"FIRST, there is that of wringing money from your Enemies, from
those that have deserved ill of you,--such of them as you can come
at. Enemies, open or secret, even Ill-wishers, we are not
particular, provided only they lie within arm's-length. Under this
head fall principally three Countries (and their three poor
Populations, in lieu of their Governments): Saxony, Mecklenburg (or
the main part of it, Mecklenburg-SCHWERIN), and Anhalt; from these
three there is a continual forced supply of money and furnishings.
Their demerits to Friedrich differ much in intensity; nor is his
wringing of them--which in the cases of Mecklenburg and Saxony
increases year by year to the nearly intolerable pitch--quite in
the simple ratio of their demerits; but in a compound ratio of that
and of his indignation and of his wants.

"Saxony, as Prime Author of this War, was from the first laid hold
of, collared tightly: 'Pay the shot, then, what you can' (in the
end it was almost what you cannot)! As to Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the
grudge against Prussia was of very old standing, some generations
now; and the present Duke, not a very wise Sovereign more than his
Ancestors, had always been ill with Friedrich; willing to spite and
hurt him when possible: in Reichs Diet he, of all German Princes,
was the first that voted for Friedrich's being put to Ban of the
Reich,--he; and his poor People know since whether that was a wise
step! The little Anhalt Princes, too, all the Anhalts, Dessau,
Bernburg, Cothen, Zerbst [perhaps the latter partially excepted,
for a certain Russian Lady's sake], had voted, or at least had
ambiguously half-voted, in favor of the Ban, and done other
unfriendly things; and had now to pay dear for their bits of
enmities. Poor souls, they had but One Vote among them all Four;--
and they only half gave it, tremulously pulling it back again.