Bruges. The next was Loudon; "where they likewise had a stately and spacious college, called in latin guildhalda teutonicorum, and commonly "named the steel-yard."-The third was Novogrod in Russia.-And the fourth was Bergen in Norway.

This league, in the zenith of its grandeur, gave laws to all the commercial world; and are said to have exercised their power, in some instances, oppressively towards those who were not of their confederacy.

The commencement of their decline may be dated from the year 1361, when Gothard Ketler, grand master of their protecting knights, resigned the part of Livonia which remained to his order to the crown of Poland, and received the sovereignty of Courland in compensation for it.

Various causes afterwards contributed to their decline. Among these was the opposition which they experienced from some of the principal maritime powers of Europe; who thought that this confederacy interfered with the trade of their subjects. In the reign of Elizabeth, there were frequent contests between them and the government on account of the rivalship between them and the English merchants.-The flourishing state of the Dutch trade was another cause of their decline.-Moreover, as their own shipping decreased and that of the several maritime powers was strengthened, they lost much of that weight which they had derived from the naval aid afforded by them to different states in time of war. In the beginning of the seventeenth century their commerce and power were much diminished: and after that period we hear little of their weight in Europe.

PRUSSIA.

THE measures employed by Frederic the Second to promote the prosperity of his dominions by improvements in agriculture, by the advancement of manufactures and commerce, and the increase of population, are deserving our attention, not as simple facts only, but as evidences of the full extent of what may be done by a despot, who, during a long reign, devoted his time and his revenue, at least all that was not absolutely neces

sary for the purposes of government, to these objects. They will enable

the reader, when thus connectedly placed before him, to compare the effects of such exertions with the natural results of a free constitution; to observe the essential difference between the advances made by the subjects of an absolute monarch, who may be considered as a principle of motion to his people, and on whom, therefore, all their movements must depend, and those of a free people, who are uniformly actuated by a principle of motion residing in the constitution itself. *

EXTENT,

* The advances made by the subjects of a despot may be compared to those of a body of men who should be taught to march with gyves on their legs. They could be taught to move with these embarrassments, no doubt; but not so commodiously or so gracefully as they would do without them. And thus may the subjects of a despot make advances in agriculture and manufactures under his auspices; but they will not display that energy in them which is observable in the movements of a free people, with large capitals, the possession of which is secured to them by the laws. The former may have every security that a wise and beneficent monarch can give them: but he may die, and be succeeded by a monarch of a different character: whereas the laws of a free nation cannot be altered without their own consent.

EXTENT, POPULATION, AND AGRICULTURE.

The territories of his Prussian majesty are so dispersed, and so irregular in their figure, that it is very difficult to ascertain their extent. Zimmermann speaks with doubt concerning it. The greatest extent which he gives it is 64,000 square miles. The population he sets at 6,000,000; or 104 persons to a mile.

This estimate is taken from baron de Hertzberg's dissertation delivered to the academy of Berlin in 1785, eleven years after the first partition of Poland. After speaking of the increase of population under his three predecessors, who availed themselves of the persecution of the protestants in France and the Palatinate to people their dominions, he states, that the number of persons at the accession of Frederic in 1740 was 2,230,000.—We are, however, to observe that Frederic had added to his realms not only the portion of Poland ceded to him, but Silesia, a rich and fertile province which he conquered from the house of Austria, the population of which was estimated at 1,582,000 persons upon an extent of 10,240 square miles, or 154 to a mile.

