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 wor