The innumerable maltreatments, authentically chronicled in Wilhelmina's and the other Books, though in a dateless, unintelligible manner, would make a tragic sum!--Here are two Billets, copied from the Prussian State-Archives, which will show us to what height matters had gone, in this the young man's seventeenth year.
TO HIS MAJESTY (from the Crown-Prince).
"WUSTERHAUSEN, 11th September, 1728.
MY DEAR PAPA,--I have not, for a long while, presumed to come to my dear Papa; partly because he forbade me; but chiefly because I had reason to expect a still worse reception than usual: and, for fear of angering my dear Papa by my present request, I have preferred making it in writing to him.
I therefore beg my dear Papa to be gracious to me; and can here say that, after long reflection, my conscience has not accused me of any the least thing with which I could reproach myself.

But if I have, against my will and knowledge, done anything that has angered my dear Papa, I herewith most submissively beg forgiveness; and hope my dear Papa will lay aside that cruel hatred which I cannot but notice in all his treatment of me.

I could not otherwise suit myself to it; as I always thought I had a gracious Papa, and now have to see the contrary.

I take confidence, then, and hope that my dear Papa will consider all this, and again be gracious to me.

And, in the mean while, I assure him that I will never, all my days, fail with my will; and, notwithstanding his disfavor to me, remain "My dear Papa's "Most faithful and obedient Servant and Son, "FRIEDRICH." To which Friedrich Wilhelm, by return of messenger, writes what follows.
Very implacable, we may perceive;--not calling his Petitioner "Thou," as kind Paternity might have dictated; infinitely less by the polite title "They (SIE)," which latter indeed, the distinguished title of "SIC," his Prussian Majesty, we can remark, reserves for Foreigners of the supremest quality, and domestic Princes of the Blood; naming all other Prussian subjects, and poor Fritz in this place, "He (ER)," in the style of a gentleman to his valet,--which style even a valet of these new days of ours would be unwilling to put up with.