The minister then proceeds to represent the means employed by his sovereign to augment his population; and he very justly states agriculture to be the proper basis of it, as it provides employment and subsistence to the inhabitants of a country, while it adds to their number.-He says, that the king had already reclaimed 120,000 acres of land from the state of a morass on the banks of the Netze, the Wartha, and other rivers: that he was at present employed in draining an equal extent in the Old Marche: that he had built 539 villages in these reclaimed districts, the inhabitants of which he estimated at 215,000 persons: that, not satisfied with setting his nobility and others an example of such profitable and patriotic undertakings, he had lent them large sums of money to enable them to make such improvements on their estates.

b

The same statesman informs us, that one of the expedients employed by his sovereign to prevent a famine in case of a scanty crop, was to establish immense magazines of corn, to supply his troops, should he take

the

a

Dissert. de Hertzberg. 207.

b

Idem. 191.

the field, or to sell to his subjects, should there be a scarcity.—This is necessary in such a country as Prussia. But in Great Britain the same purpose is answered by the stocks of corn which the affluence of the farmers enables them to keep by them, and that, too, without the damp which would be given to agriculture by the idea of an ability in the sovereign to sink the market whenever he should think proper.-In weighing the merit of beneficent actions we are apt to pay more regard to the immediate than the remote effects of them.

One of the means which the king employed for the improvement of his demesnes, he informs us in his memoirs, was the inclosing of common lands. There were in Brandenburg and other parts of his dominions vast districts which were almost absolutely unproductive. Large tracts of such land were sown with turnips, which were left to rot, as a manure: after which the land was converted to pasture by sowing it with trefoil and grass seeds. By these means he added considerably to the product of

Among the advantages for which the Prussian dominions are indebted to Frederic the Second, was the increase of their foreign trade. At the commencement of his reign it scarcely deserved notice. But, such were the advances which it made under his auspices, that in 1785, according to Herzberg, their fisheries and foreign trade employed twelve hundred vessels of all sizes, and 12,000 seamen.

To facilitate trade in all its branches, the king, in 1765, granted letters patent for the establishment of a bank and a chamber of insurance at Berlin. About the same time he granted a charter to a Turkey company, and renewed that of the Embden company; enabling it to trade to all parts of the East Indies.

These establishments having been adverted to in the year 1765, we may proceed to the manufactures erected by his majesty, the success of which was much greater than that of his efforts to extend the foreign commerce of his subjects, for this reason, probably, among others, because they

Oeuvres de Fred. II. v. 5.

they were less liable to be hurt by the restrictions and monopolies with which the latter was embarrassed."-The following is the general account given of them by Hertzberg to the academy of Berlin. After speaking of the effects of his agricultural improvements, "If the king," says he, "has augmented the population of his dominions by bringing waste lands "into a state of cultivation, he has increased it still more by the great "number of manufactures which he has established at Berlin, Potsdam, " and almost every city and town in his states. It would require a volume. "to give a particular account of them all, and of the sums which he has applied to these purposes. I shall, therefore, be content to say, that we "have almost every possible manufacture, and that we not only supply the Prussian dominions, but very distant countries, Spain and Italy, for example, with linen and woollen cloth; and even China with our "Silesia linen, which are carried through Russia to that distant country. "We export annually linen cloth to the amount of 6,000,000 crowns, and "woollen cloth to the amount of 4,000,000. These articles, when added "to the iron and copper produced by the march of Brandenburg, which "amount to one million of crowns, to the corn, flax, and timber ex

66

ported from Brandenburg, Pomerania, and Prussia, and to the important "trade of Poland, which is carried on through our ports of Memel, "Königsberg, Elbing, Dantzic, and Stetin, ensure a very considerable "balance in our favour. These manufactures must necessarily draw a great number of foreigners into the Prussian states, and add much to "their population. There are in all his majesty's dominions 123,000 "manufactories in silk, linen and woollen cloth, cotton, copper, and "other branches; the product of whose goods amounts to 16,000,000 crowns, of which about half is exported. Allowing only four persons "for each manufacturer's family, our manufactures find subsistence for "500,000 persons, or a twelfth part of the population."

C

In another dissertation, the minister adverts particularly to the product of the mines in his sovereign's dominions. "These," he says, " which

"

were scarcely in being in 1768, enabled them to export to the amount "of 234,000 crowns in iron, copper, lead, cobalt, vitriol, coal, and