Wishing to strengthen the government and the State, he let loose the terrible Cossack element, not foreseeing that the storm would turn not only against the nobles, the great estates of the magnates, the abuses, license of the nobility, but against the most vital interests of the State itself.
[YERZY OSSOLINSKI, CHANCELLOR OF POLAND.]
From an engraving by Moncornet.
Hmelnitski rose out of the steppes and grew into a giant. On the Commonwealth fell the defeats of Jóltiya Vodi, Korsún, Pilavtsi. At the first step this Hmelnitski joined with the enemy, the Crimean power. Thunderbolt followed thunderbolt; there remained only war and war. The terrible element should have been crushed first of all, so as to use it in the future; but the chancellor, occupied with his idea, was still negotiating and delaying, and still believed even Hmelnitski.
The power of events crushed his theories; it became clearer every day that the results of the chancellor's efforts were directly opposed to his expectations, till at last came Zbaraj and confirmed it most convincingly.
The chancellor was staggering under the burden of regrets, bitterness, and universal hatred. He did that therefore which in times of failure and disaster people do whose faith in themselves is greater than all disasters,--he looked for the guilty.
The whole Commonwealth was to blame, and all the estates,--the past, and the aristocratic structure of the State; but he who fearing lest a rock lying on the incline of a mountain might fall to the bottom, wishes to roll it to the top without calculating the necessary force to do this, only hastens its fall. The chancellor did more and worse, for he called in the rushing and terrible Cossack torrent, not considering that its force could only wash out and carry off the foundation on which the rock was resting.
When he sought then for persons to blame, all eyes were turned upon himself as the cause of the war, the calamities and misfortune. But the king believed in him yet, and believed in him the more because the voice of all without sparing his Majesty accused him in an equal degree with the chancellor.
The king sat therefore in Toporoff suffering and sad, not knowing well what to do, for he had only twenty-five thousand troops. The conscript writs had been sent out too late, and barely a part of the general militia had assembled up to that time. Who was the cause of this delay, and was it not one more mistake of that stubborn policy of the chancellor?--the mystery was lost between the king and the minister; it is enough that both felt disarmed at that moment before the power of Hmelnitski.
What was more important yet, they had no accurate information concerning him. In the camp of the king it was still unknown whether the Khan with all his forces was with Hmelnitski, or only Tugai Bey and a few thousands of the horde were accompanying the Cossacks. This was a matter as important as life or death. With Hmelnitski himself the king might in extremities try his fortune, though the rebellious hetman disposed of ten times greater power. The magic of the king's name meant much for the Cossacks,--more perhaps than the crowds of the general militia of unformed and untrained nobles; but if the Khan were present, it was an impossibility to meet such superior force.