n;
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 pes