Where wealth has not been wrested from a country by absolute force, (in doing which the poorer nations were always successful,) it has emigrated from other causes, and taken up its abode amongst a new people, where circumstances were more favourable for its encouragement. [end of page #74]

Before we leave this recapitulation, it is necessary, however, to take notice of one revolution that did not take place on similar principles with the others, so far as wealth and luxury are in question; but which has in some respects a similarity, and, in others, is precisely the reverse.

About two centuries and a half ago, the Polish nation was one of the most powerful in Europe; Russia could not then, nor for long after, contend with it.  The Prussians were its vassals; and the capital of the German empire, when besieged by the Turks, in 1650, owed its safety to the Poles, its brave and faithful allies.

Such was the case; but, at this day, the Polish nation is no longer in existence:  it is subdued, parcelled out, and divided, amongst those very powers, to any of which it was at least equal, and to the others superior, at so late a period.

It may be asked, whether Poland was one of those states that has been borne down by its own wealth and opulence?  If its ambition, injustice, or any of the other causes so prominent in the decline of nations, operated in the total extinction of it from the rank of independent states?  Not one of those causes operated, but still it is not altogether an exception to the general rule.

When the feudal system was established all over Europe, nations under its influence were so far on an equality; and as they all emerged from that situation nearly about the same time, Poland excepted, they still preserved their relative situations.  The Poles, during this change in other states, comparatively lost power.  Amongst the alterations produced, was that of placing in the hands of the sovereign all the disposable revenue and force of a country, with which standing armies were maintained.  Those irregular militias, till then composed of the barons and their retainers; a species of force, at best, far inferior to regular armies, became useless; but particularly so, after the modes of fighting had been changed by the invention of gunpowder, and the adoption of large trains of artillery, which could never have been employed in the feudal armies.

The disposable force of Poland and its revenues did not, by any means, keep pace with those of neighbouring nations; and what was still worse, the strength of that unfortunate country was divided; the [end of page #75] monarchy was elective, and foreign influence had a means of exertion, which, under a hereditary line of kings, is not practicable.  Poland was not only weaker than its neighbours, but became a prey to intestine divisions, cabal, and intrigue.