B° 0K 3. None of the commiffioners of the equeitrian order can
‘ ■ be eledled a nuntio for the next diet, See.
4. From this time there ihall be a regifter apart for thofe
decrees of the committee, which relate to foreign affairs,
commerce, and notes of exchange.
What caufes ihall be brought before the Committees of the
Treafury.
1. Thofe relative to the unpacking of merchandize which
occafión any delay6 of tranfport.
2. Impofts of all forts payable by the nobility, clergy,
and towns.
3. Of contraéis of merchants.
4. Of letters of exchange, which ihall be further explained
in a law apart.
5. Of debts of merchants and workmen.
6. Of weights and meafures.
7. Of damages caufed to the treafury, or o f thefts and
negligences of the fubalterns, &c.
In all other points, the committees of both nations ihall
be maintained in all their antient privileges, not contradictory
to thefe articles above-mentioned.
C H A P ,
C H A P . VI.
Supreme authority rejides in the diet.— Origin o f the Diet.
— Place and time o f ajjembling.— Ordinary and extraordinary.—
Convoked by the king.— Conjlituent parts.— King,
fenate, and nuntios.— Proceedings.— Liberum Veto.— Hif-
tory and caufes of its introdudlion.— Its dreadful effects.—
How remedied.— Diet o f confederacy.— fh e plain o f Vola
where the kings are eleSled.— Account o f the diets o f convocation
and eleSlion.
rT 'H E general diet o f Poland enjoys, as I have before ob- c h a f .
ferved, the fupreme authority : it declares war, makes, v_1' ,
peace, levies foldiers, enters into alliances, impofes taxes,
ena£ts laws, in a word, it exercifes all the rights of abfolute
fovereignty.
Some hiftorians place the earlieft diet in the reign of Ca-
iimir the Great; but it is very uncertain whether it was firil
convened in his time ; and ftill more doubtful, of what
members it confided. Thus much is unqueftionable, that
it was not until the reign of Cafimir III. that this national
aifembly was modelled into its prefent form *.
The place of holding the diets depended formerly upon
the will of the kings ; and Louis even fummoned two in
Hungary. In thofe early times Petricau was the town in
which they were moft frequently aifembled ; but in 1569,.
at the union of Poland and Lithuania, Warfaw was appointed
?■ See p. 8, ;v
th e