ral; but, in
whatever light it be viewed, it gives additional insight into the heart
and head of that military despot and disciple of Machiavelli.

Iniquity almost invariably pays virtue the compliment of attempting to
assume her semblance; and the three wholesale plunderers--Russia,
Austria, and Prussia--therefore determined to give some show of justice
to their violent seizure, by wringing from their victims a ratification
of their claims. But "the children of this world" with all their wisdom
cannot always preserve consistency, and, cunning as the villain may
sometimes be, he will, at some time or other, make the most disgraceful
mistakes.

By requiring further ratification, the three powers admitted that their
anterior claims were not well founded; and common-sense ought to have
told them that, if the former claims were not just, the latter,
depending on the same title, were rendered still less so by aggravated
violence. Every show of justice in a villainous action rises up in
sterner judgment against the perpetrator, inasmuch as it evinces design,
and makes him responsible for the motive.

These remarks might be applied to Catharine, Frederick, Maria Theresa,
or Joseph; for though they may shield themselves from personal
accusation by acting under the vague titles of "powers," "states," or
"governments," the evasion is mean and cowardly; for particularly in
such despotic governments as theirs the passions and wills of the rulers
are the directors of every political scheme.

The three powers fixed on April 19, 1773, for the opening of a diet at
Warsaw to ratify their claims. Their troops were in possession of all
Poland; the capital in particular was strongly invested; and Rewiski,
Benoit, and Stakelberg, the Austrian, Prussian, and Russian ministers,
were on the spot to overrule and direct all the debates. They declared
that every deputy who opposed their proposals should be treated as an
enemy of his country and of the three powers. Frederick himself states,
in his description of this transaction, that the deputies were informed
if they continued refractory that the whole kingdom would be
dismembered; but, on the contrary, that if they were submissive the
foreign troops would evacuate by degrees the territory they intended to
leave to the republic. The Diet was to be confederated, that the Poles
might be deprived of their last resource, the _liberum veto_.

Some few patriots still raised their voices, even in