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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64345	An account of Poland containing a geographical description of the country, the manners of the inhabitants, and the wars they have been engag'd in, the constitution of that government, particularly the manner of electing and crowning their king, his power and prerogatives : with a brief history of the Tartars / by Monsieur Hauteville ... ; to which is added, a chronology of the Polish kings, the abdication of King John Casimir, and the rise and progress of Socinianisme ; likewise a relation of the chief passages during the last interregnum ; and the election and coronation of the new King Frederic Augustus ; the whole comprehending whatsoever is curious and worthy of remark in the former and present state of Poland.; Relation historique de la Pologne. English	Tende, Gaspard de, 1618-1697.	1698 (1698)	Wing T678; ESTC R20715	178,491	319

that they seldom come to the place of Rendezvous on the Day appointed for there are many of them who do not arrive there with their Companies or Regiments till a Moneth and sometimes Six weeks after and even there are some who leave the Army a Moneth before the Campagne is ended The King of Poland and the Generals might easily Remedy this Disorder but they dare not attempt to do it for fear of offending some Persons of Quality whose Affection they must carefully preserve For they who leave the Army or come not to the Rendezvous by the Day prefixt are commonly Polish Gentlemen and not Strangers who are more exact and dare not assume such Liberties without asking and obtaining Leave As 't is impossible to carry on a War without Money so there is no other way to Raise Mony but by Taxes And therefore besides the ordinary Revenues of the Republick which are the Fourth Part of the Estates and Offices that are in the King's Gift The Customs upon Wines and Merchandizes and the Tribute that is Exacted from the Jews they impose also in time of Necessity a certain Sum by way of Poll upon every Person 's Head which is no new sort of Tax in Poland For King Casimir III. after he had lost the Battle against the Toutonick Knights Summon'd a Diet at Peotrkow in which it was ordain'd That the whole Gentry and Clergy and even the King Himself should give half of their Revenues for defraying the Charge of the War The Polish Army is compos'd of Polanders and Strangers All the Polish Troops are Cavalry and are called Husartsz and Tovarzysz The Husartsz are Chosen Men Brave and in good Condition The Tovarzysz are so called from a word which signifies a Comerade and both sorts are Gentlemen The one are Armed with Lances and the other with Bows and Arrows and there are some Troops of Horse who have behind their Backs Wings made of Cocks Feathers which are usually White in order to frighten the Enemies Horses which are not accustom'd to such sights They are all Richly Cloath'd with the Skins of Tygers Leopards or Panthers their Horses are also very sine and well-harnessed In a word it may be said that they are the finest and best Cavalry in the World and that they would be Invincible if they were more submissive and better Paid As for the Foreign Troops they are almost all Infantry and are called Forreigners because they are kept on German Pay and receive the Word of Command in the German Language tho' most of the Soldiers and Officers are Polanders Those Troops are divided into Regiments of Foot or Dragoons and the Regiments into Companys as in France But the Soldiers are so miserably poor that the greatest part of them have neither Swords nor Shooes When they lie in Towns they live on Three Gros a day which are worth Two pence of Polish Money or a Penny English and upon what they can steal from the Peasants that come that come to the Markets for 't is not the Custome in Poland to give them Ammunition-bread and even the Officers of Foot are not better Cloath'd than our common Soldiers I proceed in the next place to give some Account of the Equipage with which the Polanders go to the Army And first There are no ●utlers in the Polish Army for besides that the Soldiers would not pay 'em they could never arrive in the Camp without being plunder'd by the Soldiers and especially by the Lithuanians who are more accustom'd to Pillage than the Polanders so that every Man must carry every thing that he stands in need of along with him which obliges the Officers to hare a great Equipage and to provide sufficient quantities of Meat Bacon Butter Salt Sugar Comfits Spices Beer Hungary-Wine Brandy Oats and generally of every thing that is necessary for themselves their Servants and their Horses They have many Wagons as well for carrying all sorts of Provisions as their Tents which are very heavy but very fine As for the poor Soldiers I have already intimated that they live upon Roots and the flesh of dead Horses or such as they find lying in Quagmires For if the Owner does not take speedy care to draw him out he must expect to be prevented by the Famish'd Soldiers who in a moment cut him into a Thousand Pieces 'T is generally known and acknowledg'd that the success of an Enterprize espeially in War depends in a particular manner upon two things viz. Secrecy and the Certain Knowledge which a General ought to have of the strength or weakness of his Enemies and of the place where they are posted As for Secrecy which is the Soul of all Important Affairs it is so little observ'd in Poland that every petty Officer is acquainted with all the Great General 's Designs