Kings & rulers > History of Charles XII. King of Sweden

CHARLES XII. B. II. >3*
udable. He was far from being able to fend the Czar
ic fifty thoufand Germans he had promifed to raife
1 the empire. The Czar himfelf, a dangerous enemy
5 Poland, was at that time not very eager to aflift
rith all his forces a divided kingdom, from whence
e was in hopes of reaping fome (poils. He content-
d himfelf with lending twenty thoufand Mufcovites
ito Lithuania, who did more milchief there than the
wedes, flying continually before the conqueror, and
ivaging the lands of the Poles, till at laft being pur¬
ged by the Swedilh generals and finding nothmg
[tore to pillage, they returned by (hoals to their
Wn country. As for the fcattered remains of the
axons army beaten at Riga, king Auguftus lent them
3 winter and recruit in Saxony, that this facrifice,
owever involuntary, might foften the rage of the
icenfed Poles.
The war was then changed into intrigues, and
he diet divided into almoft as many factions as there
<ere Palatines. One day the intereft of king Auguf-
us prevailed, and the next were profcribed. Every
ody cried out for liberty and juftice, but no body
!new what it was to be juft or free. The time was
tent in cabbaling in fecret, and haranguing in public,
'he diet neither knew what they would, nor what
icy fhould, do. Great companies feldom agree u-
fon proper counfels in times of civil broils, becaufe
he bold men in fuch aftemblies are generally factious,
md the men of probity timorous. The diet broke
ip in diforder on the 17th of February 1702, after
jjiree months of caballing and irrefolution. Thefena-
iors, who are the palatines and the bifhops, remain-
rd at Warfaw. The fenate of Poland have a right to
nake laws provifionally, which the diets feldom dif-
innul. This body being not fo numerous, and ufed
o bufinefs, was far lefs tumultuous, and came to a
letermination more quickly.
? They agreed to tend the embafty to the king of
Sweden propofed irt the diet, that the Pofpolite fhould