The Electoral Prince had had time, therefore, to prepare for the momentous hour which would call him from obscurity and inactivity—time to summon to him those whom he wished to have at his side in the critical hour. Up to the period of his father's death he had been an obedient, submissive son; yet he had well known that as soon as George William closed his eyes he would have to step into his place and be his successor. And he would be a worthy successor! That he had vowed, clasping his father's cold hand. He had told his mother so when, beside her husband's corpse, she had blessed him in his new dignity, and besought his protection and love for herself and her two daughters! Yes, he would be his father's worthy successor; he would force the world to respect him. Such were his thoughts as, on the day after his father's decease, he for the first time entered his cabinet, and seated himself before the great writing table at which the Elector had been wont to sit.

To the last day of his life George William had himself held the reins of government, and, in the timid jealousy of his heart, angrily refused all aid, all assistance. No one had dared to open and read the incoming rescripts nor to attend to neglected business.

On the table lay whole piles of unopened letters and rescripts, whole heaps of acts awaiting only the Electoral signature. Frederick William laid his hand on these acts which he had now to sign, and his large, deep-blue eyes were uplifted to Heaven.

"Lord!" he cried fervently—"Lord, make known to me the way in which I should go!"

These were the first words spoken by Frederick William on commencing his reign, and on seating himself before his father's cabinet table, which was now his own.

[Illustration: Robbery of peasants.]

He took up the first of the sealed documents and opened it. It was a representation from the cities of Berlin and Cologne, whose magistrates implored the Elector to furnish them some redress for their affliction and want, and besought him, even now, to make peace with the Swedes, and to command the Stadtholder in the Mark to institute a milder government in the unhappy province. In heartrending words, they pictured the distresses of both wretched cities, which had so far declined that they had now hardly seven thousand inhabitants, while ten years ago they had numbered more than twenty thousand. "But fire, pillage, and oppressions," so the writing wound up, "have reduced us to the most extreme poverty. Many of the inhabitants have made haste to end their wretched lives by means of water, cord, or knife, and the rest are upon the point of forsaking their homes, with their wives and children, preferring exile to remaining longer in these cities, the abodes of pestilence and war. The Stadtholder in the Mark, however, feels no pity for our sufferings, and just recently, despite our entreaties, has had all the suburbs burned down, because the Swedish general Stallhansch was on the march against us. We most urgently entreat your highness to have compassion upon us in our low estate, and to instruct the Stadtholder to slacken the severity of his rule and to spare us in our grief." [29]

Sighing, Frederick William laid aside the melancholy writing, and took up the next in order. It was a petition from the town of Prenzlow, not less sad, not less moving than the first. The magistracy of Prenzlow likewise prayed for compassion and redress of grievances, and painted in moving words the misery of town and country. "Since," they wrote, "on account of the unhappy war existing, the fields hereabout had been lying idle for some years, such unheard-of scarcity had ensued that the people had not only been driven to making use of unusual articles of diet, such as dogs, cats, nay, even dead asses lying in the streets, but impelled by the fierce pangs of hunger, in town as well as in the country, had fallen upon, cooked, and devoured one another!" [30]

"Much to be pitied land, and much to be pitied Prince as well," sighed Frederick William. "A heavy, an almost intolerable burden of government has fallen upon my shoulders. God help me to sustain it worthily!" [31]

He stretched out his hand for a third paper, when the door opened and old
Dietrich entered.