provided only that he was noble. In seve- of Upper Silesia, and for rebuilding two ral instances, even foreign noblemen were, towns in the same district, which had been avowedly on the ground of their birth, pre- destroyed by conflagration; they were of ferred for officers' places to native plebeians. wood,' says he, but they now shall be of In like manner, none but youths of good brick or of stone from the neighboring quarfamily were allowed admission into the Col-ries which we have opened. In 1775 we lege of Cadets. So late as 1784 we find find him establish and endow at once an Frederick directing the expulsion of three hundred and eighty schools in his new Pobrothers named Stephani as being deficient lish province-some, of the Protestant, and in this essential qualification- not of true others of the Roman Catholic communion. and right nobility,' says the King himself. Were there any veins of metal discovered Celibacy, though recommended in most ser- in the mountains-did any district suffer vices, has never yet been so rigidly enforced either from drought or inundation in the in any other; as an instance, it is mention- plains-did any new manufacture call for ed that when in 1778 the Baireuth regiment bounties-was there any attempt of producof dragoons was reviewed by the King, it ing at home instead of importing from contained seventy-four officers, and of these abroad-in all these, and many other such not one--from the commander, General cases, and without distinction of province Bülow, down to the youngest Ensign-was or of creed, the succoring hand of Fredea married man! In other respects the duties rick was extended. His subjects found were very severe, and the least departures that he would not give alms to compassion, from them punished by long arrests, while but only aids to restoration or improvement; the pay was extremely small, and leave of he would help them whenever they would absence seldom granted. bestir themselves. On his yearly journeys Scanty, however, as were the allowances through his states he was always on the of the Prussian army, they absorbed the watch for old abuses to correct, or new works larger share of the revenues of the state. of public benefit to commence. His quesIn 1740, just before the accession of Fred- tions were ever: Why not drain yonder erick, it is stated that from a total income marshes? why should that range of hills 7,137,000 dollars, not less than 5,977,000 remain bare? might not this sheltered holwere devoted to the military department. low bear fruit trees? should not a new At Frederick's decease in 1786, when the bridge span that river, or a new road pierce provinces had more than doubled in extent that forest? Nor were these mere vague reand population, and much more than dou- commendations: they became the first germ bled in productive industry, the income was of speedy plans and estimates, and when the twenty-two millions, and the expenses of King passed by in the ensuing year, or sumthe army thirteen. Yet notwithstanding moned his provincial officers to Potsdam, this constant and enormous drain on his he insisted on ascertaining what real proresources, such was the wise economy of gress had been made. Activity of any Frederick, that he never seemed to want kind is rare, when great wealth and power money whenever any object of public utili- of indolence exist; but how much rarer ty seemed to need assistance. We have al- still to find it thus well-directed and steady ready noticed his taste for building, as in its aim! We had once the high honor shown in his costly palaces, but it would be of being for a short time in the company doing him great injustice to suppose that of a Prince, whose mind struck us as a cuit was confined to them; not only his capi- rious contrast to Frederick's; he asked tal, but his principal cities, such as Breslau, nearly the same questions, but seldom pausowed him the construction of libraries, thea- ed to hear the answer, or cried, 'Right— tres, and other stately public edifices, be- quite right--exactly so'-whatever the ansides new streets and squares for private swer might be! houses. In one of his letters of 1773, he To show more clearly how close and is able to boast with just pride that he had minute was Frederick's superintendence of that very year begun to rebuild some towns his provincial affairs, we will give an account in Prussian Poland, which had lain in ruins of one of his 'Ministers' Reviews,' as they ever since the pestilence of 1709. † In the were termed that is, a conference which same year he made arrangements for found- he held every summer with the principal ing sixty new villages among the waste lands holders of office. Of the one which took place at Sans Souci on the 1st of June, 1770, Von wahrem und rechten Adel. t To Voltaire, Oct. 24, 1773. * Letter to D'Alembert, June 19, 1775. a summary was drawn up by the Minister men I have already drawn from it, and what I of State Von Derschau, for the information have been able to do by its means." of an