THE CANTON OF ST. GALLEN.

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expressed his aversion to the war that was likely totake place, was condemned to pay six hundred guilders;and those who intermarried with their relations in thefourth and fifth degrees were compelled to give half theirpossessions to the governors. One of these tyrants hadbeen heard to say, that his predecessor accumulatedthirty-six thousand livres in the course of five or six years ;hut that he hoped to make double that sum. A thousandother cruelties were daily exercised, notwithstandingthe abbot had sworn to preserve and protect their liber-ties. All these grievances, they said, they had patientlyendured for a long time, but they hoped the Diet wouldnow redress them. In reply, the abbot, who was the sonof a soap-boiler, insisted, as a Prince of the Empire, thatthe Diet had no power either to cite him before them, orto intermeddle with his administration. By adoptingthis line of defence, he hoped to engage the emperor onhis side: and though he failed in this, be succeeded inbringing over to his interest, the four Catholic cantons°f Lucerne, Uri, XJnderwalden, and Zug; and, by con-sequence, the Diet was dissolved, without any stepsbeing taken to redress the wrongs of the inhabitants ofToggenburg. The abbot, therefore, continued at war withthem during several years; till at last, by the interfe-^rence of Berne and Zurich , a compromise was effected,fhe abbot, however, afterwards ascribed the wholeblame of these contests to the Protestants , who suffered