BEN 



254 



BEN 



_ ,* for sterl noblemen, wbow e*tte* lay on hi* ro.l 

 lp him. fearing that if ho wew rught 

 bvthe guvVmm <t make disclosures fatal tothcm- 



s adventures he 



trr|, :;ired apartments in nn hotel, making 



::u- major, pa himself off as hi* valet-de- 

 rhimbre. The system of etpionnage established by the 

 Empress Catherine was almost perfect, yet Benyowsky was 

 well nigh mocking all its vigilance. Looking about him 

 for trustworthy mn, he became acquainted with a (Jcr- 

 roan apothecary, who negotiated a passage for him and his 

 friend with the" master of a Dutch vessel then at St. 1' 

 burg. The Dutchman agreed to receive them on b.aid 

 nd smuggle them out of the harbour, and as he said he 

 W*s redy to sail early the following day, he appointed to 

 meet the Count on the bridge of Neva at midnight. Ben- 

 yowsky repaired with the major to the spot at the time ap- 

 pointed, and there impatiently expected the captain, who 

 presently appearing, saluted them, and begged them to 

 stay where they were for a few minutes while he went to 

 itch his last business with his merchant. They waited, 

 hd the captain fail to return. As he came on the 

 bridge he beckoned to the Count, who went to meet him, 

 but at the moment he was about to express his gratitude to 

 the Dutchman for saving him from slavery or death, twenty 

 an soldiers knocked him down, seized him ami his 

 friend, and carried them to the lieutenant-general of police, 

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

 nd brutal examination. Benyowsky tells us himself that 

 this examination principally turned on the conspiracy ol 

 Cazan, on the part he had taken in it, and on his know- 

 ledge of the Russian nobles engaged in it He says his 

 sense of honour and humanity determined him to give no 

 evidence on this head, and that, at a subsequent examina- 

 tion, the Russians threatened to force confession from him 

 by the rack and torture. Eventually, however, he was 

 given to understand, that by engaging never more to enter 

 her imperial majesty's dominions, 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 oil 

 under a strong escort of Cossacks. At first he thought they 

 were conveying him to the frontiers, but he soon discovered to 

 his horror that his destination was Siberia, where Catherine 

 had already consigned thousands of the Poles, and amo 

 them several princes, magnates, and Catholic bishops, which 

 last had taken an active part in the confederations of Thorn 

 and Barr, and excited the Poles of the Roman church 

 against the Russians of the Greek church. 



Under every change of his fortunes Benyowsky hac 

 the valuable art or natural faculty of interesting people 

 in his fate, and of making friends among all kinds u 

 men. On his way from Tobolsk, the capital of Siberia, 

 to Tomsky, he won the affection of a roving Tartar, a 

 dealer in fun, who was in the habit of trading with the 

 Chinese settled near the banks of the Amoor. This mai 

 pro]' Count that he should elude his guards am 



escape with him across the great deserts of Tartary to 

 China. Benyowsky, who was destined to escape to the 

 celestial empire by water, listened eagerly to the friend!; 

 Tartar's project, but the sad state of his wounds, which 

 never having been properly attended to, were still 

 nd the prospect, in such a state, of a land journey of thre 

 hundred leagues, made him give it up in despair. 



From the town of Tomsky Bcnyov sent on to 



the river Yenisei through a desert country, in passing 

 which his escort lost, through fatigue and hunger. 

