But Frederick was not continually at war previously to the peace of 1763 ;—nor was he engaged in any very serious or extensive hostilities after this date. He enjoyed, ac cordingly, many intervals and many years of tranquillity and repose. And he did not dedicate these periods to the indulgence of luxurious indolence or sensual gratifications. On the contrary, every moment of his time was spent in promoting the true interests and welfare of his subjects. lie was occupied in adopting measures for the prosperity of commerce, agriculture, manufactures, literature, and the arts ; lie founded academies and seminaries of learning ; he invited learned men from t very country in Europe to settle in his dominions, though it has been remarked that he treated them rather as a regiment of soldiers, than as philosophers, and endeavoured to regulate matters of taste and literature by regal legislation; lie cleared waste lands ; constructed canals ; rebuilt and repaired the cities that had been desolated by the enemy ; rewarded men of merit in every department of enterprise ; and in short spared no time, expense, or labour, in promoting the internal re sources and improvement of his kingdom. One of his chief objects was, a reform in the courts of justice, which he effected, chiefly as far as regards the delay and expense of law proceedings ; and in 1746, he published the famous Frederician Code, which was adopted throughout the kingdom, and which, being the result of one reign, and of the wisdom of one individual, commands our applause and admiration. But the ruling passion of his life was war, and the perfection of his army—in both of which departments he has been denominated an inventor. His army amount ed to 200,000 men in 1763, even after the sanguinary and lengthened warfare in which he had been engaged. He carried discipline among his troops to a degree of rigour and severity unknown in Europe till his time, but of which experience has shown the propriety and necessity.
Nor, amid all his avocations, did he lay aside his early attachment to letters and to study. For this purpose, in deed, he devoted in times of peace a portion of every day. And lie is the author of various works of such merit, that the influence of his high rank was not necessary to intro duce them to the world. Some of them would do honour to men whose sole profession was literature. An account of his literary character may be found under the article FREDERICK Ill.: but.we may mention here, that his chief works are, Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg; Me moirs of his own Time,from the year 1740 to the peace of Dresden ; 4 History of the War of Seven Years. His Poem on the .4rt of !Tar, published at first separately, is now printed with other poems and epistles, in a volume entitled Oeuvres Melees du Philosophe de Sans Souci." But the king of Prussia, not otherwise engaged in war after the peace of 1763, cooperated with Russia in the invasion and destruction of Poland, and found means to obtain a share of that kingdom when it was dismembered. This event was first contemplated and suggested by Frederick ; but carried into effect chiefly by the exertion of the Russian monarch. Austria took almost no active part in the hostilities which led to it, yet shared liberally in the partitions that ensued. The result of three succes sive partitions was as follows : Prussia had to deliver up a considerable portion of her Polish acquisitions in 1807 ; but by the treaty of Vienna in 1815, she is guaranteed in the possession of 29,000 square miles, with a population of 1,800,000.