absent colleague: 66 Before dinner the King spoke to us on sundry other matters, and said, amongst the rest, that it His His Majesty received us with a most gracious gave him pleasure whenever any of his subjects countenance, and said, “Gentlemen, I have caused travelled into foreign states with views of imyou to come that we might examine our house-provement, and brought back useful knowledge He added, that during hold affairs together." We replied that we had to their native country duly prepared ourselves for this investigation: his last journey through Pomerania he had seen upon which he proceeded to say that he had him- at Colbalz the Ober-Amtman Sydow, who, toself inspected in the Oder-bruch the district which gether with his son, had been lately in England, had suffered this year by the inundations of the and had studied the English system of husbandry. Oder, and had found the damage by no means só They understand how to grow lucerne, and what great as it had been represented to him, One are terined TURNIPS (a white root for fodder, of ought not," he added, " to be too much dismayed which nine or ten often reach an hundred weight); by such calamities of Nature, however frightful and experiments in the culture of both have been they seem at first; since Nature is apt herself to made in Pomerania with excellent success. repair, and at no long interval, the havoc she has Majesty wishes that the same may be done in made." At Freienwalde there were only two Brandenburg. We are, therefore, to put ourselves small breaches in the dam, and only about twenty-in correspondence with these gentlemen, and refive houses slightly damaged, so that the whole ceive from them the necessary instructions; and real loss of the inhabitants would be scarcely we are, also, to send some sensible Wirthschaftsmore than a few cartloads of hay and the growing Colbatz, to observe and afterwards adopt at home Schreiber from various Amter in Brandenburg to crops on the ground. His Majesty then proceeded: "I do not therefore see the necessity of such the cultivation not only of these turnips and lularge sums as you have proposed to me to grant cerne, but also of the hops, which last his Majesty in remission of taxes and compensations for losses. has recommended to us in the most pressing However I will allow 60,000 dollars. When the terms. The King observes that the country-people water shall have flowed off again the Minister of in Brandenburg are still too stubborn and prejuState Von Hagen shall go to the spot and examine diced against any new discovery, however good everything more exactly. But I cannot conceal and useful it may be. Therefore, says his Mafrom you how much I was dissatisfied at finding the new church in the Oder-bruch not yet com pleted. I desire that you will again send a sharp order to Lieut-Colonel Petri to take measures for having the church ready soon, or it shall be the worse for him!" jesty, the men in office should always make a beginning with whatever promises well; and if it answers, then the lower classes will be sure to follow. "You would not think," added his Majesty with much animation, “how eager I feel to make the people advance in knowledge and wel fare; but you must have often experienced, as I have, how much contradiction and thwarting one meets with, even where one has the best intentions." Upon this his Majesty took up the account of the sums proposed to be allotted, and said: "1. That as to the funds for repairing the Oderdam they were already assigned. 2. That in addition he would gladly grant the 13,000 dollars proposed for the new sluice at Plauen. 3. That he would Our limits warn us to carry no further undertake the cost of the stables for the Cuirassiers' the report of this remarkable interview. horses at Kyritz, and of the hospital and orphan- We will therefore omit, though reluctantly, asylum at Belgard, since these expenses were the King's remarks and directions as to the both needful and useful. 4. That he would refer to the Board of General Direction the charges better manuring of pasture-lands-the rerequired for the harbors of Rügenwald and claiming of several sandy plots near LowColberg. enberg, Strausberg, Alt-Landsberg, and When this was over, the King looked through Werneuchen which he had noticed on his with a keen eye the accounts of the Chambre des last journey-the draining of the great Domaines and of the Caisse Militaire, and signed marshes at Stendal, and with the profits them respectively. He then opened his desk, drew out a paper, and read to us a statement of bringing over to the spot a colony of Dutchmen- -the encouragement of bee-hives and the considerable sums which he intends this year, as far as he finds it possible, to devote to the be silk-worms, for which last large plantations nefit of his dominions. Among these sums we of mulberry-trees had been made several especially noticed 300,000 dollars for the nobility years before--the establishment of extenof Pomerania, 20,000 for the province of Hohn- sive