And as for the Knowledge of the State of the Enemy since the Polanders never make use of Spyes they never learn any News of the Enemy's Army till they meet with some of their Parties And this is the reason why the News which come from the Polish Army are so uncertain that those who are acquainted with the Country seldom give any Credit to these Reports The Army of Poland being thus Compos'd and being accompany'd with such an Equipage as I lately mention'd is under the Command of a Great General and of the General of the Field and besides these Two General Officers there are also others under them as the Master of the Artillery the Pissarsz or Intendant of the Army the Great Standard-Bearer the Field-Marshal the General of the Centinels and the Major-Generals who are the same with our Brigadiers Before I conclude this Chapter there is one thing more observable in the Polish Army which is that if News be brought to them when they are at Table that the Enemy appears they will not stir till they have done to Mount their Horses and pursue their Enemies CHAP. XXII Of the Estates and Revenues of the Polanders THE Estates in Poland are of Three sorts either Royal Ecclesiastick or Patrimonial The Royal Estates are part of the Domain and belong to the Republick They consist of the Starosties Salt-works and half the Revenue of the Port of Dantzick As for the Starosties the King is oblig'd to bestow them on Polish Gentlemen within Six Months after a Vacancy for 't is not in his Power to reserve any of them for himself except those that are called Royal Oeconomies which together with the Salt-works and the Port of Dantzick belong properly to him so that his whole Revenue amounts to but about a Million of Livers But then he is not to pay any Troops out of it not so so much as his own Regiment of Guards and all the Officers of his Houshould who are Gentlemen of Poland serve him without any Salary in hopes of obtaining some Benefice or Starostie So that he is at no Charge but for his Table Cloaths and Stable and besides he receives many

Presents of Flesh Fish Stuffs hay and Oats The Starosties ought only to be given to old Officers who have serv'd long time in the Army and are as it were Super-annuated for the Polish Word Starosc signifies old Age and he who enjoys one of those Estates is call'd Starosta from Stary which signifies an Old Man There are Two sorts of Starosties some are empower'd to exercise a Jurisdiction thro' the whole extent of their Territory whereas there are others without any Jurisdiction The first are the most considerable tho' they are not always the Richest Each Starosta is oblig'd to give the fourth part of the Revenue of his Starostie to the Republick and no Man can possess Two of those who have Jurisdiction The King may bestow the Reversion of a Starostie upon the Starosta's Wife except in Rússia which is a Frontier Province for since a Starostie is a Government the Republick supposes that the Governor ought to reside upon the place but Polish Gentlemen may be made Governours of Frontier Places because the Republick relies more upon their Fidelity than upon that of Forreigners tho' they are sometimes deceiv'd in this Maxim For he who surrender'd the City of Caminiec to the Turks without making any Resistance was not only a Gentleman of Poland but even a Palatine As for the Salt-works of Poland the most considerable are those of Vieluczka and Boehinia about Five Leagues from Cracow which yields about 400000 Livres Yearly They were found out in the Year 1252. They resemble deep Mines dug in the Earth to which they descend by a hole like to that of a Quarry The Workmen who are employ'd in Digging out the Salt begin to enter the Pits at Midnight and those who go down first begin to come out about Noon because they must be let down and drawn up with a great Rope like that with which large Stones are rais'd up out of Quarries As they dig the Salt out of the Mines they must leave great Pillars from place to place to support the Earth and since these Vaulted Pits are all cover'd with Salt when one goes down into them he seems to be surrounded with a Thousand Crystals which reflect the Light of the Torches There are some parts of 'em dug so far that it would be dangerous to go into 'em because one might easily lose himself in these Labyrinths The Salt is taken out in large Columns which being loosen'd from the Mine are drawn by Horses just under the Mouth of the Pit and afterwards drawn up like Stones out of a Quarry The Horses continue always in those Subterranean Caverns but the Men come out every day and which is very remarkable there is a Spring of Sweet Water in the Salt-pits of which both the Men and Horses drink After the Salt is brought out of the Pits they carry those great Pieces or Columns through the whole Kingdom except Prussia where they only use French Salt Before the Polish Salt can be us'd it must be beaten to pieces and then ground in a Mill. Besides these Pits of Bochnia and Vieluczka there are other Salt-works at Halicz in Pokutia on the Neister at Kolomey in the same Province on the River Prut and at Pinsk a City of Lithuania in Pol●sia and besides these there are some others which belong to private Men for there is an express Law that the Republick shall not pretend a Right to the Mines of Salt or of any Metals which are found in any Gentleman's Lands There is also White Salt made in many other places of Poland as in the Palatinat of Craeow between Oswiecin upon the Vistula and Mount Crapat But this Salt is for the King's use besides