RIESBECK’s TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY.

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Silefia is the province of mod confequence after the kingdom of Pruffia. It is onlyhalf as big as this, but has nearly the fame number of inhabitants, and yields very nearas much. The Silefian linens are famous all over the world ; and the King has juftopened a trade with Spain for them, which was formerly in the hands of the Ham-burghers. They have likewife a large trade for handkerchiefs. The Silefian foreftsalfo afford a great deal of wood for fhip-building. The Ville de Paris , which was takenthe 12th of April of this year, was intirely built of Silefian wood.

Having made feveral excurfions into different parts of the Pruffian dominions, I haveobferved that there is no where fo much poverty as in the two towns of Berlin and Potf-dam. This probably it is, which has contributed to bring the country into difcreditwith foreigners. The high price of the neceflaries of life in thefe two cities, the greatnumber of idle people, the fmall pay of many civil and -military fervants, the pinchingway in which many of the fmaller nobility, who muft have their fervants (and oftentheir debts) live, and the great luxury of drefs, may be the caufes of this. Upon thewhole, the country appears to me, though not rich, yet in a ftate fufficiently profperous.The equal diflribution of the coin amongft many people, makes the fum not fo ftrikingas it is in other places, in which a nobleman covers the poverty of a hundred of his poorcountrymen by his diffipation. This is not the cafe here; there are no perfons in thePruffian dominions, fome of the large feudal nobles in Silefia only excepted, who pof-fefs above thirty thoufand guilders income in landed eftates. Indeed you cannot findmore than three houfes which have twenty thoufand florins; but ftill the inhabitantsare upon the whole as remote from extreme poverty as from exceflive riches, and youmeet with as few beggars here as in any other country in Europe . There is no groundfor the affertion of fome travellers, that manufactures do not thrive in this country, forI did not fee one city, though ever fo finall, in which there were not fome flourilhingmanufactures. It has indeed been objected to the King, that his fyftem of finance hasruined the fair of Franckfort on the Oder; but the trade carried on there was a kind ofJewilh bufinefs, which might perhaps be profitable to the merchants of the place, butwas rather hurtful than uleful to the reft of the country. The fame objection, uponthe fame narrow grounds, is made to the Emperor , with regard to - the fair of Biffen, inthe Tyrol.

With regard to the fciences, and literature of all kinds, Berlin is, without a doubt,one of the firft cities in the world. It is obliged to the King for this pre-eminence.His father was as orthodox and ftiff as the late Emprefs of Germany ; and the Mufes,who without liberty do not live at their eafe, fled from him of courfe. This filly princebanifhed the celebrated Wolfe, who certainly was no infidel; but the King had noliberal ideas; he confidered every ftudy, except thofe of divinity and finance, as non-fenfe and delufions ef the devil, and his treafurer was a greater man in his eyes, thanWolfe, Leibnitz , or Newton. The prefent King, who is a true friend of the arts andfciences, has eftablilhed a freedom of thinking in his country, which is not to be metwith any where out of England. Neither orthodox nor politics reftrain philofophy inthis country; but whilft every profeffor at Vienna is teaching that land and people arethe private property of the monarch, they publifli here, without the leaft fear of danger,that' the King is nothing more than a Jiadt-holder , or the firft amongft his fellows. Asto religion, the-Jews openly declare that the Meffiah is not yet come ; the Catholics ,that they eat him every clay, and that the Pope is the head of all princes ; the Protef-tants, that the Pope is the wild-beait in the Apocalypfe, and the Whore of Babylon ;the Greeks, that there is no Trinity ; the Turks, that Mahomet was a greater prophetthan either Jefus or Mofes ; and the whole race of Infidels, that there never has been

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