Neither is any borrowing possible; that sublime Art, of rolling over on you know not whom the expenditure, needful or needless, of your heavy-laden self, had not yet--though England is busy at it--been invented among Nations.
Once, or perhaps twice, from the STANDE of some willing Province, Friedrich negotiated some small Loan; which was punctually repaid when Peace came, and was always gratefully remembered.

But these are as nothing, in face of such expenses; and the thought how he did contrive on the Finance side, is and was not a little wonderful.

An ingenious Predecessor, whom I sometimes quote, has expressed himself in these words:-- "Such modicum of Subsidy [he is speaking of the English Subsidy in 1758], how useful will it prove in a Country bred everywhere to Spartan thrift, accustomed to regard waste as sin, and which will lay out no penny except to purpose! I guess the Prussian Exchequer is, by this time, much on the ebb; idle precious metals tending everywhere towards the melting-pot.

At what precise date the Friedrich-Wilhelm balustrades, and enormous silver furnitures, were first gone into, Dryasdust has not informed me: but we know they all went; as they well might.

To me nothing is so wonderful as Friedrich's Budget during this War.