considerable period of time must pass over, before the effects of their improvements could be sensibly felt, or a considerable revenue could be derived from them.-The manufactures which the king had established, however productive they may be at some future period, were yet in their infancy, and could not, during his reign, have added very materially to the national wealth and resources. It is not surprising, therefore, that the taxes required to raise such a revenue were oppressive to his people.-To facilitate the levy of them, he simplified his financial system; and, to render them more productive, he employed French tax-gatherers, who were not so likely to be induced, by common interest or common feelings with those who paid them, to connive at evasions.-Whatever the effect of this regulation might be on the revenue; it was fatal to the popularity of Frederic's government. The country immediately swarmed with French officers of finance and French agents in every inferior department; the king's subjects were reminded of their sovereign's want of confidence at every toll-bar; and the evils of oppressive taxes were aggravated by the insolence of those who were employed to collect them.* After enumerating the means employed by Frederic for promoting the prosperity of his realms, a regard to impartiality required that the reverse of the medal should be shewn. By these statements the reader, who is not provided with better sources of information, will be enabled V. 66 66 to "It was an established maxim with Frederic the Second to burthen with as few imposts as possible the necessaries of life, and to lay the heaviest load upon its luxuries. The pro"duce therefore of the taxes upon land and houses was comparatively small, and the chief revenue arose from the duties of customs and excise. In an open country, accessible in every part of its frontier, these duties might be easily evaded; and a door was every where open to smuggling, which without the most rigid and watchful attention, could not be prevented. "This made it necessary to keep up an army of excise officers, known in that country by the "detested name of the regie, who overrun the country like a swarm of locusts, and harassed the "traveller intollerably. As it was supposed that the natives, who were connected with one another by many endearing ties, might be too indulgent in executing the revenue laws, the directors of the regie took into their pay a set of French vagabonds, who having no interest to keep up their national character of politeness, commonly used their petty authority with. "the utmost degree of insolence and severity. At entering or leaving any town above the rank "of a village, these pestiferous animals fell upon the traveller, and either detained him by a ❝tedious and vexatious search of his baggage, by which a great part of it might easily be spoiled, or obliged him to pay for a free passage by a bribe, the frequent repetition of which in a long "journey, might amount to a considerable sum."-Preface to Latrobe. 17. 64 66 to form some judgment of his merit, and may be prevented from being enamoured of the charms of despotism. THE ARMY. The following is the statement of the Prussian army as it was in the year 1783: We may form an idea of the exertions required to provide supplies of men during the seven years' war from this statement in his majesty's memoirs: that "the victory of Prague had cost him 20,000 men. We may add to this, that we had, at the close of the war, 40,000 Austrian prisoners in our hands, and that they had nearly as many of ours; among whom were three hundred officers." In another place, the king tells us, "that the war had cost him, in all, 180,000 men, beside "33,000 who had suffered from the ravages of the Russians." P For these ends it was necessary to pursue a regular system, and to devote a great part of his attention to these objects. He founded a military academy at Berlin, under his own inspection, with the best masters that could be procured to teach the pupils the different sciences necessary to accomplish them in the art of war, and also in all the living languages. || -There were only fifteen of these: and they were treated as well as educated About 1765. P Memoires de Fred. II. v. 4. 408. & 5. 158. educated in all respects as gentlemen. We are told by Latrobe, in his Anecdotes of Frederic, that it was a maxim with him to prefer young men of noble birth for officers, on account of the high sense of honour which he found in them. The school of noble cadets was another establishment of a similar nature. This admitted three hundred and fifty cadets.-It being a seminary to provide subaltern officers, the plan of education was altogether military: and the pupils were, in general, taken from among the sons of the poor nobility. That the business of training the recruits drafted to fill his defective regiments might be properly attended to, he placed a general officer of experience over each department. These were to practise and teach the whole art of war, agreeably with a book of instructions given them by his majesty, upon the subject of tactics, choice of positions, &c.