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King Of Prussia
by
The young king began his reign with great expectations, which he has yet surpassed. His father’s faults produced many advantages to the first years of his reign. He had an army of seventy thousand men well disciplined, without any imputation of severity to himself, and was master of a vast treasure without the crime or reproach of raising it. It was publickly said in our house of commons, that he had eight millions sterling of our money; but, I believe, he that said it had not considered how difficultly eight millions would be found in all the Prussian dominions. Men judge of what they do not see by that which they see. We are used to talk in England of millions with great familiarity, and imagine that there is the same affluence of money in other countries, in countries whose manufactures are few, and commerce little.
Every man’s first cares are necessarily domestick. The king, being now no longer under influence, or its appearance, determined how to act towards the unhappy lady who had possessed, for seven years, the empty title of the princess of Prussia. The papers of those times exhibited the conversation of their first interview; as if the king, who plans campaigns in silence, would not accommodate a difference with his wife, but with writers of news admitted as witnesses. It is certain that he received her as queen, but whether he treats her as a wife is yet in dispute.
In a few days his resolution was known with regard to the tall regiment; for some recruits being offered him, he rejected them; and this body of giants, by continued disregard, mouldered away.
He treated his mother with great respect, ordered that she should bear the title of queen mother, and that, instead of addressing him as his majesty, she should only call him son.
As he was passing soon after between Berlin and Potsdam, a thousand boys, who had been marked out for military service, surrounded his coach, and cried out: “merciful king! deliver us from our slavery.” He promised them their liberty, and ordered, the next day, that the badge should be taken off.
He still continued that correspondence with learned men which he began when he was prince; and the eyes of all scholars, a race of mortals formed for dependence, were upon him, as a man likely to renew the times of patronage, and to emulate the bounties of Lewis the fourteenth.
It soon appeared that he was resolved to govern with very little ministerial assistance: he took cognizance of every thing with his own eyes; declared, that in all contrarieties of interest between him and his subjects, the publick good should have the preference; and, in one of the first exertions of regal power, banished the prime minister and favourite of his father, as one that had “betrayed his master, and abused his trust.”
He then declared his resolution to grant a general toleration of religion, and, among other liberalities of concession, allowed the profession of free-masonry. It is the great taint of his character, that he has given reason to doubt, whether this toleration is the effect of charity or indifference, whether he means to support good men of every religion, or considers all religions as equally good. There had subsisted, for some time, in Prussia, an order called the “order for favour,” which, according to its denomination, had been conferred with very little distinction. The king instituted the “order for merit,” with which he honoured those whom he considered as deserving. There were some who thought their merit not sufficiently recompensed by this new title; but he was not very ready to grant pecuniary rewards. Those who were most in his favour he sometimes presented with snuffboxes, on which was inscribed, “Amitie augmente le prix.”
He was, however, charitable, if not liberal, for he ordered the magistrates of the several districts to be very attentive to the relief of the poor; and, if the funds established for that use were not sufficient, permitted that the deficiency should be supplied out of the revenues of the town.