The second plan adopted for crushing the insurgents was dictated by the following circumstance. The Turks, having apparently afforded secret assistance to the insurrection, which derived its principal resources from the Ukraine, and from whence, on the part of the nobles, the principal opposition to the king emanated, Repnin artfully contrived to persuade King Poniatowski to cause the Polish troops under Branetzki to be withdrawn from that province. After this had been done, two hundred priests of the Greco-Russian creed, with Basil, bishop of Tchegrine, at their head, an ecclesiastic of ability, but of unparalleled cruelty, craftiness, and hypocrisy, were sent into the Ukraine, for the purpose of exciting a religious rebellion against the nobles. In every commune these vile emissaries secretly distributed in the night large casks filled with daggers for massacreing, without distinction, all who did not profess the Russian faith. These murderous priests, not content with pronouncing blessings upon these daggers, thus consecrating them to the cruel purpose for which they were intended, gave complete and unlimited absolution from all their sins, to those who with lavish hand should spread abroad, carnage, conflagration, mourning and despair. The Zaporoguian Cossacks were persuaded to become the agents of similar horrors. All the monaste- ries of the schismatics that were in the Ukraine became so many strongholds for the rebellion, and this the more easily, as the country was at that time destitute of troops, and as the common people were for the most part under an impression (so effectually had the priests worked upon them) that the outbreak had been made in obedience to the mandates of the king of Poland. Proclamations were likewise disseminated throughout the Ukraine and amongst the Zaporogues, that the confederates of Bar, principally composed of nobles, were desirous to enforce the conversion of the population to the Church of Rome, or exterminate them without mercy: but that the Empress of Russia, holding the same religious tenets as themselves, would despatch 50,000 men to guard their liberties against the encroachments of their Polish masters. Then she raised Zelezniaque to the rank of Brigadier of Lesser Zaporoguia. The Zaporoguians were at that time living, nominally, under the protection of Russia, Turkey, and Poland, but in reality they formed a distinct caste, maintaining relations with other Cossacks, and committing excesses wherever they were able. Catherine caused her own name to be inscribed on their public register, in letters of gold, and took every opportunity of flattering them. In thus acting, she had a twofold object in view — to weaken Poland, and to lessen the numbers of a body she wished to exterminate. The Zaporoguians, as if blindfolded, fell into the snare she laid for them, lost all remembrance of their benefactor Stephen Bator y, forgot their mother country, were blind to their own interests, and seemed to have banished from their memory the cruelties of Peter the Great, and the terrible lessons they had received from that barbarous potentate.
Intelligence of the prevailing consternation did not fail to reach the ears of Zelezniaque in his monastic retreat; a glorious spoil seemed to glisten before his eyes; fr-om an ascetic he became a chief, and was proclaimed attaman koshovy of the Zaporoguians. He began by secretly organising, in the dense and gloomy forests on both banks of the Tasmina, bands of incendiaries and brigands, seconded by schismatic clergy and Russian officers. PoKsh Ukraine was soon overrun by these human demons.* The dark, fanatical Zelezniaque, surnamed the Hyena of the Ukraine, whose great strength of body, whose iron will, and tiger-like ferocity fitted him for the most daring enterprises, dashed at once into the career of crime; uplifting the crucifix, and invoking the holy name of Christ, while he inflicted the most cruel punishment for the least disobedience of his commands.