much success, for the mitigation and gradual abolition of domestic and predial slavery; whether, as we would charitably believe, from a genuine spirit of Christianity, or, as some contend, and may perhaps have been, in some instances, the case, from an ambition of engross ing to themselves all power over the bodies, as well as the souls, of men. The fact is nevertheless true, that, through their collusion and concurrence, the Poles, as well as other nations, were gradually deprived of their political privileges. Towards the close of the twelfth century, Casimir II. endeavoured to repress the tyranny of the aristocracy; but the influence of his regulations, as it arose chiefly from his personal character, produced only a transitory alleviation of griev. ances. The pride of the most tur. bulent of the nobility was offended, at this attempt to set bounds to their usurpations; and this circumstance, joined to the uncertain ideas enter. tained concerning the right of succession to the sovereignty, split the nation into factions: from which arose a train of civil wars, that con. vulsed the state, with only occa. sional intervals of tranquillity, till towards the middle of the four teenth century. At this period, when as yet there were no written laws in Poland, arose Casimir the Great, who became the legislator of his country. Without attempt. ing to remedy the fundamental errors of the government, he satisfied himself with regulating the internal police of his kingdom, and correct. ing a mass of abuses, which had been accumulating for ages. He allowed the order of succession to the crown to remain in the same unsettled state in which he found

it. But he endeavoured to repress the licentious and tyrannical spirit of the higher nobility. He restored the peasants to the protection of laws, abolished personal slavery, and prohibited, under severe penalties, the cruel exactions to which the nobles had subjected all who had the misfortune to be born on their estates. His humane attention to this unhappy class of men led the nobility to distinguish him with a misplaced ridicule, by the title of king of the peasants. By raising the mass of the people to the rank of freemen, he gave them an interest in the welfare of the state. Had the prudent and benevolent spirit of his laws been adhered to, Poland might still have continued to be a great and flourishing nation.

But after the death of Casimir, the peasants were quickly thrown back into that state of misery and degradation from which he had attempted to raise them. The situation of this class of men became even more deplorable and hopeless, from the attempt that had been made to relieve them. Their masters seem to have taken the hint, from this circumstance, to secure their future usurpations with all the solemnity of legal exa&ment. Pains and penalties without number were denounced against all of them who should dare to think themselves entitled to the common rights of human nature: and they were again subjected to the caprices of every gentleman who chose to indemnify their masters, or pay a trivial fine as a compensation for their murder. In consequence of this system of oppression, equally inhuman and impolitic, the state was in a great measure deprived of their service in supporting the honour of the na [D2]

tion,

tion, and defending the frontier. Depressed by long habits of the most abject slavery, they lost that elastic vigour of both body and mind which is necessary to constitute a soldier. They had hardly the shadow of interest in the public welfare. Being already as low as it was possible to reduce them, they might, if forced to change masters, be placed in a better situation, but not in a worse. Hence the defence of the state was left entirely to the nobility: a class of men, whom habits of licentious independence had already rendered totally unfit for submission to the necessary strictness of military subordination. While Charles XII. of Sweden over-ran Poland in so short a time, and a few Russian regiments at the election of the late and last king, overawed the Polish nation, once so powerful, the peasants, as in all similar cases, stood neuter, and the nobility, pursuing all of them separate measures, left the whole an easy prey.

The nobles having become, after the death of Casimir the Great, the undisputed masters of the lives and fortunes of their peasants, next turned their attention to retrench the power of the crown. The royal prerogative was indeed exorbitant, and totally incompatible with the principles of a free government. It accorded, however, with the irre. gular spirit of feudal times, when the nobility, although they possessed not any constitutional check on the power of the crown, could yet overcome the king, and extort from his fears, the enjoyment of an independence which was not secured to them by any legal concession. But the time was now arrived when this precarious freedom could no longer satisfy a high spirited nobility.

