It does not appear that Frederick regarded any single part of this programme as weightier than the rest. In spite of all his economies and accumulations he was no miser, cherishing money for its own sake. He hoarded treasure so that his army might be sure of pay in time of war and his subjects sure of help in case of devastating calamity. On the same principle he maintained and added to the huge Government granaries, which bought in years of plenty and sold, at high but not exorbitant prices, in years of dearth. Frederick did not refuse to make some profit from the institution, but his main object was to confer upon the State the inestimable boon of freedom from famine. The establishment of public warehouses for wool, silk, and cotton was similarly designed to guard against glut and shortage. It was merely a new adaptation of the policy of the Staple, which England had discarded at the end of the Middle Ages. But it secured a market to the Prussian producer and an unfailing source of supply to the Prussian manufacturer and placed the whole traffic in raw materials under the supervision and control of the State.
Frederick is as little open to the charge of megalomania as to that of avarice. He was singularly free from foibles. He frankly admits that the adventure of 1740 was partly inspired by the desire to make himself a name. But before the Peace of Dresden his lust of mere conquest seems to have been extinguished. Thenceforward his armaments and acquisitions were strictly regulated by reasons of State, and in his conception of statecraft domestic policy stood on a par with foreign. He likened the Finances, Foreign Policy, and the Army to three steeds harnessed abreast to the car of State, and himself to the charioteer who directed them and urged them on.
Frederick’s most striking innovations in the department of home affairs were made during his later years. It will therefore be necessary in a subsequent chapter to give further illustrations of the working of his principles and to calculate the results which he accomplished. All through his reign, however, the process of internal improvement and interference was carried on in conformity with these ideas. Agriculture, as the basis of all, had the first claim upon the King’s attention, and he made unceasing efforts to render every acre of the land productive and to provide it with a cultivator. If in the course of his innumerable journeys he observed a waste place that seemed capable of improvement he would commend it to the Provincial Chamber as a site for a certain number of new villages of a given size. If the suggestion proved feasible it was carried out at the expense of the State, which reaped its profit in course of time from the new taxpayers, producers, and recruits, who were thus included in the commonwealth.
The most signal of these victories in time of peace was the reclaiming of huge swamps lying along the Oder below Frankfurt, In July, 1747, the King appointed commissioners, including the famous mathematician Euler, and placed troops at their disposal. The task demanded not only dams and drainage works, but also in parts excavation of a new bed for the great river. It was urged forward by Frederick with all speed. He often inspected the works and exacted a report of their progress week by week. Boats were commandeered by force from the reluctant villagers. Some of those whose fishing rights were done away conjured the King, “falling at his feet,” so ran their petition, “most submissively in deepest woe and dejection as a most terrified band fearing the fatal stroke,” that he would lay to heart the ruin which his measures would inevitably bring upon them. The King drily answered that they might let him know when they had suffered any actual harm and compensated them with reclaimed land.
Early in 1753 Frederick was able to make arrangements to people the new province which he had thus conquered from the domain of Chaos. The landowners, who had shared in the general opposition to the enterprise, were compelled to resign to the State their claim to a large percentage of the reclaimed land and to provide a prescribed number of peasants for the remainder. Born Prussians were as a rule declared ineligible, for here was an opportunity of tempting valuable fresh blood into the State. Freedom from military service to the third generation, exemption from taxes for some years, and at first actual assistance were the terms offered to many immigrants. The result was that Frederick secured an influx of new subjects from far and wide. The Rhineland, Würtemburg, Mecklenburg, Swedish Pomerania, Saxony, Bohemia, Poland, and the mountains of Austria—all sent contingents. He laid out more than 500,000 thalers in all and secured a rental of 20,000. More than 250 villages were created. Thanks in great part to this policy of internal colonisation, the numbers of the people steadily rose. At his accession Frederick had ruled over rather more than 2,200,000 people. Thirteen years later the number in the old provinces had become more than one-sixth greater, while East Frisia added 90,000 souls and Silesia some 1,200,000 more. In 1756 the total exceeded 4,000,000.
The decade which followed the Peace of Dresden, though uneventful in comparison with the periods of seven years which it divides, was thus by no means barren. For Frederick it was indeed a period of manifold activity. It was signalised by the establishment of Sans Souci and by the memorable visit of Voltaire. For three years (1750–1753) the King enjoyed the constant exchange of homage with the cynosure of the world of letters, who described his new home, Potsdam, as “Sparta and Athens joined in one, nothing but reviewing and poetry day by day.” Each of the two friends revered the genius and despised the character of the other. The sequel was a desperate quarrel, and the flight and arrest of Voltaire. When he was suffered to pass beyond the reach of Frederick’s sceptre he strove to avenge himself with the pen which had lavished exquisite flattery upon the King for many years and which was often to resume the old style in the future.
Literary effort and witty company were, however, only the King’s solace in a life of labour. Day by day he scanned the political horizon, resolved to take no action which would not serve the State, and to shrink from nothing if Prussian interests were threatened. Day by day, too, he urged forward the labours of peace and the preparations for war. While Silesia was being gradually assimilated and the old Prussia developed, Frederick was making use of his new possession, East Frisia, in a tardy and only moderately successful endeavour to further commerce overseas. Commerce in Frederick’s opinion ranked far below agriculture and manufactures in value to a state with ideals such as those which he had chosen for Prussia. He therefore devoted far more of his energy to the task of forwarding Prussian industry, which he argued gave employment to a thousand times as many men, brought more gold and silver into the country, and remained more amenable to State control. At the same time he was steadily accumulating treasure and perfecting his military force. In the fateful year 1756 he had upwards of 14,000,000 thalers stored up for war. The standing army then numbered more than 150,000 men.