nursery-gardens near Berlin to be stein, and 30,000 on account to restore the towns manured from the sweepings of the streets in the March of Brandenburg. On the first item and drains in that city-the planting of the King observed :-" Gentlemen, I recommend fruit-trees in other places likewise, so as to to you especially the upholding and supporting my nobility. I lay great stress upon that order, check the importation of dried fruit every for I require it both for my army and my civil year from Saxony, and to keep,' the King administration. You know how many valuable added, our money at home-the working of the cobalt and coal-mines in Silesia, We remember that in 'Emile' Rousseau and how the coals should be transported, points an eloquent invective against those and how applied in bleaching-grounds, tile- mock-philanthropists who profess unboundkilns, and lime-kilns. After so many and ed zeal for the Tartars, but who will never such manifold orders this Ministers' Re- help a poor neighbor at the door. In like view' ended, we may observe, in a manner manner we confess that we feel small revemore agreeable than most Cabinet-Coun- rence for those Kings who never part with cils in England-by a general invitation to one iota of their inherited despotism, who the Royal table that same day. During give a subject the hem of their garment to the repast,' adds our reporter, his Majesty kiss, who bound their promotions to nobles, was especially condescending and gay, and who leave their peasantry serfs, and made a great number of jests, and then yet with all this love to prate of repubbade us go-highly delighted at his gra- licans and regicides provided only that cious reception.' these lived many hundred years ago! In thus considering the administration of It is certainly true that Frederick, upon Frederick we must always bear in mind the whole, administered his despotic power that his authority over his people was with enlightened views and with public entirely and in all respects uncontrolled. spirit for the good of his subjects, and it Not only the treaties with foreign powers may perhaps be argued, as Montesquieu and the systems of foreign policy, the has done, that despotic power while thus army, the ordnance, the shipping, the administered, is the best of all forms of questions of trade and protecting duties, government. Take any Prussian town or the imposition or remission of new taxes, district during the peaceful years of Fredeand the application of the revenue received, rick, and it will, we believe, appear that were subject to his despotic sway, but even amidst very many cases of individual the decisions of the courts of law, which grievances and hardships the general promost other tyrannies hold sacred. Nay gress of prosperity was rapid and unceasing. more, even beyond the frontiers of the No instance can be stronger than that of state, personal freedom was so far con- Silesia. Here was a province won without trolled that no Prussian subject could a shadow of real right from Maria Theresa travel without special permission from the -a sovereign who, besides her legitimate King, and even when that permission was title, had all the claim to her subjects' granted there was a Royal Ordinance of sympathy which womanhood, youth, and October 29, 1766, fixing the amount of beauty can bestow. Here were nobles of pocket money which he might take with high lineage and loyalty compelled to him: if a nobleman or an officer, 400 dol- acknowledge an usurping conqueror; here lars; if neither, 250. The government was a people of bigoted Catholicism ruled was, in fact, one of those which, when well over for the first time by a Protestant administered, as was Frederick's, are called prince. Under such circumstances what by friends Patriarchal or Paternal, which else could be expected than that Silesia leave little to individual choice or enter- should become to Prussia what Ireland has prise, but direct every man to the path in which he should go. It is remarkable that Frederick, who not only possessed, but actively wielded this uncontrolled authority, and who never to his dying day manifested the slightest idea of relaxing it, yet in many of his writings expresses the most ardent aspirations for freedom. Thus in his epistle to the Marquis d'Argens : Vous de la liberté héros que je révère, been to England-a perennial fountain of bitterness an object to all statesmen of anxious solicitude, and to nearly all of afflicting disappointment-a battle-field of ever-recurring political and religious animosities, and, like other battle-fields, laid waste by the contention! Yet so prompt and so prudent were the measures of Frederick in behalf of his new conquest-neither neglecting the interests of his subjects, as, for instance, Joseph the First, nor yet wounding their prejudices, like Joseph the Second-that within a few years' space Silesia became as firmly bound to him as Or when he thus upbraids Hermothême :-Brandenburg, and that Maria Theresa, in Votre esprit est imbu des