Besides a great part of Silesia, which Frederic II. under various pretences wrested from Austria; availing himself also of the internal troubles in Poland, he, by virtue of no other right than that which a powerful army confers on every tyrant, seized upon Thorn, with the countries on the Vistula and the Neister, and other territories contiguous to his own dominions, close to the walls of Dantzic. These acquisitions may be traced in the map. To these mast also be added the additional part of Po fland acquired by the final partition of that country."

We shall here confine ourselves to Prussia as a kingdom, because his Prussian majesty's other dominions fall under the description of the countries where they lie.

The inhabitants of this kingdom alone were, by Dr. Busching, computed to amount to 635,998 persons capable of bearing arms. Since the year 1719, it is computed that about 34,000 colonists have removed thither from France, Switzerland, and Germany; of which number 17,000 were Saltzburgers. These emigrants have built 400 small villages, 11 towns, 86 seats, and 50 new churches; and have founded 1000 village schools, chiefly in that part of the country named Little Lithuania.

The manners of the inhabitants differ but little from those of the other inhabitants of Germany. The same may be said of their customs and diversions.

RELIGION, SCHOOLS,

AND ACADEMIES.

The religion of Prussia is very tolerant. The established religions are thy so of the

Lutherans and Calvinists, but chiefly the former; but papists, antipadobaptists, and almost all other sects, are here tolerated. The country, as well as the towns, abounds in schools. An university was founded at Koningsberg in 1544; but we know of no very remarkable learned men that it has produced.

CITIES.] The kingdom of Prussia is divided into the German and Lithuanian departments; the former of which contains 280 parishes, and the latter 105.

Köningsberg, the capital of the whole kingdom, seated on the river Pregel, over which it has seven bridges, is about 84 miles from Dantzic. According to Dr. Busching, this city is seven miles in circumference, and contains 3,800 houses, and about 60,000 inhabitants. This computation is perhaps a little exaggerated, because it supposes, at an average, near sixteen persons in every house. Köningsberg has ever made a considerable figure in commerce and shipping, its river being navigable for ships; of which 493 foreign ones arrived here in the year 1752, besides 298 coasters; and 373 floats of timber were, in the course of that year, brought down the Pregel. This city, besides its college or university, which contains 38 professors, has magnificent palaces, a townhouse, and exchange; not to mention gardens and other embellishments. It has a good harbour and a citadel, which is called Fredericsburg, and is a regular square.

ANTIQUITIES AND CURIOSITIES,

NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL.

}

See Germany.

COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES.] The Prussian manufactures are not inconsiderable: they consist of glass, iron-work, paper, gunpowder, copper, and brass mills; manufactures of cloth, camlet, linen, silk stockings, and other articles. The inhabitants export variety of naval stores, amber, linseed, and hempseed, oatmeal, fish, mead, tallow, and caviar; and it is said that 500 ships are loaded every year with those commoditites chiefly from Köningsberg.

CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT.] His Prussian majesty is absolute through all his dominions, and he avails himself to the full of his power. The government of this kingdom is by a regency of four chancellors of state; viz. 1. The great master; 2. The great burgrave; 3. The great chancellor; and, 4. The great marshal. There are also some other councils, and 37 bailiwicks. The states consist, 1. Of counsellors of state; 2. Of deputies from the nobility; and, 3. From the commons. Besides these institutions, Frederic II. erected a bøard for commerce and navigation.

REVENUES.] His Prussian majesty, by means of the happy situation

derives an amazing revenue from this country, which, about a century and a-half ago, was the seat of boors and barbarism. It is said that amber alone brings him in 26,000 dollars annually. His other revenues arise from his demesnes, his duties of customs and tolls, and the subsidies yearly granted by the several states; but the exact sum is not known; though we may conclude it is very considerable from the inmense charges of the Seven Years' war. The revenue which the king draws from Silesia amounts annually to 5,854,632 rix-dollars; and after deducting the expenses of the military establishment, and all others, there is a net revenue of 1,554,632 rix-dollars. His revenues now, since the accession of Polish or Royal Prussia, must be greatly increased: exclusive of its fertility, commerce, and population, its local situation was of vast importance, as it lay between his German dominions and his kingdom of Prussia. By this acquisition, his dominions are compact, and his troops may march from Berlin to Köningsberg without interruption.

