F. G. H.
Extracts from Letters of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, during his Ministry at Berlin.
TO THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.
Berlin, July 11-22nd, 1750.
.... Count Podewils’s behaviour to me has been hitherto very cold, and when I meet him at third places, he contents himself with making me a bow, without speaking to me.
I have made one visit to Monsieur Finkenstein, who is the second Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. He has very much the air of a French petit-maître manqué, and is extremely affected in everything he says and does: but from what I have been able hitherto to learn, his credit with the King of Prussia increases daily; and that of Count Podewils is not thought to be so good as it formerly was. The former has lately gained a point over the latter: Count Podewils’s kinsman, who is at Vienna, was named to be a Minister of State before Count Finkenstein; but Count Finkenstein has got into his employment, and when Count Podewils returns from Vienna, Count Finkenstein will take place of him. Not that his Prussian Majesty gives entire confidence either to Podewils or Finkenstein; he reserves that for two persons that constantly reside with him at Potsdam, and whose names are Heichel and Fredersdorff; the first of whom is his Prussian Majesty’s Private Secretary, and who is always kept under the same roof with his Prussian Majesty, and is so well watched, that a person may be at this Court seven years without once seeing him. The other, who is the great favourite, was once a common soldier, and the King took a fancy to him, while he was yet Prince Royal of Prussia, as he was standing sentinel at the door of his apartment. This person has two very odd titles joined together, for he is styled valet de chambre, and grand tresorier du Roi. He keeps out of all people’s sight as much as Heichel.
But there is lately arose another young man, who has undoubtedly a large share in the King of Prussia’s favours: his name is Sedoo: he was not long ago his page, then came to be a lieutenant, and is very lately made a major, and premier ecuyer de l’ecurie de Potsdam, and will undoubtedly soon rise much higher.
Another Extract.
.... On Thursday, by appointment, I went to Court at eleven o’clock; the King of Prussia arrived about twelve, and Count Podewils immediately introduced me into his closet, where I delivered his Majesty’s letters into the King of Prussia’s hands, and made the usual compliments to him in the best manner I was able. To which his Prussian Majesty replied, to the best of my remembrance, as follows: “I have the truest esteem for the King of Great Britain’s person, and I set the highest value upon his friendship. I have at different times received essential proofs of it; and I desire you would acquaint the King, your master, that I will never forget them.” His Prussian Majesty afterwards said something with respect to myself, and then asked me several questions about indifferent things and persons. He seemed to express a great deal of esteem for my Lord Chesterfield, and a great deal of kindness for Mr. Villiers, but did not once mention Lord Hyndford, or Mr. Legge. I was in the closet with his Majesty exactly five minutes and a half.
After my audience was over, the King of Prussia came out into that room where the Foreign Ministers wait for his Prussian Majesty. He just said one word to Count de la Puebla (the Austrian Minister) as he came in, and afterwards addressed his discourse to the French, Swedish, and Danish Ministers; but did not say one word either to the Russian Minister or myself.
Extract from another Letter, in Cipher.
Berlin July, 28, 1750.
.... About four days ago, Mr. Voltaire, the French poet, arrived at Potsdam from Paris. The King of Prussia had wrote to him about three months ago to desire him to come to Berlin. Mr. Voltaire answered his Prussian Majesty, that he should always be glad of an opportunity of throwing himself at his Majesty’s feet, but at that time he was not in circumstances to take so long a journey; upon which the King of Prussia sent him back word, that he would bear his expenses; but Mr. Voltaire, not caring to trust the King of Prussia, would not leave Paris till his Prussian Majesty had sent him a bill of exchange upon a banker in that town for 4000 rix-dollars, and he did not begin the journey till he had actually received the money. All that I now write your grace was told me by the Princess Amalie.—(Author.)
[The following extracts from the private correspondence of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams will further illustrate the remark in the text, and show the unfavourable view taken by him of the Prussian Court and Frederick the Great.]
Extract of a Letter from Charles Hanbury Williams, from Berlin, 1750.
.... ’Tis incredible what care this Pater Patriæ takes of his people. He is so good as to meddle in their family affairs, in their marriages, in the education of their children, and in the disposition of their estates. He hates that anybody should marry, especially an officer, let him be of what degree soever, and from the moment they take a wife, they are sure of never being preferred. All children are registered as soon as born, and the parents are obliged to produce either certificates of their deaths, or the male children themselves, at the age of fourteen, in order to be enrolled, and to take the oath of a soldier to the King; and if this is not done, or the children have escaped, the parents are answerable for the escape, and are sent to prison.
