XVII. 1794. tive on all proceedings, of course, was more frequently CHAP. exercised by one among four hundred deputies, who was intrusted with the interest of an extensive palatinate, than by an insulated individual amidst a hundred thousand of his fellow-citizens. The check, too, which the terror of being massacred imposed upon the exercise of this right in the primary assembly, was removed when, in the Chamber of Deputies, uplifted sabres were no longer ready to exterminate the recusant. Moreover the electors, with the jealousy of the democratic spirit, uniformly exacted from every representative a pledge how he was to vote on every question that came before the Assembly; and after every session they held what were called post-comitial diets, the object of which was to bring him to account for the vote he had given on every occasion. In these diets the representatives ran the most imminent risk of being murdered, if they had deviated at all from the instructions 114. they had received.1 1 Rulh. i. 24, 26. Salv.i. 26. veto pos each deputy. The sense of this danger made the deputies adhere strictly to the orders given them; and as their instructions Evils of the were extremely various, the practical result was, that liberum unanimity was impossible, and business could not be sessed by carried through. To avoid this, the majority, in some instances, proceeded by main force to pass measures in spite of the minority; but as this was deemed a direct violation of the constitution, it invariably led to civil war. Confederations of the minorities were established, diets appointed, marshals elected, and these deplorable factions, which alternately had the king a chief and a captive, were regarded as a constitutional mode of extricating the rights of the people. This right of opposition, in the space of two centuries, had the effect of utterly annihilating every other power in the government. The deputies, without ever having made a direct attack upon the throne-without ever having attempted to wrest from the king or the senate the power allotted to them in the constitution, -succeeded at length in suspending and neutralising every CHAP. 1794. other branch of the legislature. The popular attachment to the veto augmented with the progress of wealth, and the increasing opulence of the great families who composed the senate; as it reduced all the citizens, at least on some occasions, to a state of perfect equality. The only astonishing thing is, that, with such institutions, the valour of the Polish nobility should so long have concealed the weakness arising from their unruly disposition. One would imagine, that a people with such a government 1 Rulh. i. 26, could not exist a year; and yet, such was their mingled energy and infatuation, they seemed never wearied either of victory or folly.' 27. Salv. i. 115. 27. Great in crease of the power at the sixteenth century. The political crisis which, at the close of the sixteenth century, convulsed all Europe, reinstated the Poles at once democratic in all their ruinous democratic privileges, which the close of the influence of their preceding monarchs had somewhat impaired. In the year 1573, on the death of the last race of the Jagellons, the nation with one voice reasserted and obtained all its original immunities. The command of the armies, and the administration of justice, were taken from the crown; two hetmans appointed, one for Lithuania, and one for Poland; each was invested with an absolute command over the forces of these rival provinces of the republic, and they too often, by their jealousies, marred the effect of the most glorious triumphs. Meanwhile the administration of justice was confided to a few supreme tribunals, composed of the nobility, who were changed every fifteen months, by new elections, as if to prevent justice ever being administered by those who had any acquaintance with law. Two standing armies were directed to be formed, one for Lithuania, the other for Poland: but they hardly amounted in all to ten thousand men; and even for these the jealousy of the nobility would only permit them to vote the most scanty supplies, which required to be renewed at each successive diet. In consequence of this circumstance, the Poles never had a regular force on which they could rely, worthy either of CHAP. XVII. the name or the strength of the republic; and when all the adjoining states were daily consolidating their strength, and providing for the public defence by powerful standing armies, they had almost nothing to rely on for 1Salv.i.125, the maintenance of their independence but the tumultuary i. 31. array of barbarous times.1 1794. 