Lewis, the nephew and successor of Casimir, possessed extensive hereditary dominions, and might employ his Hungarian army to crush the liberty of his Polish subjects. The nobles resolved to prevent these dangers, and the occasion was highly favourable to their design. Lewis, when his uncle breathed his last, was in Hungary. The nobles profiting of this circumstance, resolved to stipulate with him for their own privileges, before they would admit him into the kingdom. A deputation of their number waited on him at Buda, and demanded and obtained a formal renunciation of some branches of the prerogative, as the conditions on which they were willing to become his subjects, Of these the most important were, that the king should not impose taxes without the consent of the states: that, in the event of his dying without heirs male, the election of his successor should be left to the states; that he should reimburse to the nation the expences, and even damages, occasioned by his wars; that he should reinstate the grand proprietors in their tyrannic privileges; and that it should not be lawful for a peasant, or in other words, a predial slave, to bring an action against his lord. This is the origin of that compact termed in Polish Latin Pacta Conventa, which, with occasional variations, conform able to the circumstances of the times, every subsequent king was obliged to ratify previously to his coronation.

The nobles began now, agreeably to the usual progress of successful ambition, to form other pretensions, and to grasp at new privileges. Practising on the predominant passions of the successors of Lewis, and

particularly

particularly on the desire which was so generally manifested by them all, of transmitting the crown, through the concurrence of the nobles, to their sons, or other near relations, they procured a renunciation, on the part of the crown, of the right of coining money, without the consent of the states; and an exemption to the nobility from arrest, till after legal conviction of the crime with which they were charged.

Various pretences were furnished to the nobles for increasing their power, by the long and unquiet reign of Casimir IV. who governed Poland for near half a century, and died in 1492. Although he had succeeded in uniting the sovereignty of several rival states in his own family, Poland felt her internal strength debilitated, and her resources exhausted, by the splendour of her monarch. Accordingly, the nobles eagerly seized every occasion which the king's necessities afforded them of farther abridging his power, and establishing in their own hands a more general and immediate influ. ence on all the measures of govern

ment.

Previously to this period, all who were comprehended in the class of nobles, together with a certain number of the inhabitants of cities, possessed the right of voting in the general diet. Hence those meetings generally bore a nearer resemblance to the tumultuousness of a mob, than to the solemnity of a great national assembly. Too numerous to be comprehended within the limits of any regular forms of procedure, and too much broken by party distinctions to be capable of calm and rational discussion, they could only give or

refuse a general sanction to the ob. jects that were laid before them.

To remedy these radical defects, and prevent the confusion insepa rable from universal suffrage, the nobles agreed to wave this right, and to vote by representation. The general diet thus constituted, preserved its form to the present, times, with one material excep tion, which, as it marks the con tinued usurpation of the nobles on every branch of government, and order of society besides their own, is worthy, in this review, of being mentioned. At the time when the general diet was esta blished in its present form, and during the reigns of all the Jaghello family, the right of representation was possessed by the free towns. The first attempt to procure their exclusion was made by the nobles, in the reign of Sigismond I. At that time, however, they were unsuccessful: but as soon as all ideas of hereditary right to the throne were not only, in fact, given up, but formally renounced and prescribed by statute, there was no longer any power to check their continued encroachments. The whole authority of the state was, at every vacancy, actually lodged in their hands; and one of the first uses they made of it was, to strip the towns of their right of representa tion in the general diet.

The general diet, constituted on these principles, proved highly fa vourable to the designs of the aris tocracy. By condensing and concentrating their power, it enabled them to act with unanimity and concert. It formed a constitutional body, neither, too unwieldy to be [D3]

actuated

actuated by one spirit, nor too feeble to enforce its authority. Accord ingly, the institution of the general diet soon gave a new direction to the views of the aristocracy. Previously to this æra, the nobles aimed rather at an exemption from grievances, than at the possession of power. The opposition lay rather between the exertion of the prerogative, and the enjoyment of independence, than between the actual power of the sovereign, and the claimed power of the nobles. But, from this period, the crown and the diet were directly opposed to one another; each aimed at a direct ascendency in the legislature; and neither could gain, except in as far as its antagonist lost.