No man can sell land throughout all the Prussian dominions without a special licence from the King: and as he does no more give licences, nobody can now dispose of or alienate his possessions. If they could, and were to find fools to purchase them, I believe he would not have ten of his present subjects left in a year’s time. They have really no liberty left but that of thinking. There is a general constraint that runs through all sorts of people, and diffidence is painted in every face. All their ambition and desire is to be permitted to go to their Country Seats, where they need not be obliged to converse with any but their own family. But this leave is not easily obtained, because the father of his country insists upon their living at Berlin, and making his Capital flourish. He is never here but from the beginning of December to the end of January, and during that time, Prussians, Silesians, and all his most distant subjects, are obliged to come and make a figure here, and spend all they have been saving for the other ten months. He hates that any subject of his should be rich or easy; and if he lives a few years longer, he will have accomplished his generous design. There are actually but four persons in this great town that live upon their own means, and they are people that can’t last long in their present condition.
He (always meaning Pater Patriæ) gives very small salaries to all employments, and this is the cause that he can get no gentleman to serve him in a Foreign Legation. His Ministers at every Court are the scum of the earth, and have nothing but the insolence of their master to support them; and, indeed, the Prussian method of treating with every Court is such, as I wonder how Sovereign Princes can bear. Of this, if I had time, I could give you many provoking instances. His Prussian Majesty’s Ministers at Berlin—I mean those for Foreign Affairs—make the oddest figure of any in Europe. They seldom or never see any dispatches that are sent to the Prussian Ministers at Foreign Courts; and all letters that come to Berlin from Foreign Courts go directly to the King; so that Mr. Podewils and Count Finkenstein know no more of what passes in Europe than what they are informed of by the Gazettes. When any of us go to them on any business, the surprise they are in easily betrays their ignorance, and the only answer you ever get is, that they will lay what you say before their master, and give you an answer as soon as he shall have signified his pleasure to them. When you return to their houses for this answer, they tell you the exact words which the king has directed, and never one word more; nor are you permitted to argue any point. In short, they act the part of Ministers without being really so, as much as ever Cibber did that of Wolsey upon the stage, only not half so well.
The first of them is reputed to be an honest man, but he is nothing less. He loses that appearance of credit he once had, daily; for verily I believe he never had real weight enough with his master to have made an Ensign in his Army, or a Postillion in one of his Posthouses. His face is the picture of Dullness when she smiles, and his figure is a mixture of a clown and a petit-maître. He is a little genteeler than Mons. Adrié, who you may remember to have seen make so great a figure in England.
The other, Count Finkenstein, whom everybody calls Count Fink, is very like the late Lord Hervey, and yet his face is the ugliest I ever saw. But when he speaks, his affectation, the motion of his eyes and shoulders, all his different gestures and grimaces, bring Lord Hervey very strongly into my mind; and, like that Lord, he is the Queen’s favourite (I mean the Queen Mother’s); and her Majesty, whether seriously or otherwise I can’t tell, calls him “Mon beau Comte Fink.” He has parts, and is what, at Berlin, is called sçavant, which is to say, that he has read all the modern French story books, from Les Egaremens down to the history of Prince Cocquetron.
The person who has certainly the greatest share of the King of Prussia’s confidence is one Heichel. He is his Private Secretary, and writes all that the King himself dictates. But this man I never saw, and people that have lived here seven years have never seen him. He is kept like a State Prisoner, is in constant waiting, and never has half an hour to himself in the whole year.
[Then follows the account of Fredersdorff, to the same purpose, and nearly in the same words as in the extracts printed above.]
He (Fredersdorff) is his Secretary for all small affairs for his Prussian Majesty.—
Il fait tout par ses mains, et voit tout par ses yeux.
If a Courier is to be dispatched to Versailles, or a Minister to Vienna, his Prussian Majesty draws, himself, the instructions for the one, and writes the letters for the other. This, you’ll say, is great; but if a Dancer at the Opera has disputes with a Singer, or if one of those performers want a new pair of stockings, a plume for his helmet, or a finer petticoat, ’tis the same King of Prussia that sits in judgment on the cause, and that with his own hand answers the Dancer’s or the Singer’s letter. His Prussian Majesty laid out 20,000l. to build a fine theatre, and his music and Singers cost him near the same sum every year; yet this same King, when an opera is performed, wont allow ten pounds per night to light up the theatre with wax candles; and the smoke that rises from the bad oil, and the horrid stink that flows from the tallow, make many of the audience sick, and actually spoil the whole entertainment. What I have thought about this Prince is very true; and I believe, after reading what I say about him, you will think so too. He is great in great things, and little in little ones.