préjugés vulgaires, her later attempts to recover the province, found no effective or general assistance from the Silesians themselves. * We must confess, however, that this is remarkable that the revenue derived from praise of the general result of Frederick's it almost immediately doubled. In the government is not easily borne out on ex- preceding year this revenue had been only amining the particular steps of the pro- 300,000 dollars; in the subsequent year it cess. Wide as are the differences amongst rose to 574,000.1 It must however be obourselves on questions of trade and taxa- served that the King's object in the higher tion, we do not suppose that one man could rate was perhaps not so much financial now be found to vindicate the former sys- as prohibitory. When the Land-Stände of tem in Prussia. Severe Government mo- Pomerania ventured to remonstrate against nopolies laid on main articles of consump- the increased duties on coffee and wines, tion, and farmed out to speculators from a his Majesty's views were explained in his foreign country, form perhaps the very own Royal Rescript of August 27, 1779 :— worst system of finance which human ingenuity has yet devised. And such was Frederick's-as a short review of the items will show. The great point,' says that Rescript (which is written in the style of familiar conversation), is to put some limits to the dreadful amount of consumption. It is quite horrible how far the consumption On meat there was established an excise- of coffee goes to say nothing of other articles! duty of one pfennig per pound; and more- The reason is, that every peasant and common over varying but always considerable Droits fellow is accustoming himself to the use of coffee, d'Octroi at the gates of towns on cattle as being now so easily procured in the open counand sheep. Thus at Berlin there was de- try. If this be a little bit checked the people must manded for each ox one thaler thirteen gros- of their own breweries, as more beer would then take again to beer, and that is surely for the good chen of entrance-excise, and ten groschen be sold. Here then is the object-that so much more of market-excise; besides which there money may not go to foreign parts for coffee; and was another duty on the hide and another if but 60,000 dollars went yearly, that is quite on the tallow. Bread was not excised; enough. As to the right of search, which the but the Octroi ón wheat and on flour Land-Stände object to, it is needful to keep order, amounted to four and six pfennigs the bush- especially among their own domestics, and, as good el respectively the effect being, of course, subjects to the King, they should not even say a to make bread dearer in the towns than in word against it. Besides, his Majesty's own Royal Person was reared in childhood upon beer-soups the villages or open country. On brandy (ale-berry), and why not then just as well the peothere was an excise of one grosch n the ple down yonder? It is much wholesomer than quart; on beer of eighteen groschen the coffee. The Land-Stände may therefore set their barrel. Coffee, tobacco, and salt were not minds at rest on the matter, especially since all nomerely excised, but administered by and for blemen residing on their own estates shall continue the state as monopolies. For the most part the coffee was only sold ready roasted for use--the right of roasting it being reserved as a special favor for certain privileged classes, as the nobles, the officers of the army, and the clergy in towns. The duty retained by the Government was at first four Bad as was this system of impost, with groschen the pound; but, in 1772, was in- the like monopoly of tobacco and salt, creased to six groschen and two pfennigs. Frederick may be reproached for introducIn 1763 there It was calculated, that, deducting the duty, ing another still worse. a pound of coffee could not possibly be sold were first established in Prussia Governby the fair trader at less than four groschen from this source were small, only 60,000 ment lotteries. At first the annual profits and three-quarters; yet the price of the pound of coffee at Berlin in the retail trade dollars, but they gradually increased, both never exceeded ten groschen; a clear proof net proceeds in 1829 are stated at 684,000 during Frederick's reign and after it. of the prevalence and success of smuggling. Redoubled vigilance and severity on the No mode of administration, as we conpart of the French revenue-officers in this ceive, could have made the main Government department--the coffee-smellers' (KaffeeRiecher), as the mob called them--were monopolies welcome to the people. But wholly unavailing, except to increase the certainly they were much aggravated in animosity against themselves. Thus, in practice by the system which the King 1784, the King found it necessary to reduce selected. Three years after the of the amount of the duty by one half, and it * De Launay, Justification ĉu Systême, p. 30. to have free of duty as much coffee and wine as they