Frederick, who. died in 1786, at the age of 75, was succeeded by his nephew, Frederick William 11. This prince, on his accession, found himself possessed of the finest army in the world, of subjects enthusiastically at tached to his person and government, and of a treasury replenished with 7,000,000i. sterling, notwithstanding tile expensive war in which his predecessor had been engaged. But though thus furnished with means for pursuing the system of aggrandizement by which his family had always been distinguished, Frederick William was of a pacific disposition; and his reign passed over in peace, except a short but brilliant campaign, made into the territories of Holland in 1787, in support of the prerogatives of the Prince of Orange, and the hesitating and unsuccessful wars with France, during the years 1792, 1793, and 1794. Of both these expeditions the Duke of Brunswick was commander, a general of great personal bravery and mili tary skill. Frederick William, unlike his ancestors, was improvident and extravagant in his expenditure, and though he accumulated no debt, he dissipated the immense treasures left him by his predecessor. He restored the German, the vernacular language of Prussia, to the rank it possessed before the accession of Frederick the Great. " Germans we are," says he, " and Germans I mean we shall continue." He strictly prohibited all publications that had a tendency to undermine the principles of Christ ianity, or bring it into contempt. His death took place in 1797, when his son, the present monarch, ascended the throne. In the early parts of this reign nothing happened deserving of commemoration. In addition to the most se dulous attention to the discipline and efficiency of his army, the king was continually occupied with objects of internal national policy, till 1806, when his own rapacity, and the circumstances of France, involved him in a war, which terminated in the almost total extinction of his kingdom. Seeing the formidable power of the French arms rapidly increasing, and taught an important lesson by the fall of the Austrians at Austerlitz, he formed an alli ance with Bonaparte, and even shared in his unjust spoils (1806) by invading Hanover and annexing it to his domi nions, and by shutting the ports of the German Sea and of Lubec against the British flag. The result of this pro ceeding ma)t easily be anticipated: the British minister immediately left Berlin, and a declaration of war on the part of England was soon after proclaimed. But the Prus sian monarch ere long ascertained that Bonaparte regard ed him as little else than a vassal prince, whose rights he disregarded, and whom he meant to destroy, when he had accomplished his more grand and important enterprises. The Confederation of the Rhine also opened his eyes to the dangerous and precarious nature of his situation; and accordingly, in October, 1806, a declaration of war was published by Prussia against the French Emperor. The first result of this step was the celebrated battle of Jena, in which Prussia lost 40.000 men, including about 20 ge nerals, among whom the Duke of.Brunswick was mortally wounded. This engagement took place on the 14th of Oc tober; and so rapid were the movements of Bonaparte, that, after having reduced Erfurt, Magdeburg, and Stettin, on the 27th of the same month he marched his victorious army into Berlin. The King of Prussig. in the mean time, retreated first to Custrin, and afterwards to Konigsburg. And having been reinforced by an army from Russia, an other dreadful battle took place at Pultusk (26th Decem ber) in which the Russians were completely defeated. The
French afterwards invaded Silesia, took Stralsund, Col berg, and Dantzick, and carried victory and devastation with them in every direction. And to such a state of dis tress was Frederick at length reduced, that with all his dominions in the hand of the enemy, except East Prussia, the British minister (for peace was now reestablished be tween this country and Prussia) it necessary to ad vance 80,0001. for the support of his family and domestic household. A treaty of peace, however, dated at Tilsit, in 1807, was at length entered into with France, but on such disadvantageous terms, that little more of a sovereign was left Frederick than the name. By this peace the Prussian monarch (who had formerly ceded to France the duchies of Cleves and Berg) renounced the whole of his dominions situated between the Rhine and the Elbe, part of Lusatia, the city of Dantzick, all the provinces which formerly con stituted part of Poland, and agreed to shut his ports against the trade and navigation of Great Britain. Nor was this all. He had to support the armies of France stationed in his territories, to pay immense contributions to the French Emperor—and every decree issued in Holland against the commerce of Britain, to promulgate and enforce in his mutilated provinces. Frederick, thus humbled and re duced, endeavoured to submit with as much grace and patience as was possible, and to alleviate the sufferings of his subjects by effecting great reductions in his civil and military establishments. This peace, which may be re garded as merely nominal, as Bonaparte fulfilled no part of his engagements, continued for six years, during which time the Prussians underwent such unutterable calami ties, and felt so deeply for