ONE:To whose continual sluggishness and strange want of concertto whose incoherency of movements, languor of execution, and other enormous faults, we have owed, with some excuse for our own faults, our escape from destruction hitherto.486 Probably the reader will infer from the above letter that the king felt that the hour had come for him to die, and that he intended to resort to that most consummate act of folly and cowardicesuicide. He had always avowed this to be his intention in the last resort. He had urged his sister Wilhelmina to imitate his example in this respect, and not to survive the destruction of their house. Ruin now seemed inevitable. In the battle of Kunersdorf Frederick had lost, in killed and wounded, nineteen thousand men, including nearly all the officers of distinction, and also one hundred and sixty pieces of artillery. The remainder of his army was so dispersed that it could not be rallied to present any opposition to the foe.
FORE:On the 18th of January, 1742, Frederick visited Dresden, to confer with Augustus III., King of Poland, who was also Elector of Saxony, and whose realms were to be increased by the annexation of Moravia. His Polish majesty was a weak man, entirely devoted to pleasure. His irresolute mind, subjected to the dominant energies of the Prussian king, was as clay in the hands of the potter.
FORE: Young counts who have learned nothing are the most ignorant people in all countries. In England the kings son begins by being a sailor on board a ship, in order to learn the man?uvres belonging to that service. If it should miraculously happen that a count could be good for any thing, it must be by banishing all thoughts about his titles and his birth, for these are only follies. Every thing depends upon personal merit.
FORE:
