Excerpt from History of the Eighteenth Century and of the Nineteenth Till the Overthrow of the French Empire, Vol. 5: With Particular Reference to Mental Cultivation and Progress In which he exhausted Saxony and Franconia by contributions in the seven years' war, treated Mecklenburg as a conquered province, and even carried away the cannon from Nuremberg. We unwillingly mention his severe measures of internal admi nistration, and for this single reason; that it appears from the example of Frederick as well as from that of Napoleon, that even the greatest ruler, when he blindly follows his own will, considers the people only as a herd, and himself as a shepherd appointed by God, must necessarily have recourse to measures which are calculated to counteract his own objects. It can only be conceived how ruinous for the German nation such examples of severity were as those to which Frederick had recourse in the regulation of his finances, and to her innumerable petty tyrants, when we remember that he was a wise and benevolent king, who, in spite of all French appearances, was a true and genuine German, and almost the only one of his time, and when it is known that in Germany at that time right was everywhere subject to might. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.