♦He persuades the Diet not to accept the peace.♦ The first object of Sobieski in this sudden blaze of his popularity was to procure the rupture of the peace of Buczacz. He at once published a memorandum, setting forth necessary reforms in the administration and the army, and promising that their adoption would ensure a successful struggle against the Turks. The Diet sent him a message in high-flown Polish rhetoric, in which they begged for the presence of that hero “who, if the system of Pythagoras be true, seems to unite in his own frame the souls of all the great captains and good citizens of the past.” He took his seat amid great enthusiasm (March 14th), and easily persuaded the deputies to follow his advice. They did not now dream of paying the tribute. They decreed an army of 60,000 men, the establishment of a war-tax, and the despatch of embassies for foreign aid, and finally placed in the hands of Sobieski full powers both for peace and war. This was in effect to put aside the king, and make the Grand Marshal Regent; but no voice was raised against the proposal. ♦Their confidence in him.♦ Since there was only a trifling sum remaining in the exchequer, Sobieski persuaded the Diet to use the treasure stored up as a reserve in the castle of Cracow. This, with an opportune subsidy which arrived from the Pope, was deposited with him instead of the Grand Treasurer, as the person most likely to use them to advantage. ♦His difficulties.♦ Such unbounded confidence carried with it a responsibility which few men would have dared to face. Sobieski accepted it cheerfully, yet at the outset of the campaign he had to meet two difficulties, which he had not foreseen. His old enemy, Michael Paz, caused much delay by arriving late with his Lithuanians (Sept. 16th); and at the last moment the king announced that he should put himself at the head of the force. He came, and reviewed the troops; but during the ceremony he was seized with illness; and the next morning the Poles raised a hurra on seeing the “bonzuk,” or long lance, in front of the Grand General’s tent in an upright position--a sure sign that the king had quitted the army. The next day (October 11th), with a force of nearly 40,000 men, and forty small field-pieces, Sobieski began his march. ♦His plan of the campaign.♦ His plan of the campaign, though simple, was boldly conceived. Having heard that Caplan Pacha, with 30,000 men, was advancing through Moldavia to reinforce the camp at Kotzim, he proposed to cut him off upon his march, and then to turn upon the camp itself. If he should succeed in capturing it, he hoped to isolate Kaminiec, and so to take it by blockade, and recover all that had been ceded to the Porte. He was not dismayed at the lateness of the season; for he trusted that on this account the Turks would be less willing to fight.