appear to be more especially adverse to it. The greatest severity and unscrupulousness of a despotic state showed itself precisely in that by which it prepared, though it did not carry out, the greatest step in political progress.

Too brutal and unscrupulous was the conduct of the officers who had to raise the levies, and too violent was the opposition and aversion of the people. The young men left the country in masses; no threatening of the gallows, of cutting off ears, or of confiscation of their property, could stop the fugitives. More than once the fanatical soldier-zealot Frederic William I. of Prussia was counteracted by the necessity of sparing his kingdom, which threatened to be depopulated. Never could more than half the number required be filled up by this conscription; the other half of the deficiency had to be raised by enlistment.

The enlisting, also, in the first half of the eighteenth century, was rougher work than it had been. The Sovereigns themselves were more dangerous recruiting officers than the captains of the old Landsknechte. And although the evils of this system were notorious, no one knew how to remedy it. The rulers, it is true, were not so much disquieted by the immorality attending it, as they were by the insecurity, costliness, and unceasing disputes which it involved, as well as by the reclamations of foreign governments. The recruiting officers were themselves often bad and untrustworthy men, whose proceedings and disbursements could with difficulty be controlled. Not a few lived for years a life of dissipation, with their accomplices, in foreign countries at the cost of their monarchs; charged exorbitant bounties, only succeeded in ensnaring a few, and could scarcely get these into the country. It soon followed that not half of those so enlisted ever became available to the army; for the greater part were the worst rabble, into whom military qualities could not always be flogged, whose diseased bodies and vicious habits filled the hospitals and prisons, and who ran away on the first opportunity.

The enlisting in the interior was carried on with every kind of violence; the officers and recruiting sergeants seized and carried off only sons who ought to have been exempt; students from the Universities, and whole colonies of villeins whom they settled on their own properties. Whoever wished to be exempt, was obliged to bribe, and was not even then safe. The officers were so protected in their violent extortions, that they openly despised all legal restraints. If there happened to be a great deficiency of men in time of war, all regard for law ceased. Then a formal, razzia was arranged, the city gates were beset by guards, and every one who went in or out subjected to a fearful examination, and whoever was tall and strong was seized; houses were broken into, and recruits were sought for from cellar to garret, even in families that ought to have been exempt. In the Seven Years' War, the Prussians even endeavoured to catch the scholars of the upper forms of the public schools in Silesia, for military service. In many families still lives the remembrance of the terror and danger occasioned to the grandfathers by the recruiting system. It was then a great misfortune for the sons of the clergy or officials to grow tall, and the usual warning of anxious parents was, "Do not grow, or you will be caught by the recruiting officer."

Almost worse were the illegalities practised by the recruiting sergeants seeking for recruits in foreign countries. The recruit was bound by the reception of the money; and the well-known manœuvre was to make simple lads drunk in jovial society, to press the money on them when intoxicated, take them into strict custody, and when, on becoming sober, they resisted, keep them by chains and every means of compulsion. Under escort and threatenings, the prisoners were dragged under the banners, and compelled to take the oath by barbarous punishments. Every other means of seduction was used besides drinking; gambling, prostitutes, lying, and every kind of deceit. Individuals considered desirable subjects were for days watched by spies. It was required of recruiting sergeants, who were paid for this purpose, to be especially expert in the art of outwitting. Advancement and presents of money depended on their knowing how to catch many men. Frequently they avoided, even where enlisting offices were allowed, showing themselves in uniform, and tried to seize their victims in every kind of disguise. Horrible were the basenesses practised in this man-hunting, and connived at by the governments. It was, in fact, slave-hunting; for the enlisted soldier could only perform his service in the great machine of the army, when he closed with all the hopes and wishes of his former life. It is a melancholy task to represent to oneself the feelings which worked in these victims; destroyed hopes, faintheartedness under violence, and heart-rending grief over a ruined life. It was not always the worst men who were hunted to death by running the gauntlet for repeated desertions, or flogged on account of insolent disobedience, till they lay senseless on the ground. Whoever could overcome his own inward struggle and accustom himself to the rough style of his new life, became a complete soldier, that is, a man who performed his service punctually, showed a firm spirit in attack, honoured or hated as enjoined, and perhaps felt some attachment to his flag; and probably much greater to the friend which made him for a time forget his situation—brandy.

Enlistment in foreign countries could only take place with the consent of the Government of the country. Urgently did warlike princes seek for permission from their neighbours for an enlistment office. The Emperor, indeed, had the best of it, for each of his regiments had, according to custom, a fixed recruiting district throughout Germany. The others, especially Prussia, had to provide a favourable district for it. The larger Imperial cities were frequently courteous enough to grant permission to the more powerful Sovereigns; consequently, they were not always able to protect the sons of their own noble families. The frontiers of France, Holland, and Switzerland, were favourable districts for catching recruits; for there were always deserters to be found in the territory which was surrounded by foreign domains, especially when a foreign fortress, with burdensome garrison service, lay in the neighbourhood. Anspach, Baireuth, Dessau, and Brunswick, were always a good market for the Prussians.

The recruiting officers of the different governments were not in equal repute. The Austrians had the best character; they were considered in the soldier world, coarse, but harmless; only took those that willingly yielded themselves, and kept to the agreement strictly. They had not much to offer, only three kreuzer and two pounds of bread daily; but they never were deficient in recruits. The Prussian recruiting officers, on the contrary, it must be owned, were in the worst repute; they lived in the highest style, were very insolent and unscrupulous, and fool-hardy devils. In order to catch a fine lad, they contrived the most audacious tricks, and exposed themselves to the greatest dangers: one knows that they were sometimes soundly beaten, when they found themselves in a minority, that they were imprisoned by foreign Governments, and more than one of them stabbed; but all this did not frighten them. This evil report lasted till Frederic William II. made his new rules of enlistment.

One of the best recruiting places in the empire was Frankfort-à-M., with its great fair; Prussians, Austrians, and Danes, still, at the end of the century, dwelt together there; the Danes had hung out their flag at the "Fir-tree;" the Austrians had, from olden times, stopped phlegmatically at the inn "The Red Ox;" but the restless Prussian recruiting officers were always changing; they were at this time the most distinguished and most splendid. A kind of