 Coisacks and twelve horses. He now learned that the 

 place of his exile was not in any part of Siberia, but in the 

 still more savage country of Kauitc'uatka. On the IGth 

 of October. 177U. the exiles reached Okhotsk, where they 

 embarked to perform the remainder of the journey b' 

 wwr. Daring thcvmuge across the ocean the Count, 

 and naut ;iv ed the ship from wreck 



They did not arrive in Kamchatka until the i!d of De 

 ceraber. and t' , sooner there than Benyowsky 



with many other exiles during the 

 journry. -d some geographical information, re 



olvrd to attempt his escape by way of Japan or China 

 - facilitated by the unsuspecting Russian 

 ii<cd him to teach the Latin, French 

 - in hit family. Aphanasia, a beau 

 tful girl of sixteen, tlio governor's youngest daughter, for 



whom he tells us he constructed a musical instrument, fell 

 n love with him, and her passion, not knowing 



hat the Count was a married man. When all his plini 

 'or escape were matured, and a \ossel obtained on the coast, 

 .he poor girl discovered the whole plot, but she would not 

 >e tray her lover, though her concealment in the end led to 

 he death of her father, who was killed in an attempt to 

 nit down the revolted exiles. Nay, even after that event, 

 ind when she was informed by one of his enemies that 

 licnyowkky had a wife in Hungary, her infatuation still 

 ontinued, and she resolved to accompany him on his peril- 

 ous voyage. After a number of adventures and narrow 

 chances of failure, having thoroughly repaired their vessel, 

 ind sailed twenty-two bears for sea-stock, on the llth of 

 May, 1771, Benyowsky set sail from Kamtchatka with 

 euhty-live men, who were nearly all exiles, and some few 

 't' them people of rank like himself. In the month of 

 September in the same year, the ship, carrying an Hun- 

 garian (lag, arrived at Macao in China. The voyage had 

 heen \ery disastrous; for two months they had suffered 

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

 barked weie alive, and of the sixty-two only some ten or a 

 dozen could stand upon deck. Aphanasia was among the 

 dead. In China Benyowsky found two ships of the French 

 East India Company, in which ho 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, where he was joined in December by his wife from 

 Hungary. At the end of the same year the French go- 

 vernment engaged him to form an establishment in Mada- 



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

 thai island, where he soon ingratiated himself in a wonder- 

 ful manner 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 ol Madagascar, and seems 

 eventually to have abandoned his old plan of forming 

 merely a commercial settlement for the more ambitious 

 .project of making conquests in the island. In his Memnirt 

 lie lays the whole blame of this change of views on the 

 French ministry, who, he says, sent him orders to establish 

 his unlimited superiority by force. What is certain is, that 

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

 his ships ; that then 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 de- 

 stroyed his establishment, which had existed for nearly the 

 years. 



Disgusted with the French, he quitted their service, and 

 again accepted a command in the Austrian army. But 

 the visions of wealth ami absolute freedom and independ- 

 ence in the great African island still pursued him, and on 

 December 25, 1763, he presented proposals to the British 

 government to found a colony in Madagascar on their 



!, stating in his memorial that the chiefs and people 

 of that country had appointed him their supreme head. 

 With this curious document his Memoirs (the MS. of 

 which, written in French, is preserved in the library of the 

 British Museum) come suddenly to an end ; nor do we 



from his own pen what degree of countenance the 

 English government gave him. It should appear, however, 

 that he had no authority given him to use the king of 

 England's name, or to carry his Mag, and that the ; 

 ance which ho received in this country was merely from 

 private individuals, and the t'riends he everywhere gained. 

 His ardour was not damped by this want of government 

 encouragement, and ho resolved to return to Madaga- 



The accounts of the last adventures of this extraordinary 

 man ore given in rather different ways. The difference, 

 r, is nut groat, and all his biographers : ^-ree as to the 

 I'uciiiiistances of his ei, 1. \\ e ailopi, a^ ino-t authentic, 

 nls yivoii by the Knghsh editor of h. . Mr. 



\V. Nirhol-on. who looked into the subject with a very care- 

 ful eye, examining a great mass of documentary evidence, 

 aii<l i insulting the parties engaged in the expedition. 

 H.IV ' d some co-operation and credit in England, 



.sky, with his family mid a few associ; i> I, sailed for 



md, in the United States, on the 14lh of April, 1784, 

 on board the Robert uud Ann, which ship also carried a 



