FREDERICK WILLIAM III., King of Prussia, was the eldest son of King Frederick William II., by his second wife, Friederike Louise, princess of Hesse-Darmstadt : he was born on the 3rd of August 1770. Frederick William was the grand-uephew of King Frederick II., or the Great, under whose superintendence he was prepared for the important functions which he was destined to discharge on the throne of Prussia. The chief tutor of Prince Frederick William was Benish, one of the king's privy councillors ; General von Backhoff instructed him in the military sciences : both are said to have been honest men, but unfit for training the mind of a youth ; and well-informed writers of that period assert that the education of the prince was bad. Frederick William was sixteen when, through the death of Frederick IL iu 1786, he became Crown-Prince, his father, Frederick William II., having succeeded King Frederick. During the reign of Frederick William If. Prussia lost much in general opinion.
Frederick III. succeeded his father on the 16th of November 1797. He had already distinguished himself at Landau and I'irmasens against the French as commander of part of the Prussian avant-garde, and he had married in 1794 the accomplished Louise Auguste Wilhelmine Amalie, princess of Meeklenburg.Strelitz. At that time the Prussian monarchy contained about 124,000 English square miles, with a population of above ten millions—an area and a population three times greater than those which constituted the kingdom wheu the great Frederick came to the throne. But one-third of this country was formed of the provinces acquired by Prussia in the partitions of Poland, and the Polish capital, Warsaw, was then a provincial town of Prussia ; from this portion of the monarchy the king derived more nominal than actual strength, and among its inhabitants there was not one in ten thousand whom he could call a loyal subject. The treasures left by the great Frederick had been squandered away by Frederick William II. in his campaigns in Holland, France, and Poland ; and a considerable debt, contracted by the same king, now added to the difficulties in which the state was placed through his unwise policy. Under these circumstances, Frederick William III. turued his attention to the re-organisation of the financial department, and the introduction of a better system of administration. The changes which he effected were however far from being radical, nor were they calculated to extricate Prussia from the dangers of her political position. From the moment that King Frederick William IL had signed the peace of Basel, Prussia was caught in a net; and the favourable moment to disentangle herself by again joining Austria in her struggle against France had been neglected. Frederick William III. directed all his efforts towards upholding his neutrality in tho great European struggle, and the French press was active in persuading him of the advantages of his policy. The first consequence of this policy was distrust on the part
of Austria, Russia, and Great Britain towards Prussia, and still more on the part of the petty German princes, who hitherto had looked upon Prussia as their protector against the ambition of the house of Austria. But it soon became manifest that the king intended, with the aid of France, to aggrandise his dominions at their expeuse. He made his first acquisition by the peace of Luueville, when he received the bishoprics of Hildesheim, Paderborn, part of that of Minster, and some other territories, with an area of about 5130 English square miles and 600,000 inhabitants, as an indemnity for some districts on the left bank of the Milo; which had been ceded to Franco by the peace of Basel, and which had an area of only 000 English square miles, with 170,000 inhabitants. These territories were seized long before the decree of the diet of Regensburg (liatiebon) in 1803, through which the partition of Germany was legally settled, and which he thus anticipated. beiug sure of the support of Russia and France ; for as early as 1801 Frederick William adhered to the plan of the Emperor Paul of Russia to resist the English supremacy on the sea, and a Prussian ship having been carried by an English oruiser to the port of Cuxhaven, the king sent troops to that place and seized her, although Cuxhaven was within the territory of Hamburg. Eogland was then far from wishing to have Prussia as an enemy, and, anxious to prevent a rupture with her, George 'IL sent his son Adolphus, afterwards Duke of Cambridge, to Berlin, to settle the affair iu an amicable meaner. In spite of these friendly overtures Frederick William gave way to the dangerous advice of some of his ministers, and secretly prepared for taking military possession of the electorate of Ilanover and the whole German coast between Deumark and Holland. This gave rise to fresh distrust, and Pruasia would perhaps as early as 1801 have felt the consequences of her dishonourable and self seeking policy, but far the assassination of the Emperor Paul of Russia, and the friendly dispositions of his son and successor Alexander towards Great Britain, in consequence of which the convention of the 17th of Juue 1801 was signed, and peace restored between Russia and England. Nelsou's attack on Copenhagen in April 1801 had already forced Denmark to withdraw from the Northeru Coalition, and thus Prussia alas was compelled to abandon her hostile designs towards England. Yet there was no real friendship between Prussia and either England or Russia, and the conduct of Frederick William towards Austria was so equivocal, that he was not only considered at Vienna as an intriguer, but as a secret enemy.