effigy on the obverse, and on the reverse the motto
inscribed on his standards--"Pro Deo, Patria, et Libertate."

Though Tekoeli professed to act by the authority of the Porte, from
which he had received a firman of investiture with the usual ensigns of
sovereignty, no formal declaration of war had yet been issued from
Constantinople; and many of the Ulemah protested against such a measure,
at least till the twenty years' truce, concluded in 1664, should have
expired. The aid openly afforded, however, to Tekoeli by Abaffi and the
pasha of Buda, as well as the constant march of large bodies of troops
to the Danube, afforded sufficient indication that an attack would not
be long delayed; and Leopold, disquieted at the prospect of having at
once to contend against his own revolted subjects, and the mighty force
of the Ottoman empire, sent Count Caprara on a mission to
Constantinople, in the hope of averting the storm; while, at the same
time, he made overtures for an alliance with Poland, still smarting
under her losses in the late Turkish war. The mission of Caprara led to
no result, from the exorbitant demands made by the Ottoman ministers on
behalf both of the Porte and its Hungarian allies, which amounted to
little less than a total cession of the country, and a few days after
the arrival of the ambassador, the despatch of the firman to Tekoeli,
and the display of the imperial horsetails in the plain of Daood-Pasha,
showed that the resolution of the Divan was fixed for war. The
negotiation with Poland presented almost equal difficulties, from the
rooted jealousy entertained by the Poles of the ambition of Austria, and
the opposition of the French envoy, De Vitry, who even carried his
intrigues so far as to embark in a plot for the death or dethronement of
the king, and the substitution of the grand marshal Iablonowski. The
firmness of Sobieski, however, whom no minor considerations could blind
to the importance of saving Austria and Hungary from the grasp of the
Osmanli, overcame all these machinations; and the ratification of the
diet was eventually given to a league, offensive and defensive, with
Austria, on March 31, 1683--the same day on which the vast host of the
Ottomans broke up from its cantonments about Adrianople, and directed
its march towards the Danube.

The sons of Naodasti and Zriny, who had been executed ten years before,
were retained as hostages, under the name of chamberlains, in the
imperial house