ambiguously half-voted, in favor of the Ban, and done other
unfriendly things; and had now to pay dear for their bits of enmities.
Poor souls, they had but One Vote among them all Four;--and they only
half gave it, tremulously pulling it back again. I should guess it was
their terrors mainly, and over-readiness to reckon Friedrich a sinking
ship; and to leap from the deck of him,--with a spurn which he took for
insolent! The Anhalt-Dessauers particularly, who were once of his very
Army, half Prussians for generations back, he reckoned to have used him
scandalously ill.

"This Year the requisition on the Four Anhalts--which they submit to
patiently, as people who have leapt into the wrong ship--is, in precise
tale: of money, 330,000 thalers (about 50,000 pounds); recruits, 2,200;
horses, 1,800. In Saxony, besides the fixed Taxes, strict confiscation
of Meissen Potteries and every Royalty, there were exacted heavy
'Contributions,' more and more heavy, from the few opulent Towns,
chiefly from Leipzig; which were wrung out, latterly, under great
severities,--'chief merchants of Leipzig all clapt in prison, kept
on bread-and-water till they yielded,'--AS great severities as would
suffice, but NOT greater; which also was noted. Unfortunate chief
merchants of Leipzig,--with Bruhl and Polish Majesty little likely to
indemnify them! Unfortunate Country altogether. An intelligent Saxon,
who is vouched for as impartial, bears witness as follows: 'And this
I know, that the oppressions and plunderings of the Austrians and
Reichsfolk, in Saxony, turned all hearts away from them; and it was
publicly said, We had rather bear the steady burden of the Prussians
than such help as these our pretended Deliverers bring.' [Stenzel
(citing from KRIEGSKANZLEI, which I have not), v. 137 n.] Whereby, on
the whole, the poor Country got its back broken, and could never look up
in the world since. Resource FIRST was abundantly severe.

"Resource SECOND is strangest of all;--and has given rise to criticism
enough! It is no other than that of issuing base money; mixing your gold
and silver coin with copper,--this, one grieves to say, is the Second
and extreme resource. A rude method--would we had a better--of
suspending Cash-payments, and paying by bank-notes instead!' thinks
Friedrich, I suppose. From his Prussian Mints, from his Saxon [which are
his for the present], and from the little Anhalt-Bernburg Mint [of which
he expressly purchased the sad