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the late sovereign, was arrested; various persons, attached to his person and court, the objects of public indignation, were dismissed; and the edicts relative to religion and tobacco were revoked. Were it practicable to combine the freedom of the press with a censorship of any description, such a combination seemed to be the object of the new regulations in Prussia. The inquisitorial power exercised against political opinions was annulled; and Prussia, although without any positive law for securing the liberty of the subject, actually enjoyed, at that period, civil liberty in much greater perfection than several other countries where it was formally stipulated by the constitution. The pay of the troops was increased, at the same time that due respect was most strictly enjoined on the soldier towards the civil citizen, who laboured for his support. By a wellunderstood economy, the waste of former dissipation was remedied. The king and queen set before the nation examples of purity of morals, of genuine conjugal affection, and of simplicity of life. Notwithstanding these measures, the mechanism of the administration, contrived and set in motion by Frederick II. to support, in very different times and circumstances, the frail edifice of the Prussian monarchy; those innumerable connections between the secret cabinet counsellors and the ministers; were still, for a long time, maintained. It was not, in fact, until after the treaty of Tilsit, on the 8th of July, 1807, that Frederick-William resolved, after frequent changes of his ministers, to give to his states a new system of government. He began by appointing Baron Hardenberg state-chancellor, by which he became the centre of the whole administration, and by that union of political power the monarchy was saved; and to the queen has the idea of such a measure been ascribed.

Firm in his determination to persevere in his schemes for the restoration of the state, neither the repeated attacks of the continental powers upon France, nor the temptation of subsidies from England, nor the negociations, and even the threats of Russia, were able to induce Frederick-William to forsake the system of neutrality adopted by his predecessor. The tranquillity of peace allowed him to extend the ancient and the new provinces of the kingdom, and to establish in the latter

a solid foundation for their future prosperity. By the dissolution of the ancient Germanic empire, Prussia obtained a very considerable augmentation of territory, containing nearly balf a million of inhabitants, as a compensation for districts on the west side of the Rhine, ceded to France by the treaty of Basil. Most anxious to prevent every circumstance by which the good understanding between France and him might be endangered, Frederick, in 1803, arrested in Bareuth some emigrated French, who were accused of carrying on a correspondence with the royalists within the republic, and he delivered their papers into the hands of the French ambassador at his court. He, nevertheless, admitted into his dominions Louis XVIII. and allotted him a refuge in Warsaw, where he remained till 1804. The alliance between England, Austria, and Russia, formed in 1805, produced no change in the conduct of FrederickWilliam; but when a Russian army was assembled on the frontiers of his territories, and attempts were made to force him to take part against France, or at least to grant a passage to the Russians destined to act against that country; then the Prussian army took positions which threatened Russia. These slight indications of opposition, however, soon disappeared. Alexander repaired to Potsdam, and with him, on the 3d of November, 1805, Frederick-William ratified a convention, by which he granted to the Russians free passage through his dominions. Appearing at this time to act as a mediator between the powers at war, Frederick-William dispatched Count Haugwitz to Napoleon, then at Vienna. Whatever were that minister's instructions, it is only known that no immediate effect seemed to follow his mission, and that, by the subsequent battle of Austerlitz, all Germany fell under the power of Napoleon, whilst Prussia offered no obstacle whatever to his career.

In 1800 Prussia had taken possession of the electorate of Hanover; and a corps of Prussians anticipated the Russians and Swedes, and again occupied the electorate in October, 1805, in consequence of a treaty between Frederick and Napoleou, executed at Vienna; according to which France gave full liberty to Prussia to occupy that electorate as an indemnification for the cession to France of the districts of Anspach and Cleves, and of Neufchâtel, in Switzerland. But in his proclamation of

the 27th of January, 1806, Frederick informed the people of Hanover that he was to occupy their country, only until a general peace. In acceding to the treaty of Presburgh of the 26th of December, 1805, Frederick required certain modifications respecting his relations with England, and for that purpose sent Hangwitz to Paris in January, 1806: but the treaty he signed there in the following month came far short of what was expected. The consequence was, that the ports of Prussia were shut against England; and the English government, on the 24th of May ensuing, issued letters of marque; and, on the 11th of June, a declaration of war against Prussia. In the last document it is stated, "that it was evident that the conduct of the conrt of Prussia was not the result of the free will of the sovereign, but of the influence exercised in his cabinet by the enemies of Great Britain." By the occupation of Hanover, Prussia also gave offence to Sweden, which asserted its duty to protect the duchy of Lauenburgh, on account of the subsidy received from England. But after a slight contest, on the 23d of April, the Swedes left the country, and the Prussians took possession of it. The king of Sweden, however, seized the Prussian ships in his harbours, and blockaded the Baltic ports of Prussia. Soon after these transactions, the scheme of the confederation of the Rhine, (suggested to Napoleon by a certain German court, for objects very different from those which resulted from it,) peculiarly favoured his hostile plans against Prussia, and drew on long and important negociations. The Marquis Lucchesini had been for several years the Prussian minister in Paris; and it is not doubted but that his connexions, as well as his conduct in the negociation with the court of the Tuileries, greatly contributed to quiet the apprehensions of Prussia, and to create that security which led to her ruin.

Awaking at last from her lethargy, Prussia made peace with Sweden, and, adopting a different language to France, required not only that the French troops should be withdrawn from Germany, but that France should, in no manner, oppose a confederation of the powers of the north of Europe; to comprehend all those German states which were not mentioned in the act of the confe deration of the Rhine. The Prussian minister in Paris, Knobelsdorf, who had succeeded to Lucchesini, required

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also that the fortress of Wesel, (on the German side of the Rhine,) should be detached from France; that cer tain districts in Hanover should no longer be occupied by the French; and, finally, that a negociation should be immediately opened, for terminating every difference between the two powers. The period fixed for deciding the question of peace or war was suffered to elapse; and Frederick, in a manifesto, issued from Erfurth, on the 9th of October, 1806, published to the world his numerous grounds of complaint against France. A body of twenty-two thousand Saxons had joined the Prussians under the Prince of Hohenlohe, and the combined army immediately commenced hostilities, by crossing the river Saal. On the 10th of October, Prince Lewis of Prussia fell in an action with the French, under Bernadotte, (now king of Sweden); and on the 14th the battle of Jena, or Auerstadt, seemed at once to decide the fate of the Prussian monarchy. In this action, FrederickWilliam had two horses killed under him. After the defeat of his armies, and the loss of his fortresses, he obtained a suspension of arms, which was concluded on the 16th of November, but not ratified by Napoleon, under the pretext that part of the Prussian states were still occupied by Russian troops. The attack on the French at Jena had been made with so much confidence of success, that no provision was made for a reverse of fortune. The Prussian fortresses were consequently given up to the French. They were not indeed in a condition to make an effectual resistance; but they were surrendered with a rapidity unexampled in history: whole bodies of the army submitted without firing a gan: General Blucher was almost the only commander who made any stand, although ineffectually, against the enemy.

Overwhelmed, but not disheartened by his disasters, Frederick, in December, laid before his people the state to which he was reduced. "In the memorable seven years' war," said he, "Prussia stood alone, without any essential aid from any quarter, against the principal powers of Europe. In the present contest, she reckons on the aid of the powerful and magnanimous Alexander of Russia, ready to employ his whole force in her favour; for in this struggle the interests of the two countries are the same. The two states will stand or fall together." Duc punishment was now inflicted on the officers who

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