casions. Redemption by
payment never followed; attempt at redemption there had never been,
by Sigismund or any of his successors. Nay, one successor, in a Treaty
still extant, [Preuss, iv. 32 (date 1589; pawning had beep 1412).]
expressly gave up the right of redeeming: Pledge forfeited: a Zips
belonging to Polish Crown and Republic by every law.

Well; Imperial Majesty, as we have transiently seen, is assembling
troops on the Hungarian Frontier, for a special purpose. Poor Poland is,
by this time (1770), as we also saw, sunk in Pestilence,--pigs and dogs
devouring the dead bodies: not a loaf to be had for a hundred ducats,
and the rage of Pestilence itself a mild thing to that of Hunger, not to
mention other rages. So that both Austria and Prussia, in order to keep
out Pestilence at least, if they cannot the other rages, have had to
draw CORDONS, or lines of troops along the Frontiers. "The Prussian
cordon," I am informed, "goes from Crossen, by Frankfurt northward,
to the Weichsel River and border of Warsaw Country:" and "is under the
command of General Belling," our famous Anti-Swede Hussar of former
years. The Austrian cordon looks over upon Zips and other Starosties, on
the Hungarian Border: where, independently of Pestilence, an alarmed
and indignant Empress-Queen has been and is assembling masses of troops,
with what object we know. Looking over into Zips in these circumstances,
indignant Kaunitz and Imperial Majesty, especially HIS Imperial Majesty,
a youth always passionate for territory, say to themselves, "Zips was
ours, and in a sense is!"--and (precise date refused us, but after
Neustadt, and before Winter has quite come) push troops across into
Zips Starosty: seize the whole Thirteen Townships of Zips, and not only
these, but by degrees tract after tract of the adjacencies: "Must have
a Frontier to our mind in those parts: indefensible otherwise!" And
quietly set up boundary-pillars, with the Austrian double-eagle stamped
on them, and intimation to Zips and neighborhood, That it is now become
Austrian, and shall have no part farther in these Polish Confederatings,
Pestilences, rages of men, and pigs devouring dead bodies, but shall
live quiet under the double-eagle as others do. Which to Zips, for the
moment, might be a blessed change, welcome or otherwise; but which awoke
considerable amazement in the outer world,--very considerable in King
Stanislaus (to whom, on applying, Kaunitz would give no explanatio