QUISITION OF POLISH PRUSSIA. "During several Centuries, the
much-divided Germans had habitually been pressed upon, and straitened
and injured, by greedy conquering neighbors; Friedrich was the first
Conqueror who once more pushed forward the German Frontier towards the
East; reminding the Germans again, that it was their task to carry Law,
Culture, Liberty and Industry into the East of Europe. All Friedrich's
Lands, with the exception only of some Old-Saxon territory, had, by
force and colonization, been painfully gained from the Sclave. At no
time since the migrations of the Middle Ages, had this struggle for
possession of the wide Plains to the east of Oder ceased. When arms were
at rest, politicians carried on the struggle."
PERSECUTION OF GERMAN PROTESTANTS IN POLAND. "In the very 'Century of
Enlightenment' the persecution of the Germans became fanatical in those
Countries: one Protestant Church after the other got confiscated; pulled
down; if built of wood, set on fire: its Church once burnt, the Village
had lost the privilege of having one. Ministers and schoolmasters were
driven away, cruelly maltreated. 'VEXA LUTHERANURN, DABIT THALERUM
(Wring the Lutheran, you will find money in him),' became the current
Proverb of the Poles in regard to Germans. A Protestant Starost of
Gnesen, a Herr von UNRUH of the House of Birnbaum, one of the largest
proprietors of the country, was condemned to die, and first to have his
tongue pulled out and his hands cut off,--for the crime of having copied
into his Note-book some strong passages against the Jesuits, extracted
from German Books. Patriotic 'Confederates of Bar,' joined by all the
plunderous vagabonds around, went roaming and ravaging through the
country, falling upon small towns and German villages. The Polish
Nobleman, Roskowski [a celebrated "symbolical" Nobleman, this], put
on one red boot and one black, symbolizing FIRE and DEATH; and in this
guise rode about, murdering and burning, from places to place; finally,
at Jastrow, he cut off the hands, feet, and lastly the head of the
Protestant Pastor, Willich by name, and threw the limbs into a swamp.
This happened in 1768."
IN WHAT STATE FRIEDRICH FOUND THE POLISH PROVINCES. "Some few only of
the larger German Towns, which were secured by walls, and some protected
Districts inhabited exclusively by Germans,--as the NIEDERUNG near
Dantzig, the Villages under the mild rule of the Cistercians of
Oliva, and the opulent Ge
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