disgusted with the French, he quitted their service, and again 

 accepted a command in the Austrian army. But the visions of 

 wealth and absolute freedom and independence in the great African 

 island still pursued him, arid on December 25, 1783, he presented 

 proposals to the British government to found a colony iu Madagascar 

 sn their account. His project was not adopted by the government, 

 Dut having obtained some co-operation and credit iu England, Ben- 

 yowsky, with his family and a few associates, sailed for Maryland, in. 

 ihe United States, on the 14th of April 1784. At Baltimore he induced 

 a mercantile firm to enter into his views and supply him with a ship 

 of 450 tons burden, well provided with stores and a trading cargo, but 

 "tiruished also with twenty 6-pounders and twelve swivels. This nhip, 

 which was called the ' Intrepid,' sailed from Baltimore for tho harbour 



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