they make great quantities of Salt in Russia by Boiling Salt-water which costs 'em little because that Province is all cover'd with Woods There are also some Mines of Lead mixt with Silver in the Burroughs of Ilkusch Slankow Kranow and Nowoguiia which are in the Palatinat of Cracow and in that of Sandomir there is Salt-peter at Vieliczca there is also Vitriol found at Byecz and Quicksilver at Tustan in Pokutia towards the Mountains The Ecclesiastick Estates are the Benefices as Bishopricks Abbacy's Priory's Canonships Curacies and all the Lands that are possess'd by the Regular Clergy The Benefices are not so numerous as in France for there are but Sixteen Bishopricks and some Abbacy's But the Bishopricks are of a great extent and endow'd with large Revenues some of these Prelates having above 100000 Livers Yearly Rent The Patrimonial Estates belong properly to the Polanders whether the Right of Succession be by Purchase or Inheritance and consist in Houses Lands Towns Villages Lakes Mills Meadows and Woods but especially in Peasants for a Gentleman's Riches are valu'd by the Number of his Peasants every one of them being worth 100 Livres a Year to his Master These Peasants are Slaves and cannot possess any thing all that they heap together belongs to their Lord whom they cannot leave without his permission unless they turn Priests or Fryers But these miserable Wretches work so hard without intermission that they have no time to study in order to fit themseives for admittance among the Secular or Regular Clergy except only in the quality of Lay-Brothers which the Polish Gentlemen take also care to prevent by obliging them to Marry young that they may not be receiv'd into the Convents To settle a Peasant upon a Piece of Land or in a Village the Lord causes a Cottage of Wood to be built for him and gives him Two little Horses one Cow some Hens Geese and Rye to subsist upon for a Year In the mean time he appoints a certain Piece of Ground in the Village which the Peasant is oblig'd to Till for his Landlord and upon which he is to maintain himself for the future for all the Goods of the Village belong to the Lord. The settling of a Peasant costs a Gentleman nothing but the price which he pays for him Because the other Peasants of the Village build the House and furnish the Cattel Poultry and all that he gives to his new Subject who with his Wife and Children is oblig'd to work Four days in the Week for his Master and to spend the other Two days in Tilling the Ground which is given him for his Subsistance When Harvest comes all the Peasants of the Village go out together to cut down and gather in the Corn for their Lord who appoints certain Persons to Oversee their Work and to beat 'em when they are idle For the Punishment of the Peasants there is a sort of Pillory in every Village on which those Miserable Wretches are sometimes forc'd to stand a whole day One would think the Peasants in Poland should reckon themselves the most unhappy Creatures in the World to see themselves reduc'd to perpetual Slavery and oblig'd to Work continually without the prospect of one day of rest But they do not so much as know that there are

that Island because as it is in a manner wall'd round with very large Reeds no Galley nor Vessel of any considerable Bulk can get thither They want for nothing tho' they never sow nor reap Several Palatines supply 'em with money and the Provinces they inhabit and which they guard furnish 'em with Necessaries They are all Gentlemen but either of very slender Fortunes younger Brothers or such as have no share of the Inheritance as the Law of the Nation orders it They are commonly divided into Troops of 120 when they guard the Frontiers besides their Servants that follow in the like number and who alight if their Masters Horse is disabled They fight covered with Sheep-Skins stuft so as to be Launce and Javelin Proof Their Arms are Pistols and Carbines and Seymitars that hang at their Girdle fastened with a Gilt Chain In the Fight they always ride to and fro as if they designed to attack the Enemy on diverse sides and thus rout them the more easily the Foe not being able to know on which side they are like to be most prest They use Kettle-Drums but never Trumpets unless before their General whom they chuse among themselves and who used to take the Oath of Fidelity to the King of Poland Their Czaiki or hollow trunks of trees which they use to make Incursions are not altogether unlike the Canoes which the Indians use They are covered with Ox-hides with Holes for as many men as each Canoe will carry commonly 40 or 50 and they fasten those Hides so to their Bodies with peices of Leather that no water can get in yet they are not obstructed by them from Rowing or using their Arms. Fifty of these often go out together usually keeping pretty near the Shoar and if a storm happens to arise or they find they are not able to cope with the Enemies Gallies they make the best of their way to the Paludes Meoticae sink their Canoes dive into the water and draw their breath thro' a Reed which they keep so fixt to their mouth as to let nothing but the end of it be above the water There there lye hid till the danger is over and then having thrown the water out of the Canoes they fall unexpectedly upon the Gallies and often make themselves Masters of them About the end of the season these Adventurers separate and go each to his own home after they have appointed their Rendezvous for the ensuing Spring near the Islands of the Boristhenes The Cossacks are of a good Stature strong