Which latter was the bitterest clause of all: but it could not be helped, more than the others.

In this manner did its revolted children fling out Teutsch Ritterdom ignominiously to the dogs, to the Polacks, first of all,--Thorn, the eldest child, leading off or setting the example." And so the Teutsch Ritters are sunk beyond retrieval; and West Preussen, called subsequently "Royal Preussen," NOT having homage to pay as the "Ducal" or East Preussen had, is German no longer, but Polish, Sclavic; not prospering by the change.

[What Thorn had sunk to, out of its palmy state, see in Nanke's _Wanderungen durch Preussen_ (Hamburg & Altona, 1800), ii.

177-200:--a pleasant little Rook, treating mainly of Natural History; but drawing you, by its innocent simplicity and geniality, to read with thanks whatever is in it.] And all that fine German country, reduced to rebel against its unwise parent, was cut away by the Polish sword, and remained with Poland, which did not prove very wise either; till--till, in the Year 1773, it was cut back by the German sword! All readers have heard of the Partition of Poland: but of the Partition of Preussen, 307 years before, all have not heard.
It was in the second year of that final tribulation, marked above as Period Third, that the Teutsch Ritters, famishing for money, completed the Neumark transaction with Kurfurst Friedrich; Neumark, already pawned to him ten years before, they in 1455, for a small farther sum, agreed to sell; and he, long carefully steering towards such an issue, and dexterously keeping out of the main broil, failed not to buy.

Friedrich could thenceforth, on his own score, protect the Neumark; keep up an invisible but impenetrable wall between it and the neighboring anarchic conflagrations of thirteen years; and the Neumark has ever since remained with Brandenburg, its original owner.
As to Friedrich's Pomeranian quarrel, this is the figure of it.