"No, I take you for what you are, the messenger and emissary of my father, the Elector of Brandenburg."
"Your highness would thereby say that this messenger and emissary has consequently received his orders from Count Schwarzenberg, because the count is really lord of the Mark and the Elector's right hand. I read in your countenance that you do so, and that therefore you mistrust me. But I swear to you, Prince, you may believe in my honest, upright intentions—you may believe that what I say is in solemn earnest."
"I believe it, certainly I believe it," said the Prince. "You have undertaken the commissions of the Elector and his Minister Schwarzenberg; naturally you will be in earnest in executing them."
"Prince, I have undertaken the commissions, the behests of the Elector; but from himself and not from his minister did I obtain them. I have sworn to execute them, and do you know why?"
"Why? Simply because you are your master's obedient servant."
"No, Prince, because I am a faithful servant of my country, and because I have a heart to feel for her affliction and distress. The Elector has commanded me to travel to The Hague, and to convey his strict injunction to the Electoral Prince that he shall immediately set out and return home to Berlin. The Elector bids me say to your highness that he has committed to me five thousand dollars to defray the expenses of your journey back and for the liquidation of the most pressing debts. Should this sum not suffice, then am I empowered, in the name of his Electoral Highness, to give security for the payment of the other debts, and your highness is so to arrange your journey that your suite may follow in the least expensive way possible. I was to urge on you seriously and decidedly the propriety of departure, and your father bids me state to you that he has his own peculiarly strong reasons for esteeming a further sojourn in Holland neither safe, profitable, nor reputable. I was to assure your highness that you were not to be recalled, in order to be forced into a repulsive marriage. At the same time, the Elector desires that you return unembarrassed by engagements, and that you by no means entangle yourself by marriage without his knowledge and consent, for to such a union would the Elector not agree, nor ratify it."[18]
"Is that all you have to say to me?" asked the Prince, when Marwitz was silent.
"Prince, it is all I have to say to you in the Elector's name, and I have herewith executed the commission intrusted to me. But I have something still to add. I have still to execute the commissions given me by your future land, by your future subjects. I have to transmit to you the tears of the wretched, the sighs of the impoverished, the cries of the despairing, the agonized shriek of all the provinces, all the towns, all the villages, houses, and huts in the Mark. Prince, from the depth of their affliction all hearts uplift themselves to you; in the midst of their despair, the oppressed, the downtrodden, the tormented all venture to hope in you, and in spirit they kneel before you and with outstretched hands entreat you, as I do now, 'Pity our distress, future Elector of Brandenburg, have compassion upon the lands and provinces which shall one day constitute your state. Turn not a deaf ear to the prayers, the hopes of your future subjects.'"
Marwitz had sunk upon the floor, and stretched his clasped hands out to the Prince, who looked thoughtfully into his excited face.
"And what would my future subjects have, what do they desire of me?"