♦Revolt of the Cossacks.♦ But the danger was nearer than they imagined. It threatened them as usual from the quarter of the Cossacks, who had never since their first revolt in 1648 preserved a real peace with Poland. They viewed with dismay the accession to the throne of a son of their former oppressor, Jeremiah Wiesnowiesçki, and imagining that his first object would be to recover his lost estates, they rushed to arms. ♦Sobieski’s campaign of 1670.♦ Immediately after the coronation of Michael (October, 1669) Sobieski was called to the frontiers. Acting with his usual vigour, he sowed discord in the enemy’s ranks, and drove them beyond the Dniester. So unexpected were these victories that the Vice-Chancellor, writing to him in the king’s name, says: “Envy itself is compelled to confess that, after God, you alone, though at the head of so small a force, have once more saved Poland.” ♦Michael refuses a policy of concession.♦ But the king and his general could not agree as to the measures to be taken with the subdued Cossacks. Sobieski was most anxious for a policy of concession. He had seen signs among them of a disposition to call in the Turks, which they had attempted to do in 1651, and he hoped to avert such a disaster. But Michael was wholly deaf to argument. Finding that the Diet was likely to declare against him, he easily procured its dissolution by the veto (April 17th); and the event which Sobieski dreaded came to pass. ♦The Cossacks apply to the Porte.♦ Doroscensko, the Cossack chief, losing all hope of justice from Poland, and persuaded by his metropolitan that he would find it at the patriarchate of the East, went to Constantinople to throw himself at the feet of the Sultan. ♦Köprili prepares for war with Poland.♦ Fortune seemed to play into the hands of Ahmed Köprili. The restless janissaries needed employment, and he preferred a gradual advance upon Austria to a premature declaration of war with her. Poland seemed to offer a splendid field. Proclaiming the Sultan the champion of the oppressed, he prepared a great armament against the oppressor, and created Doroscensko hospodar of the Ukraine. But his plans required time to be fully matured, and in the meanwhile he encouraged the Tartars to burst into Poland (1671).