In addition to the concessions al. ready made to the nobles, the necessities of Casimir IV. obliged him to resign yet another very important right of the crown, namely, the right of summoning the feudal ba. rons to attend his standard, at the head of their retainers, whenever he should be engaged in hostili, ties with any of his enemies. The nobility, harassed by his frequent wars, wished to secure themselves against the destructive effect of the ambition of their kings. Ca. simir wished to replenish his ex. hausted treasury; and money was to be procured in no other way than by yielding to the claims of the diet. Accordingly, the bargain, being mutually advantageous, was soon concluded, and the feudal ser. vices abolished.

The establishment of general diets may be considered as the zra of the Polish constitution. It was intended as a regular counterpoise to the power of the crown;

but the government was as irregu. larly balanced as before. The king, who, by economy, could confine the expences of his government within the hereditary revenue of the crown, was under no necessity of summoning the diet; and consequently there was no legal remedy for whatever grievances might exist during his reign. On the other hand, the elective nature of the crown threw the whole power of the state, at every vacancy, into the hands of the aristocracy, who might, under the pretence of securing their privileges, impose what. ever limitations they pleased on the successor, or even annihilate the sovereign power. There was no he

reditary body of men, who, from a similarity of interests, were induced to support the dignity of the crown. The king was obliged to choose his servants out of that order whose views were directly contrary to his own. own. By a peculiarity in the Polish constitution, the great officers of the crown had an interest directly contrary to that of their master. Instead of deriving support and strength from the power of the crown, they derived the importance and splendour of their offices from its diminution. They were ap. Fointed for life, and, of course, independent of the king. Their weight in the government increased, in proportion as the royal authority was diminished.

Still, however, the crown would have retained sufficient energy for the purposes of regular government, had it been possible for the Poles to fix their constitution on the prin. ciples on which it rested at the death of Casimir IV. and to pre. vent all farther innovation; but

the

the king was a solitary friendless power, and the nobles were turbulent and aspiring. A principle of change operated without ceasing; and no expedient could be found to counteract its effect, until, by the fatal introduction of the liberum vet, in the reign of John Casimir, who was elected to the Polish throne, in succession to his brother, Ladislaus, in 1648, the power of the crown was reduced almost to nothing, and the nobles left wholly without controul. This new principle crowned the Polish constitution, the most singular assemblage of incoherent materials that was ever exhibited, with the ne plus vitra of aristocratical licentiousness. When all questions were decided in the diet by plurality of voices, the nuncios, or deputies, necessarily possessed considerable weight in the government. The servants of the crown were led to consult the public good, in order to escape the animadversion of the general diet; but when the establishment of the liberum veto enabled them to buy the negative of a nuncio, this check on their conduct was removed. In stead of making themselves agree. able to the nation, they had now nothing more to do than to make themselves rich, and they were sure of impunity. The exigencies of the public were never so great, but that a nuncio might be found to sell his negative; nor the deliberations of the diet so regular, but that a pretence might be found for inter. posing it. It was seldom that the great officers of state could all be brought to concur in the same views; on the contrary, they were

generally divided by hereditary feuds, which nothing could allay : nor did they always wait the slowissue of intrigue in their competi tions. As there did not exist any, power sufficient to restrain the whole, they not unfrequently raised armies, fought pitched battles, bes'eged one another's houses, and de. solated one another's estates, with all the fury of incensed savages.

As the practice of setting up the crown to the highest bidder invited the interference of foreign nations in the affairs of the Poles, so also did their internal dissentions and contests. Ideas were nourished in the breasts of neighbouring potentates, that Poland was unfit for gc. verning itself; but instead of en. deavouring to remedy that defect, by suggesting or encouraging any salutary change in the constitution, they subverted such a constitution the moment it was framed, and shared among themselves a kingdom which they had been taught to dis respect and despise as venal, feeble, and dependent.

Thus, it is plainly to be perceived, that although Poland had not the advantage of any such barriers as usually define and defend great kingdoms, the great cause of its ruin lay not in this circumstance, but in the faults of its constitution.

The history of Poland, displaying the defects and disadvantages of political systems, as by a magnifying glass, offers to legislators, and all who can, either directly or indirect. ly, influence the business of legisla. tion, the most important considerations. It illustrates, in the most striking manner, the ultimate ruin

tha