and, in whole, the Seven-Years War put an end to both Companies before long. Friedrich is full of these thoughts, among his other Industrialisms; and never quits them for discouragement, but tries again, when the obstacles cease to be insuperable. Ever since the acquisition of Ost-Friesland, the furtherance of Sea-Commerce had been one of Friedrich's chosen objects. 'Let us carry our own goods at least, Silesian linens, Memel timbers, stock-fish; what need of the Dutch to do it?' And in many branches his progress had been remarkable,--especially in this carrying trade, while the War lasted, and crippled all Anti-English belligerents. Upon which, indeed, and the conduct of the English Privateers to him, there is a Controversy going on with the English Court in those years (began in 1747), most distressful to his Grace of Newcastle;--which in part explains those stingy procedures of Captain Thomson ('Home, you seven English sailors!') when the first Canton ship put to sea.
That Controversy is by no means ended after three years, but on the contrary, after two years more, comes to a crisis quite shocking to his Grace of Newcastle, and defying all solution on his Grace's side,--the other Party, after such delays, five years waiting, having settled it for himself!" Of which, were the crisis come, we will give some account.
On the third day of his Visit, Friedrich drove to Aurich, the seat of Government, and official little capital of Ost-Friesland;where triumphal arches, joyful reverences, concourses, demonstrations, sumptuous Dinner one item, awaited his Majesty:
I know not if, in the way thither or back, he passed those "Three huge Oaks [or the rotted stems or roots of them] under which the Ancient Frisians, Lords of all between Weser and Rhine, were wont to assemble in Parliament" (WITHOUT Fourth Estate, or any Eloquence except of the purely Business sort),--or what his thoughts on the late Ost-Friesland Bandbox Parliaments may have been! He returned to Embden that night; and on the morrow started homewards; we may fancy, tolerably pleased with what he had seen.
"King Friedrich's main Objects of Pursuit in this Period," says a certain Author, whom we often follow, "I define as being Three.
1. Reform of the Law; 2. Furtherance of Husbandry and Industry in all kinds, especially of Shipping from Embden; 3. Improvement of his own Domesticities and Household Enjoyments,"--renewal of the Reinsberg Program, in short.
"In the First of these objects," continues he, "King Friedrich's success was very considerable, and got him great fame in the world.
In his Second head of efforts, that of improving the Industries and Husbandries among his People, his success, though less noised of in foreign parts, was to the near observer still more remarkable.
A perennial business with him, this; which, even in the time of War, he never neglects; and which springs out like a stemmed flood, whenever Peace leaves him free for it. His labors by all methods to awaken new branches of industry, to cherish and further the old, are incessant, manifold, unwearied; and will surprise the uninstructed reader, when he comes to study them. An airy, poetizing, bantering, lightly brilliant King, supposed to be serious mainly in things of War, how is he moiling and toiling, like an ever-vigilant Land-Steward, like the most industrious City Merchant, hardest-working Merchant's Clerk, to increase his industrial Capital by any the smallest item!
"One day, these things will deserve to be studied to the bottom;and to be set forth, by writing hands that are competent, for the instruction and example of Workers,--that is to say, of all men, Kings most of all, when there are again Kings. At present, I can only say they astonish me, and put me to shame: the unresting diligence displayed in them, and the immense sum-total of them,--what man, in any the noblest pursuit, can say that he has stood to it, six-and-forty years long, in the style of this man? Nor did the harvest fail; slow sure harvest, which sufficed a patient Friedrich in his own day; harvest now, in our day, visible to everybody: in a Prussia all shooting into manufactures, into commerces, opulences, --I only hope, not TOO fast, and on more solid terms than are universal at present! Those things might be didactic, truly, in various points, to this Generation; and worth looking back upon, from its high LAISSEZ-FAIRE altitudes, its triumphant Scrip-transactions and continents of gold-nuggets,--pleasing, it doubts not, to all the gods. To write well of what is called 'Political Economy' (meaning thereby increase of money's-worth) is reckoned meritorious, and our nearest approach to the rational sublime.
But to accomplish said increase in a high and indisputable degree;and indisputably very much by your own endeavors wisely regulating those of others, does not that approach still nearer the sublime?
"To prevent disappointment, I ought to add that Friedrich is the reverse of orthodox in 'Political Economy;' that he had not faith in Free-Trade, but the reverse;--nor had ever heard of those ultimate Evangels, unlimited Competition, fair Start, and perfervid Race by all the world (towards 'CHEAP-AND-NASTY,' as the likeliest winning-post for all the world), which have since been vouchsafed us. Probably in the world there was never less of a Free-Trader!
Constraint, regulation, encouragement, discouragement, reward, punishment; these he never doubted were the method, and that government was good everywhere if wise, bad only if not wise.
And sure enough these methods, where human justice and the earnest sense and insight of a Friedrich preside over them, have results, which differ notably from opposite cases that can be imagined!