In the summer 1749, three Prussian Officers came, without previously asking leave, to see a Review of some Austrian troops in Moravia; upon which the Commanding Officer of those troops, suspecting they were not come so much out of curiosity to see the Review, as to debauch some of the soldiers into the King of Prussia’s service, sent them orders to retire. This being reported to his Prussian Majesty, he was much offended, and resolved to take some method to show his resentment, which he did as follows:—Last summer, an Austrian Captain, being in the Duchy of Mecklenburgh, met there with an old acquaintance, one Chapeau, who is in great favour with the King of Prussia. At that time, there was to be a great Review at Berlin, and as Berlin was in the Austrian’s road in his return to Vienna, Chapeau invited him to see the Review; but the Austrian replied, that he would willingly come, but was afraid of receiving some affront, in return for what had been done to the Prussian Officers the year before in Moravia; to which Chapeau replied, that if he would come to Berlin, he would undertake to get the King of Prussia’s special leave for him to be present at the Review. Encouraged by this, the Austrian came, and the night before the Review, Chapeau brought him word that the leave was granted, and he might come with all safety. He did accordingly come; but as soon as the King of Prussia had notice of his being there, he sent an Aide-de-camp to him to tell him to retire that moment, which he was forced to do, not without much indignation against Chapeau, who had drawn him into the scrape. The next morning he went to Chapeau, with an intention to demand satisfaction for the affront which, through him, he had received. Chapeau said he would do as he pleased, but first desired him to give him leave to speak for himself; which he did. Chapeau then told him, that immediately upon hearing that he had been sent out of the field in that strange manner, he had rode up to the King, and asked his Majesty whether he had not given him orders to tell the Austrian Officer that he might come to the Review with all security? and that the King had replied, it was very true, he had given such orders; because, if he had not, the Austrian would hardly have ventured to come to the Review; and if he had not come there, he (the King) should not have had an opportunity of revenging the affront that had been offered to some Officers of his own the year before in Moravia.
I must tell you a story of the King of Prussia’s regard for the law of nations. There was, some time ago, a Minister here from the Duke of Brunswick, whose name was Hoffman. He was a person of very good sense, and what we call well-intentioned, (which means being attached to the interests of the maritime powers and the House of Austria.) He was, besides, very active and dexterous in getting intelligence, which he constantly communicated to the Ministers of England and Austria. This the King of Prussia being well informed of, wrote a letter with his own hand to the Duke of Brunswick, to insist (and in case of refusal to threaten) that he should absolutely disavow Hoffman for his Minister. The Duke, who is the worthiest Prince upon earth, was so frightened with this letter, that he complied, though much against his will, with this haughty and cruel request. The moment the King of Prussia received this answer, he sent a party of Guards to Hoffman’s house, seized him, sent him prisoner to Madgeburgh, where he has now been for above four years chained to a wheel-barrow, and working at the fortifications of that town! He was very near doing the same by a Minister of the Margravine of Anspach’s, but that person got timely notice, and escaped out of Berlin in the morning; and when the King of Prussia’s Guards came to seize him at night, the bird had luckily flown.
There is at present here a Minister of the Duke of Brunswick, the successor of Hoffman, to whom, in his first audience, the King said, that he advised him to act very differently from his predecessor, and particularly to take care not to frequent those Foreign Ministers that he must know were disagreeable to him; for if he did, he might depend upon it he should deal with him in the same manner as he had done with Hoffman.
I think Hamlet says in the play, “Denmark is a prison;” the whole Prussian territory is so in the literal sense of the word. No man can, or does pretend to go out of it without the knowledge of the King and his Ministers. Very hard is the fate of those who have estates in other dominions besides those of his Prussian Majesty; he will neither permit them to sell their estates in his countries, nor live upon those they have out of them. The distresses which are come on the Silesians (who had estates also in Bohemia) are prodigious. Many people have given them up, or sold them for a trifle, to get out of this land of Egypt—this house of bondage. Six hundred dollars make just one hundred guineas, and I know the King of Prussia thinks that just as much as any of his subjects ought to have, exclusive of what he may give them. In a very few years, I am convinced that no subject of his that has not estates elsewhere will have more left him. But from what he has already done, he begins to find that it is no longer possible to collect the heavy taxes which he imposes on his subjects. I know that the revenues of all his countries, except Silesia, have diminished every year, for these last five years.
A Prussian will tell you, with a very grave face, that their present King is the most merciful Prince that ever reigned, and that he hates shedding blood. This is not true; there are often as cruel and tormenting executions in this country as ever were known under any Sicilian tyrant. ’Tis true, they are not done at Berlin, nor in the face of the world, but at Potsdam, in private. Since my arrival in this cursed country, an old woman was quartered alive at Potsdam, for having assisted two soldiers to desert. But his Prussian Majesty generally punishes offenders with close imprisonment and very hard labour, keeping them naked in the coldest weather, and giving them nothing, for years together, but bread and water. Such mercy is cruelty. Many persons destroy themselves here out of mere despair; but all imaginable care is taken to conceal such suicides. I have heard of one of our Governors in the Indies, who was reproached by his friends, on his return to England, that he put a great number of persons to death; to which that humane Governor replied, “It is not true; I only used them so ill, that they hanged themselves.” * * *