It is curious that the first open resistance to this arose among the
officials themselves, and that the opposition was carried on, for the
first time, in Prussia, through the modern weapon of the press. The
most violent complainant was the chief custom-house officer, Von Held;
he accused Count Hoym, Chancellor Goldbeck, General Ruechel, and many
others, of fraud, and compared the present state of Prussia with the
just time of Frederic II. The case made an immense sensation.
Investigations were commenced against him and his friends; they were
prosecuted as members of a secret society, and as demagogues. Held's
writings were confiscated; and he himself imprisoned and condemned, but
at last set at liberty. In his imprisonment the irritated and
embittered man attacked the King himself:[37] he accused him of too
great economy--which we consider the first virtue of a King of Prussia;
of hardness--which was unfounded; and of playing at soldiering--this,
unfortunately, with good grounds. He complained: "When the Prince will
no longer hear truth, when he throws upright men and true patriots into
prison, and appoints those who have been accused of fraud to be
directors of the commission appointed to try them, then must the
honest, calm, but not the less warm, friends of their Fatherland sigh."
Meanwhile he did not satisfy himself with sighing, but became
satirical.

From this dispute, which only turns on an individuals circumstances, we
learn how bold and reckless was the language of political critics in
old Prussia; and how low and helpless the position of its princes
against such attacks. As the King took the whole government upon his
own shoulders, he bore also the whole responsibility, as he alone
guided the machine of the State; so every attack on the particular acts
of the administration, and upon the officials of the State, was a
personal attack upon him. Wherever there was an error the King bore the
blame, either because he had neglected something or because he had not
punished the guilty. Every peasant woman who had her eggs crushed by
the excise officers at the city gates felt the harshness of the King;
and if a new tax irritated the city people, the boys in the streets
cried out and jeered behind the King's horse, and it was even possible
that a handful of mud might be thrown at his noble head. Again broke
forth a quiet war betwixt the King of Prussia and the foreign press.
Even Frederic William I. had, in his "_Tabaka