MILITARY STRENGTH.] The Prussian army, even in time of peace, consists of about 180,000 of the best disciplined troops in the world; and during the Seven Years' war that force was augmented to 300,000 men. But this great military force, however it may aggrandise the power and importance of the king, is utterly inconsistent with the interests of the people. The army is chiefly composed of provincial regiments, the whole Prussian dominions being divided into circles or cantons; in each of which, one or more regiments, in proportion to the size and populousness of the divisions, have been originally raised, and from it the recruits continue to be taken: and each particular regiment is always quartered, in time of peace, near the canton from which its recruits are drawn. Whatever number of sons a peasant may have, they are all liable to be taken in to the service except one, who is left to assist in the management of the farm. The rest wear badges from their childhood, to mark that they are destined to be soldiers, and obliged to enter into the service whenever they are called upon. But the maintaining so large an army, in a country naturally so little equal to it, has occasioned such a drain from population, and such a withdrawing of strength from the labours of the earth, that the late king endeavoured in some degree to save his own peasantry, by drawing as many recruits as he could from other countries. These foreign recruits remain continually with the regiments in which they are placed; but the native Prussians have every year some months of furlough, during which they return to the houses of their fathers or brothers, and work at the business of the farm, or in any other way they please.

ARMS AND ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD.] The royal arms of Prussia arc, argent, an eagle displayed sable, crowned, or, for Prussia. Azure, the imperial sceptre, or, for Courland. Argent, an eagle displayed, gules, with semicircular wreaths, for the marquisate of Brandenburg. To these are added the respective arms of the several provinces subject to the Prussian crown.

There are four orders of knighthood: the "Order of Concord," insti tuted by Christian Ernest, margrave of Brandenburg, in the year 1660,to distinguish the part he had acted in restoring peace to many of the princes of Europe. Frederic III. elector of Brandenburg, and afterwards king of Prussia, instituted, in 1685, the "Order of Generosity. The knights wear a cross of eight points, enamelled blue, having in the centre this motto, "La Générosité," pendent to a blue ribband. The same prince instituted the "Order of the Black Eagle," on the day of his coropation

at Köningsberg, in the year 1700: the sovereign is always grand-master; and the number of knights, exclusive of the royal family, is limited to thirty, who must also be admitted into the "Order of Generosity," previous to their receiving this, unless they be sovereign princes. The "Order of Merit" was instituted by the late king, in the year 1740, to reward the merit of persons either in arms or arts, without distinction of birth, religion, or country: the king is sovereign, and the number of knights unlimited.

HISTORY. The ancient history of Prussia, like that of other kingdoms, is lost in the clouds of fiction and romance. The early inhabitants, a brave and warlike people, descended from the Sclavonians, refused to submit to the neighbouring princes, who, on pretence of converting them to Christianity, endeavoured to subject them to slavery. They made a noble stand against the kings of Poland; one of whom, Boleslaus IV. was by them defeated and killed in 1163. They continued independent, and pagans, till the time of the crusades, when the German knights of the Teutonic order, about the year 1227, undertook their conversion by the edge of the sword, but upon condition of having, as a reward, the property of the country when conquered. A long series of wars followed, in which the inhabitants of Prussia were almost extirpated by the religions knights, who in the thirteenth century, after committing the most incredible barbarities, peopled the country with Germans. After a vast. waste of blood, in 1466, a peace was concluded between the knights of the Teutonic order and Casimir IV. king of Poland, who had undertaken the cause of the oppressed people; by which it was agreed, that the part now called Polish Prussia should continue a free province, under the king's protection; and that the knights and the grand-master should possess the other part, acknowledging themselves vassals of Poland. This gave rise to fresh wars, in which the knights endeavoured, but unsuccessfully, to throw off their vassalage to Poland. In 1525, Albert, margrave of Brandenburg, and the last grand-master of the Teutonic order, laid aside the habit of his order, embraced Lutheranism, and concluded a peace at Cracow, by which the margrave was acknowledged duke of the cast part of Prussia (formerly called, for that reason, Ducal Prussia), but to be held as a fief of Poland, and to descend to his male heirs; and upon failure of this man's issue, to his brother and his male heirs. Thus ended the sovereignty of the Teutonic order in Prussia, after it had subsisted near 300 years. In 1657, the elector Frederic William of Brandenburg, deservedly called the Great, had Ducal Prussia confirmed to him; and by the conventions of Welan and Bromberg, it was freed by John Casimir, king of Poland, from vassalage; and he and his descendants were declared independent and sovereign lords of this part of Prussia.