dexterous nimble liberal great Lovers of their Liberty uneasy under any Yoke indefatigable bold and good Soldiers but great Drunkards and very treacherous They are much given to Fishing and Hunting They have this peculiar to them that none knows how to prepare Salt-Petre better than they do and their Country used to supply several parts of Europe with it In Summer they are mightily pestered with Flies and Grashoppers which fly sometimes in such vast numbers that they make a kind of Cloud and darken the Air for they fly in swarms that are sometimes several miles long and will destroy the Corn they light on tho' it be green in less than two hours time These insects live but six months Rain kills ' em and the Northern Wind blows them into the black Sea The first Revolt of the Cossacks was under their General John Fodhovia who was worsted and then beheaded this happened after King Stephen Battori's death for by that time they were become formidable by reason of their native Valour and being brought under military Discipline They had been allowed many Privileges by that Great Prince besides their Common Pay and he had joyned a Body of Polish Horse to them and appointed the fourth part of his Customs for their subsistance for which reason they are called Quartani The vast Country beyond the Towns of Blacklew Bar and Kiovia had begun to be inhabited and several Towns and Castles to be built by Colonies from neighbouring Provinces and had not the change of religion which the Polish Lords would have impos'd upon the Cossacks occasioned the revolt greater Improvements might have been made and the second which happened in the year 1596 might have been prevented Then the Cossacks had some Advantage over the Polish Army commanded by General Zolskiewski and looked upon themselves as invincible yet that able Warrier found means to press them so close that he forced 'em to deliver him their General Nolevaiko who was served like his Predecessor Then they revolted a third time in 1637 as has been said but with as ill success as before and the Loss of their General and chief Officers at that time was attended with the forfeiture of their Privileges and of the town of Trethimirow and also with the suppression of their Souldery After these disgraces when they were ready to try their Fortune again they were at last promised a re-establishment but this promise was not kept for there was a new modell'd Militia established and their General was often removed Then the Polanders found the Inconveniency of the change by the Incursions of the Tartars and King Vladislaus the IV having a design to make war with the Turks the Cossacks were resetled upon the antient Foot But awhile after this upon some new occasions they shook off the Yoke of Poland under Chonelensk and since that having sometimes partly submitted and at others disclaim'd the Authority of the republick their Country is now much depopulated and they are divided among themselves Some obey the Muscovites and some the Poles and many of them side sometimes with the Turks sometimes with the Poles and sometimes with the Muscovites according as they are successful or offer them more advantageous Terms It may not be amiss to say something of the Lithuanians in particular before we give an Account in general of the State of Poland of which their Country now makes a Part. Lithuania is for the most part very full of large Woods and Forests as also Ponds and Lakes Some of them of such an extent that they seem a kind of Sea The Inhabitants are not less jealous of their Liberty than the Poles taking great care that their Rights may not be infring'd by that Nation their Associates on one side and that the Muscovites their Neighbours may not enslave them as they have often endeavour'd for tho' they agree with the latter in some things as in their drink which is cheifly Mead and Metheglin as also Brandy which they drink alike to great excess also in their way of Ploughing and Sowing and many other matters in point of living yet they have always lookt upon them as an inveterate and treacherous Enemy The Peasants are not less miserable there and yet more ignorant than those of the Kingdom of Poland They are in general used like Slaves by their Masters and often very barbarously by the Servants and Attendants of the Nobility principally in time of War for

then they make nothing of entring their Huts and plundering what they can The poor Rusticks have no admittance into their Lord's Presence without Presents and if it be their Fortune to have access to them they are commonly directed to make their complaint to the Judges who are sure to do them but little good unless the Plaintifs bring them Presents to recommend their Petitions so that every word of the Judge in Lithuania is money Four days commonly and sometimes five or six in a week the Wretches must work for their Lords On Mundays they are allowed to drudge for themselves and as they have not time enough on other days they frequently do all manner of work on sundays for the Peasants keep no manner of Saints Holy-days there having that also particular to them with the Russians that if you ask them why they presume to work on the Lord's day they will answer you with this question whether they must not eat on the Lord's day They are oblig'd to pay a Tax three or four times a year towards defraying the charges of guarding the Frontiers besides several other heavy Impositions of their Lord 's devising Their Bread is the brownest and coursest the Wheat and Ears of Corn being commonly ground together