The taxes in general are invariably fixed; but methods are found of drawing contributions from the proprietors of the very great estates, which do not affect the smaller landlords, or the rest of the subjects. The spirit of the government is not favourable to great and independent Lords. But both the great and the small landlords are prevented from squeezing or oppressing the peasants. As the soldiery are drawn from them, care is taken that they shall not be deprived of the chief source of health and vigour, and there is no peasantry in Europe better fed than the Prussian.
The army is chiefly composed of provincial regiments. The whole Prussian dominions being divided into circles or cantons; in each of these, one or more regiments, in proportion to the size and populousness of the division, have been originally raised, and from it the recruits continue to be taken; and each particular regiment is always quartered, in the time of peace, near the canton from which its recruits are drawn.
Whatever number of sons a peasant may have, they are all liable to be taken into the service except one, who is left to assist in the management of the farm. The rest wear badges from their childhood, to mark that they are destined to be soldiers, and ready to serve when the state requires them. If a peasant has only one son, he is not forced into the service, except he has the misfortune to be uncommonly stout and well-made. The King, however, endeavours to save his own peasantry, and draw as many recruits as he can from other countries:—For this purpose, there are Prussian officers employed at Hamburgh, Frankfort, and other free towns of Germany. I have seen them also at Neufchatel, and at places near French garrisons, attempting to inlist men, and pick up deserters. The recruits procured in this manner, remain continually with the regiments in which they are placed; but the native Prussians have every year eight or nine months of furlough, during which they return to their fathers’ or brothers’ houses, and work at the business of the farm, or gain their livelihood in any other way they please. Here is at once an immense saving in the expence of the army, and a great gain to the state from the labour of so many men.
From this it appears, that the Prussian army is neither more nor less than a standing militia, embodied for two or three months every year, and then dispersed to their usual labours as farmers.
I think this decides our old dispute on the subject of standing armies and militia. I expert therefore that you will, by the return of post, fairly and candidly acknowledge that I was in the right, and that all your arguments to prove, that a militia could not be depended on in the time of actual service, are built on false principles, and that my opinion was just and well-founded.
Before closing this letter, I will inform you of a very singular incident, the circumstances of which I relate, not so much with a design to illustrate the character or sentiments of the vulgar of this place in particular, as to furnish you with a curious fact in the history of human nature in general.
I went a few days since with Mr. F—— to see a man executed for the murder of a child.—His motives for this horrid deed were much more extraordinary than the action itself. He had accompanied some of his companions to the house of a fellow, who assumed the character of a fortune-teller, and having disobliged him, by expressing a contempt of his art, the fellow, out of revenge, prophesied, that this man should die on a scaffold.—This seemed to make little impression at the time, but afterwards recurred often to this unhappy creature’s memory, and became every day more troublesome to his imagination. At length the idea haunted his mind so incessantly, that he was rendered perfectly miserable, and could no longer endure life.
He would have put himself to death with his own hands, had he not been deterred by the notion, that God Almighty never forgave suicide; though, upon repentance, he is very ready to pardon every other crime. He resolved, therefore, to commit murder, that he might be deprived of life by the hands of justice; and mingling a sentiment of benevolence with the cruelty of his intention, he reflected, that if he murdered a grown person, he might possibly send a soul to hell. To avoid this, he determined to murder a child, who could not have committed any sin which deserved damnation, but dying in innocence, would go immediately to Heaven. In consequence of these ideas, he actually murdered an infant of his master’s, for whom he had always shewn an uncommon degree of fondness. Such was the strange account which this infatuated creature gave on his trial;—and thus the random prophecy proved, as in many other cases, the cause of its own completion.
He was executed about two miles from Berlin. As soon as he ascended the scaffold, he took off his coat and waistcoat;—his shirt was rolled down below his shoulders;—his night-cap was pulled over his eyes;—he was placed on his knees, and the executioner with a single stroke of a broad sword severed his head from his body.—It was the first time this executioner had performed:—there were two others of the same trade on the scaffold, who exhibited an instance of insensibility more shocking than the execution.—While the man’s head rolled on the scaffold, and the arteries of the trunk poured out their blood, those men, with the gayest air you can imagine, shook their brother by the hand, wished him joy, and clapped him on the back, congratulating him on the dexterous and effectual manner in which he had performed his office.