-In their reviews, every evolution that could be necessary in a field of battle was put in practice, that neither the officers nor soldiers might be at a loss under whatever circumstances they might be required to act. Moreover, that he might be satisfied that every part of his orders was duly executed, the king had his annual reviews, in which the generals, officers, and troops were called upon to perform their respective parts under the eye of their sovereign.-And thus was a period of peace a preparation for war. ' Had any one observed Frederic's attention to his troops and the art military, he might well have imagined that Machiavel's sentiment had really been adopted by him, " that a prince was to have no other design nor thought nor study, but war and the arts and discipline of it." But it has been evinced in his measures relative to domestic government that his comprehensive mind and versatile genius enabled him to blend the statesman with the warrior, and to reconcile a close attention to the arts of peace with improvements in the art of war.-When we see so much of the essentials of greatness in this prince, we cannot but lament the want of worth, we cannot but regret that his character had not been rendered truly deserving the imitation of posterity by the accession of moral and religious principles to his eminent talents. DENMARK. 9 Observ. on the Mil. Estab. 43. ap. Towers. 2. 356. B Marchiavel's Prince. 218 T Mem. de Fred. II. 5. 158. 63. DENMARK. REMARKS ON THE GOVERNMENT. THE least attention to the situation of Denmark will shew us the great natural advantages which it possesses as a commercial state. And the comparatively small quantity of land which is capable of cultivation strongly recommends that the government should direct its chief attention to the advancement of manufactures and commerce as the only means of giving the people that wealth, and the state that weight in the scale of Europe, which the nature and extent of their dominions deny them. The kings of Denmark from the accession of Frederic the Fourth, in 1699,,have in fact made this the grand object of their policy. But the despotic power which was vested in the sovereign by the revolution of 1660 counteracted the measures which they adopted for that purpose. Several of their monarchs in the course of 'the last century appear to have had the good of their country at heart; but no one has had the grace or the wisdom to confer such a constitution on their people as is absolutely necessary as the groundwork of every other expedient to render them prosperous.-Molesworth, who was perfectly well acquainted with the state of the kingdom a century ago, informs us in his excellent account of Denmark, a work which is replete with just remarks and breathes a liberal spirit, that, since the revolution before mentioned, the kings" have ever since been absolute and arbitrary; not the least remnant of liberty remaining to the subject. All meetings of the estates in parliament entirely abolished; nay the very name of estates and liberty quite forgotten, as if there never had been any such thing; the very first and principal article of the present Danish law "law being, that the king has the privilege reserved to himself to explain "the law, nay, to alter and change it, as he shall find good."-The effect of this miserable system of arbitrary government, as described by the same writer, is very deserving our notice. "It is easy," says he, "for a consi dering person to guess the consequences of this; which are frequent "and arbitrary taxes, and commonly very excessive ones even in times of peace, little regard being had to the occasion of them; so that the value 66 66 of estates in most parts of the kingdom is fallen three fourths. And it is worse near the capital city, under the hand and eye of government, than "in remote provinces: poverty in the gentry, which necessarily causes "are the constant effects of arbitrary rule." -The cause of the revolution in Denmark, it is well known, was the disgust excited in the peasantry and others by the oppression of the nobles; upon which Molesworth makes the following observation. "The commons have since experienced that the "little finger of an absolute prince can be heavier than the loins of many "nobles; the only comfort they have left them being to see their former oppressors in almost as miserable a condition as themselves; whilst all "the citizens of Copenhagen have by it obtained the insignificant privilege of wearing swords."b 66 They were at The ill effects of this system is exemplified at a subsequent period of the Danish history. When Frederic the Fifth ascended the throne, in 1746, that benevolent prince and his queen, Anne daughter of George the Second of England, endeavoured to advance the prosperity of their realms by bringing foreign manufacturers into them, in order to improve those already established in them, and to introduce new ones. great expence in the purchase of machinery and materials, and in the subsistence of the manufacturers, till they could be maintained by their own labours. But their design proved in a great measure abortive. Those who were in his majesty's confidence availed themselves of his easy temper to frustrate his project. His prime minister and favourite, a needy German, made his majesty's bounty a means of enriching himself. This he did by transmitting a small part only of the sums granted to the manufacturers, and |