the King might ask. "Helvetius, against the world!" D'Alembert
could justly answer. "Invite Helvetius to leave his London exile,
and accept an asylum here, where he may be of vital use to me!"
concludes Friedrich.

Helvetius came in March, 1765; stayed till June, 1766: [Rodenbeck,
ii. 254; Preuss, iii. 11.]--within which time a French Excise
system, which he had been devising and putting together, had just
got in gear, and been in action for a month, to Helvetius's
satisfaction. Who thereupon went his way, and never returned;--
taking with him, as man and tax-gatherer, the King's lasting
gratitude; but by no means that of the Prussian Nation, in his tax-
gathering capacity! All Prussia, or all of it that fell under this
Helvetius Excise system, united to condemn it, in all manner of
dialects, louder and louder: here, for instance, is the utterance
of Herr Hamann, himself a kind of Custom-house Clerk (at
Konigsberg, in East Preussen), and on modest terms a Literary man
of real merit and originality, who may be supposed to understand
this subject: "And so," says Hamann, "the State has declared its
own subjects incapable of managing its Finance system; and in this
way has intrusted its heart, that is the purse of its subjects, to
a company of Foreign Scoundrels, ignorant of everything relating to
it!" ["Hamann to Jacobi" (see Preuss, iii. 1-35), "Konigsberg, 18th
January, 1786."]

This lasted all Friedrich's lifetime; and gave rise to not a little
buzzing, especially in its primary or incipient stages. It seems to
have been one of the unsuccessfulest Finance adventures Friedrich
ever engaged in. It cost his subjects infinite small trouble;
awakened very great complaining; and, for the first time, real