CHAPTER VII.
THE DIET OF POLAND.
Those winter months which before this year had been at Villanow the
season for cheerfulness and festivity, now rolled away in the sad
pomp of national debates and military assemblies.
Prussia usurped the best part of Pomerelia, and garrisoned it with
troops; Catharine declared her dominion over the vast tract of land
which lies between the Dwina and Borysthenes; and Frederick William
marked down another sweep of Poland. to follow the fate of Dantzic
and of Thorn, while watching the dark policy of Austria regarding its
selecting portions of the dismembering state.
Calamities and insults were heaped day after day on the defenceless
Poles. The deputies of the provinces were put into prison, and the
provisions intended for the king's table interrupted and appropriated
by the depredators to their own use. Sobieski remonstrated on this
last outrage; but incensed at reproof, and irritated at the sway
which the palatine still held, an order was issued for all the
Sobieski estates in Lithuania and Podolia to be sequestrated and
divided between four of the invading generals.
In vain the Villanow confederation endeavored to remonstrate with the
empress. Her ambassador not only refused to forward the dispatches,
but threatened the nobles "if they did not comply with every one of
his demands, he would lay all the estates, possessions, and
habitations of the members of the Diet under an immediate military
execution.
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