precisely, six hours. This settlement stipulated that: Tarnogród Confederation (and older, Sandomierz Confederation) were dissolved; the right to form confederations in the future was abolished; Golden Freedoms (Cardinal Laws) are reaffirmed (in particular, liberum veto still held); the king was not to imprison people based on his whim (reaffirmation of the neminem captivabimus); the king had to avoid offensive wars; Poles and Saxony (Augustus' homeland) should not intervene into each other's domestic affairs (the king had to avoid negotiations on Polish affairs with foreign (Saxonian) powers); hetmans and sejmiks (local parliaments) had lost some of their prerogatives (notably, sejmiks no longer could change local taxation); Saxony troops stationed in Poland were to be significantly limited in size (banished totally, or reduced to 1,200 of royal guard, which no further foreign recruits allowed) Saxon officials were to be removed from Poland (or were limited to six) and the king was to not give any further offices to foreign officials; the rights of Protestants in Poland were curtailed (some Protestant churches were to be demolished to punish "Swedish partisans") establishment of an estimate of the state's income and expenditure (in essence, a budget, one of the first in Europe) established taxes for Commonwealth army (consuming over 90% of the state's income); the army was to be billeted on the crown estates; reduction of the army to 24,000 (or 18,000, or 16,000 – sources vary) for Poland and 6,000 (or 8,000) for Lithuania. An army of that size was insufficient to protect the Commonwealth; a normal soldier's wages meant that after factoring officer pensions and other military needs, the effective army was perhaps 12,000 strong, several times weaker than those of its neighbours – at that time the Russian army numbered 300,000; Sources vary whether Russia was recognized as the power that would guarantee the settlement; this claim is made by Jacek Jędruch and Norman Davies, but rejected by Jacek Staszewski and explicitly noted as erroneous in the edited work by Zbigniew Wójcik. Aftermath and significance The Silent Sejm marked the end of Augustus II's attempts to create an absolute monarchy in Poland; he subsequently focused his efforts on securing the succession of his son to the Polish throne. While some beneficial reforms were passed (such as the establishment of standing taxes for the military), the Sejm is regarded negatively by modern historians. The reduction in the size of the army and the