They have very little Horses which yet are excellent for service either in War or Husbandry They do not plough the Ground with Iron but with Wood which seems the stranger because their soil is generally hard and not sandy When they go to plough they take along with them several pieces of Wood which they use instead of Plough shares and when one is broken they presently clap another into the Plough A certain great man to ease those poor men in that hard labour caus'd several Iron Plough-shares to be fabricated but as the following years by reason of the badness of the weather there were no plentiful Harvests they Peasants positively ascribed the sterility of the Ground to those Iron Plough-shares insomuch that to avoid a sedition they were permitted to use their old Way Their Dress is generally a course Ash-colour'd Habit with a sort of Buskings or Boots made of the skins of Beasts after they have taken off the hair They have a sort of light Carts about which they make use of no manner of Iron-work and as they never grease them when many of them are driven together the Axel-trees make a strange uncouth sort of a Noise In some places in the Country if any one of the Peasants has committed a Crime for which his Lord thinks fit to condemn him to die the Criminal is obliged to hang himself and be his own Executioner and if he refuses he is compell'd to do it with Threats and Blows As 't is not many hundred years since the Lithuanians became Christians there are some of the meaner sort still in the Country so stupidly ignorant as to retain many things of their Ancestors Idolatrous Worship these keep a sort of swarthy serpents which they look upon as their tutelary Divinities feeding them with great Care and Respect and attributing their ill Fortune to their neglect of those Animals Not long ago the Lithuanian Rusticks us'd to offer sacrifices about the latter end of October to an imaginary Deity whom they called Ziemiennick Those of Samogitia and Russia us'd to do the like Neither were those of Livonia less idolatrous having been taught Christianity not only by preaching and apostolical Admonitions but also by force of Arms. This gave Birth to the Order of Livonian Knights who first styl'd themselves Sword-bearing Fryers or Brothers and these finding themselves unable to fight the Livonians out of their ancient Belief and Liberty in time call'd in the Teutonick Knights of Prussia to their assistance by which means they at last prevailed Being at last incorporated with them by Pope Gregory IX the Livonian Masters were oblig'd to pay homage and certain Tributes to the Masters of Prussia till the time of Albert Marquess of Brandenburg who about the year 1513 parted with that yearly Tribute and Homage for a large summ of Money Thus the Livonian Knights by degrees and also the several Bishops and Arch Bishops became so many Soveraigns till after many Wars the whole Country of Livonia was subdued by Sigismund Augustus King of Poland tho' since it has been quitted to the Swedes who are now Masters of it CHAP. VI. Of the State of POLAND THe Polanders have at all times had an Inclination to War Insomuch that at first they continually went arm'd as if they had been just ready to engage their Enemies and indeed all their business was to rove about and change their Station from time to time more like Shepherds than like setled Inhabitants of any particular Place neither were they ever in safety for they were on one side always ready to be attacked by the Germans and by the Scythians on the other So that they had many Wars and bloody Conflicts with both those Nations Yet tho' there never was any solid Friendship between them and the Germans at last their way of Living and the Care they took to keep their word to one another made them Accustom themselves more to them than to the Scythians In the beginning the Polanders had neither Laws nor Princes to govern them and liv'd after an uncontroul'd manner but as no Nation can remain long without Rulers principally in time of War they afterwards us'd to chuse among themselves a Chief who was commonly the most Famous person for Valour among them and they us'd to obey him as a Leader but his Authority lasted no longer than the War All the People resolutely followed him Arm'd with Bows and Arrows Partisans and long Launces the Women attended their Husbands pretending to witchcraft the Knowledge of the future Events of Battles The Men never us'd to betake themselves to flight whosoever ran away was never suffer'd to return to his Party This being esteem'd the greatest shame and ignominy among them They came in time to have Knights which was the next Dignity to their Chief Captain and those were also never chosen but out of the Bravest after they had signaliz'd their Valour against the Enemy They Worship'd the Sun the Moon Mars and diverse other false Divinities having certain Places and Rites appropriated to pay them their Adoration They buried the dead in Forests and Fields laying high heaps of stones over their Tombes as may be still seen in many places in Russia others according to the Roman way us'd to burn the dead Bodies and layd up the ashes in Urns Few things satisfi'd them for their Food They had nothing which they properly call'd their own except their Bow their Partisan and Launce They purchased what ever they wanted of others by the way of Barter or Exchange They wore course Garments made of the skins of Wild Beasts down to their heels despising all Rich Dresses Treasures Houses and possessions They made an end of all private