127. Rulh. the national Their forces, such as they were, consisted of five classes: 28. the national troops, or a small body of regular soldiers, Nature of paid and equipped by the republic; the pospolite, or force. general assembly of all the free citizens on horseback; the armed valets, all forming part of the noble or free class, whose rapine in general did more harm than their courage did service; the artillery, which, from the want of funds for its support, was usually in the most wretched condition; and the mercenaries, composed chiefly of Germans, whose services would have been of great importance, had their fidelity been secured by regularity of pay, but who were generally in a state of mutiny for want of it. The whole body of the pospolite, the volunteers, the valets d'armée, and a large body of the mercenaries and national troops, served on horseback. The heavy cavalry, in particular, constituted the strength of the armies ; there were to be found united, riches, splendour, and number. They were divided into cuirassiers and hussars; the former clothed in steel, man and horse bearing casque and cuirass, lance and sabre, bow and carbine; the latter defended only by a twisted hauberk, which descended from the head, over the shoulders and breast, and armed with a sabre and pistol. Both were distinguished by the splendour of their dress and equipage, and the number and costly array of their mounted servants, accoutred in the most bizarre manner, with huge black plumes, and skins of bears and other wild beasts. It was the pride of this body that they were composed of men, all measured, as they expressed it, by the same standard; that is, equally acknowledging no superior but their God, and equally destined, perhaps, to step one day into the XVII. 1794. CHAP. throne of the Piasts and the Jagellons. They boasted that, "if the heaven itself were to fall, they would support it on the point of their lances." The hussars and cuirassiers were denominated towarzirz that is, companions they called each other by that name, and they were designated in the same way by the sovereign, whose chief boast was to be primus inter pares, the first among equals. But all these forces were in general in the most miserable state of destitution. The regular army, almost always without pay, was generally without discipline, and totally destitute of every kind of equipment: the castles and fortified towns had no other defences but walls, which age had almost every where reduced to ruins; the arsenals were in general empty. All those great establishments, which in other states bespeak the constant vigilance of government, were wanting. Poland had no other resources but these armed confederations, which, nevertheless, frequently saved the republic in the midst of the greatest 1 Rulh. i. 33, perils; and more than once, through the unconquerable 128, 129. valour of the nobles, preserved the liberties of Europe from the Ottoman power.1 50. Salv.i. 29. and despe rate wars with the Asiatic tribes. The physical situation of the Poles was singularly ill Their long calculated to arrest the course of these disorders. Placed on the frontiers of European civilisation; removed from the sea, or any commercial intercourse with other states, without either ranges of mountains or fortified towns, to serve as asylums in case of defeat, they had to maintain a constant and perilous war with the hordes who threatened Christendom from the deserts of Asia. Their history is one uninterrupted series of mortal conflicts with the Muscovites, the Tartars, and the Turks, in the course of which they were repeatedly brought to the brink of ruin, and saved only by those desperate efforts which characterise the Polish history above that of all other states in modern times. The frequency and murderous nature of these dreadful wars blighted every attempt at rural industry, and chained the nation, even in recent times, to CHAP. XVII. 1794. those irregular and warlike habits which had been abandoned, centuries before, in all the other monarchies of Europe. Religious fury added grievously to these disastrous struggles, and the revolt of the Cossacks of the Ukraine, consequent on the schism between the Greek and the Catholic Church, brought the republic to the verge 1 Rulh. i. 36, of destruction, and ultimately led to the incorporation of 38, 64. their vast territory with the Muscovite dominions.1 30. Euro pean neigh Weakened in this manner in these contests with their enemies, equally by their freedom as their tyranny; And with knowing of liberty nothing but its licentiousness, of their i government but its weakness; inferior to all around them, bours. not less in numbers than in discipline, the Poles were the only warlike nation in the world to whom victory never brought either conquests or peace. Unceasing combats with the Germans, the Hungarians, the Muscovites, the pirates of the north, all of whom regarded the republic as a common prey, fill their annals. They successively saw Bohemia, Mecklenburg, Moravia, Brandenburg, Pomerania, Silesia, the Ukraine, and Red Russia, melt away from their once mighty dominion, without ever once thinking of establishing such a steady government as might secure the various parts of their vast possessions, or restraining those ruinous democratic privileges to which the whole public disasters were owing. Their character closely resembled that of the native Celts in western Europe. To repel civilisation, and retain unchanged the passions and habits of savage life, was their constant object. They succeeded in their wishes, and thence their ruin. Incapable of foresight, they saw their neighbours daily increasing in strength, without making any effort to keep pace with their progress. Blindly attached to their customs, they adhered to them with fatal pertinacity, despite of all the lessons of experience, and were thus destined to realise to the uttermost the bitter fruits of 2 Salv. i. 74. a pitiless aristocracy and a senseless equality.2 Centuries before their partition at the close of the |