require for their own and their families' conprivilege be guarded from abuse, and that no consumption; only care must be taken that this their traband traffic be carried on under their names. That cannot possibly be winked at for the future.' dollars. peace The Hubertsburg, Frederick summoned over Years' War. Had they been at work prefrom Paris several French farmers-general, viously, we are strongly of opinion that the the chief of whom was La Haye de Launay, King would have felt their ill effect from and by them exclusively he administered the anger and alienation of at least his his principal monopolies, as tobacco and Silesian subjects, coffee. This system, under the name of Passing to another branch we may obLa Régie, was steadily maintained for serve, that in many parts of the Prussian twenty years, that is, during the remainder monarchy the peasants continued to be of Frederick's reign, but was immediately feudal serfs-adscripti gleba. Such Frederafterwards cancelled by his successor, ick found them at his accession-such he Nor was the French importation limited left them at his death. It is due to him, to the principal contractors; they drew however, to observe that he issued several over in their train several hundred of their edicts to secure them as far as possible from countrymen, who were forthwith distributed any wanton ill-usage of their masters. over the Prussian states as men in office, With regard to these, the proprietors of with various grades and denominations: the soil, there was a wide distinction mainDirecteurs, Inspecteurs, Vérificateurs, Con- tained between those who were and those trôleurs, Visitateurs, Commis, Plombeurs, who were not of noble birth. None of the Contrôleurs ambulants, Jaugeurs, Commis former class were allowed to alienate their rats de cave, and, above all, Anti-contre- lands to the latter without a special Royal bandiers à pied et à cheval! To these were license; and this license, for which we find adjoined also a great number of Germans, many applications in Frederick's correbut always in a subaltern situation to the spondence, was almost invariably refused; French. The whole establishment was far the object being, that if even some nobletoo numerous and costly, Frederick himself men should be ruined, the estates of the being the judge; for when, in 1783, he nobles as a class should undergo no dimicame to revise its details, he found himself nution. able to suppress no less than 834 employés, This system, however irreconcilable with and to effect a saving of 150,000 dollars the French philosophy of Frederick, was yearly. Nor was the general financial no doubt in accordance with the temper result satisfactory. It has been ably shown and feelings at that time of his principal by Dr. Preuss that the average annual subjects. But it is difficult to understand receipts since the French financiers came what prejudice was gratified, or what adin exceeded the former ones by only vantage beyond facility of taxation it was 857,000 dollars; a result not at all com- expected to secure, by another system not mensurate to the additional taxes imposed, less rigidly adhered to the confinement of nor to the growing population and pros- all manufacturing industry within town perity of the Prussian states. walls. By an Edict of June 4, 1718, which Undoubtedly, however, the main fault was not repealed till 1810, no kind of of the system was the deep humiliation of handicraftsmen were allowed to ply in the the Prussians at finding themselves thus villages or open country, except these six : excluded from the administration of their smiths, wheelwrights, carpenters, masons, own finances, and declared incapable of weavers, and tailors. There were certain filling the best employments in their native exemptions for breweries and distilleries. country. It may likewise be imagined that especially in the provinces between the Oder ignorant or careless as were many of the and the Vistula, but the general rule stood French excisemen of any foreign language, as we have just described it. Thus the the collisions between them and the native many new manufactories and branches of population were both frequent and angry. industry which Frederick loved to found or We are far from disputing the financial foster had to struggle against both the conmerits of our nearest neighbors whenever fined space and the larger expenses of the employed at home. But we really doubt towns. whether even the Egyptian locusts, whose All such new manufactories, however, appearance so greatly irritated Frederick, during Frederick's reign, were not only could have proved a worse plague to his guarded by protective duties against their subjects than these French excisemen. It foreign rivals, but propped and encouraged will be observed that they (although the by bounties. Large sums were often and excise itself was of long standing) were not readily devoted to this end. Some points, appointed until some years after the Seven however, in Frederick's commercial policy, |