COSSACKS. 
65 
at peace with the Calmucs and their other neighbours, and even maintain 
a commercial intercourse with them. Zaporog Cossacks tixed their 
habitations on the spacious plains along the banks of the Dnieper, 
about the beginning of the sixteenth century. They had undergone 
considerable hardships from the incursions of the Tartars, for which 
they afterwards found means to revenge themselves in an ample man- 
ner. The Poles being sensible how serviceable the Cossacks might 
be in defending them from the ravages of the Tartars, and even of the 
Russians, proposed to them terms of alliance. In 15f>2 they solemnly 
took them under their protection, and engaged to pay them an annual 
subsidy ; in return for which, the Cossacks were to keep on foot a suffi- 
cient body of troops for the defence of the Polish dominions. With a view 
to bind them still more strongly by the ties of interest, the Poles 
gave them the whole country between the rivers Dneiper and Niester, 
and the borders of Tartary. The Cossacks applied themselves with 
great industry to the cultivation of this fertile spot ; so that in a short 
time it was interspersed with large towns and handsome villages. 
Besides, they continually harassed the Turks, and did them great 
damage by their incursions ; and in order to prevent the latter from 
pursuing them, or making reprisals, they possessed themselves of seve- 
ral small islands in the Dnieper, where theykept their magazines, &c. 
The hettmau or general of the Cossacks was not in the least sub- 
ordinate to the field-marshal of Poland, but acted in concert with him 
as an ally, and not as a subject of that republic. But this alliance, 
though of such manifest advantage to both parties, was not of long 
duration. The Poles, seeing the vast improvements made by the 
Cossacks in the country they had given up to them, became envious 
of them, and actually made an attempt to bring them into subjection. 
In 1648, the Cossacks gained great advantages over them, and the 
next year came to an accommodation, in which they not only preserved 
their old communities, but obtained additional privileges. The result 
of all was, that these Cossacks remained under the^ protection of Rus- 
sia ; and as their former territory was entirely laid waste in the late 
wars, they settled in the Russian Ukraine, upon receiving formal 
assurances from the court of Russia, that no alteration should be 
made in their political constitution, and that no taxes whatever should 
be laid upon them. The Cossacks, on the other hand, were always 
to keep in readiness a good body of troops for the service of Russia ; 
but in 1708, Mazetta, their hettraan or chief, went over from the 
Russians to the Swedes, upon which Peter II. resolved to prevent 
such revolts for the future. For this end, after the battle of Pultow'a, 
he sent a strong detachment into the abovementioned little islands in 
the Dnieper, whither the Cossacks had fled w ith their wives and chil- 
dren and all their effects, and ordered them all to be put to the 
sword without distinction, and the plunder to be divided among his 
soldiers. He likewise sent a great number of men into their country, 
and caused several thousands of the Cossacks to be carried tp the 
coasts of the Baltic, where they were put to all sorts of hard labour, 
by which means he in a manner extirpated the whole nation. 
What distinguishes the Zaporog Cossacks from all other people is, 
that they never suffer any women in their settlements, as the Amar 