As the protestant religion had been introduced into this country by the margrave Albert, and the electors of Brandenburg were now of that persuasion, the protestant interest favoured them so much, that Frederic, the son of Frederic William the Great, was raised to the dignity of king of Prussia, in a solemn assembly of the states, proclaimed January 18, 1701, and soon after acknowledged as such by all the powers of Christendom. His grandson, Frederic II. in the memoirs of his family, gives us no high idea of this first king's talents for government, but expatiates on those of his own father, Frederic William, who succeeded in 1713. He certainly was a prince of strong natural abilities, and considerably increased the revenues of his country, but too often at the expense of humanity. At his death, which happened in 1740, he is said to have left seven millions

and the more wonderful resources by which he repaired his defeats, to become the admiration of the age. He improved the arts of peace as well as of war, and distinguished himself as a poet, philosopher, and legislator. Some of the principal transactions of his reign have already been related in our account of the history of Germany. In the year 1783, he published a rescript, signifying his pleasure that no kneeling in future should be practised in honour of his person, assigning for his reason, that this act of humiliation was not due but to the Divinity; and near 2,000,000 of crowns were expended by him, in 1782, in draining marshes, establishing factories, settling colonies, relieving distress, and in other purposes of philanthropy and policy.

The late king of Prussia, who succeeded his uncle, August 17, 1786, made many salutary regulations for his subjects, and established a court of honour to prevent the diabolical practice of duelling in his dominions. The exertions of Prussia against France, till the treaty of peace concluded between those two powers, on the 5th of April, 1795, have been already related in our account of France.

The conduct of Prussia with regard to Poland is difficult to explain; and it would apparently have been more for the interest of the former to have erected the latter as a formidable independent barrier against Russia and Austria, than to have exposed itself to the enormous and increased power of Russia.

Frederic-William II.* died at Berlin, of a dropsy, November 16, 1797, and was succeeded by his son, Frederic-William III.

Frederic-William II. king of Prussia, and elector of Brandenburg, born September 25, 1744; married, July 14, 1765, to the princess Elizabeth-Christiana-Ulrica, of Brunswic Wolfenbuttle. 2dly, on July 14, 1769, to Frederica-Louisa, of Hesse Darmstadt.

Issue by the first marriage:

Frederica-Charlotta-Ulrica-Catharine, born May 7, 1767; married, September 29, 1791, to the duke of York, the second son of his Britan nic majesty.

Issue by the latter marriage:

1. Frederic-William, the present king, born August 3, 1770,

2. Frederic-Louis-Charles, born August 3, 1773.

3. Frederica-Sophia-Wilhelmina, born November 18, 1774; married, October 1, 1791, to the hereditary prince of Orange,

4. Frederic-Christian-Augustus, born May 1, 1780.

5. Another prince, born December 20, 1781.

6. Another prince, born July, 1783.

Queen dowager, Elizabeth-Christina, of Brunswick Wolfenbuttle, born November 8, 1715.

Brother and sister to the late king:

1. Frederic-Charles-Henry, born December 30, 1747

2. Frederica-Sophia-Wilhelmina, born in 1751; and married, in 1767, to the present prince of Orange.

In enumerating the kings of Prussia, we have thought it most proper to follow the method used in Prussia, and throughout Germany, where the Frederics are dietinguished from the Frederic-Williams: thus the uncle of the late king, and the late king, frequently here styled Frederic III. and Frederic IV. are always called, on the continent, Frederic II. and Frederic-William II. the father of the former not being styled Frederic II. but Frederic-William I.