their oppressed and enslaved country, which once held so distinguished a place among the nations of Europe, that, in 1813, when they threw off the yoke of France, and in alliance with Britain, Austria, Russia, and Sweden, endeavoured to check the aggressions of Bonaparte, or to accomplish his overthrow, they exhi bited a degree of heroism, intrepidity, and skill, not sur passed in the annals of any nation. Frederick, indeed, notwithstanding the thraldom under which he laboured, was not inattentive to the military spirit and discipline of his army. The number of his troops, at any one time, was remarkably small, scarcely exceeding 20,000 men ; yet, by a succession of enlistments, and by supplying the place of those who, being sufficiently drilled and accomplished, were dismissed, he had almost all his subjects capable of bearing arms so trained and exercised in the military art, that, at the period mentioned above, he could bring to the field upwards of 200,000 regularly. instructed soldiers. The French had, indeed, robbed the kingdom of arms, but this loss was promptly supplied by the assistance of Britain and other powers. And this numerous army, led on by the illustrious generals Blucher and Bulow, performed prodigies of valour, particularly at Lutzen, Juterboch, Leipsic, in the recovery of Silesia, and in the invasion of France, in 1813 and 1814. Hostilities were, for a short time, suspended by the negotiations of Chatillon. But the bravery and military talents of the Prussians were again displayed at Montmartre; and, in the following year, on the return of Bonaparte from Elba, in the ever memorable battle of Waterloo. The consequences of this glorious victory, on the part of the allies, was the settlement of the different nations of Europe in the circumstances in which they have since continued. The congress of Vienna nad the delicate and difficult task of assigning acquisitions and boundaries to the various powers that had been engaged in the great struggle ; and to Prussia were secured the resti tution of the provinces (with the exception of part of Po land) formerly wrested from her, and the addition of such new territories as seemed consistent with the permanency and security of the balance of power in Europe. The fol lowing are the new territories conferred on Prussia by the congress of Vienna: from France, the Lower Rhine, and part of Juliers, Cleves, and Berg; from Westphalia, Mun ster, and the remaining part of Juliet's, Cleves, and Berg; and from Saxony,* Thuringia, Upper and Lower Lusatia, and Wenneberg, which latter provinces contain about a million of inhabitants, and are situated on the north and cast of the Saxon dominions. We have already stated, that in this year also, Prussia, partly by exchange, and partly by purchase, obtained from Denmark that part in the west of Pomerania, commonly called Swedish Pomera nia, with the Island of Rugen. And thus we see Prussia, by her own energy and exertions, again raised from the condition of a second rate power, to be one of the first so vereign states of Europe, and as formidable as she was even in the time of Frederick the Great. Frederick Wil liam III. in whose reign the above memorable events took place, forms one of the members of the Holy Alliance, and enters with eagerness into ail the views by which that body is distinguished; and, in some respects, he carries despotism, in his own dominions, to a height which, in Britain, would be reckoned intolerable. But in opposition to this, he is, as previously mentioned, assiduous, in other respects, in promoting the best interests of his subjects: he has made several judicious improvements in the legal code of the kingdom, and in the administration of justice; he encourages literature, agriculture, trade, and manufac tures; he has established the liberty of the press; and he has even promised a representative government to his subjects—a measure for which a decree was issued, dated at Vienna, 1815, though it has not yet been carried into execution. At the present date, the Prussians, finding that their country holds a distinguished rank among the nations of the continent; that they are making rapid progress in all the arts of peace and national prosperity ; and that their property and privileges are protected and held sacred, are characterised by as much contentment, patriotism, and at tachment to their sovereign and government, as they dis played at any previous period of their history.
See Travels by Marshall (supposed to be written by Sir John Hill) Coxe, Riesbeck, &c. Letters on Silesia, by Adams, minister plenipotentiary from the United States, 1801 ; Tableau de la Pologne, par Malte Brun, Paris, 1807; Hoeck's Aperfu Statistique des .Etats d'Allemagne, Paris, fol. 1801 ; StatisRze Darstellung der Preusische Monarchie, von J. A. Demain, 1818 : Reichard's Guide des Voyageurs, Weimar, 1805 ; W•axall's Memoirs ; sec the following works by Frederick the Great, Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg: Memoirs of his own Times, from. 1740 to the Peace of Dresden ; A History of the War of Seven Years ; and .4 History of the Transactions from the Peace of Hubertsburg ; see also the various Lives of Frederick the Great ; the Annual Register, particularly for 1806, 1807, 1814, and 1815; and, in this work, the articles AUSTRIA, FREDERICK III. GERMANY, POLAND. (&)