78 FORESTRY IN POLAND. 



peculiar manner with the attractions of Hungarian wine, 

 and infallibly declare in favour of the candidate who 

 causes it to flow in the greatest profusion. 



' The confederates usually take an oath not to attach 

 themselves to any particular faction, and the ministers 

 are prohibited from continuing at Warsaw, or forming any 

 cabals, but these injunctions are always ill observed. 

 The ambassadors enter upon intrigues even in public, the 

 nobility receive their presents, sell their suffrages 

 with impunity, and render the throne venal, after their own 

 infraction of the first article of the confederation. These 

 mercenary gentlemen usually conduct themselves with 

 very little fidelity to the candidate in whose interest they 

 pretend to be engaged, and if they have nothing more to 

 receive, they immediately forget the presents they have 

 already taken, and, without the least hesitation, espouse 

 the cause of a more wealthy competitor. 



1 This pretended liberty, therefore, from which the Poles 

 would be thought to derive so much glory, is no more 

 than a slave to avidity. They sacrifice their privileges to 

 repasts, or the purses of the candidates. They have been 

 seen to crouch under the inglorious yoke of foreigners 

 without making any effort to support the king they had 

 elected, and they have abandoned their country as a prey 

 to the Germans, whom they constantly hated, and like- 

 wise to the Russians, who were always a contemptible 

 and conquered enemy in the reigns of Stephen Battori 

 and John Sobieski. 



' When any candidate has gained the suffrages of all 

 the palatinates he is declared to be the elected king by 

 the Archbishop of Gnesna, and is accordingly proclaimed 

 as such by the marshals of the Crown and Grand Duchy, 

 in conjunction with the nuncios. An oath is then exacted 

 from the new monarch in favour of the Pacta Conventa, 

 and when he has sworn to conform to the regulations of 

 the diet with reference to the exorbitances, and to 

 observe all the other laws of the kingdom, they proceed 

 to the ceremonials of his coronation. 



