670 Progress of learning and research [1688-1713 of economic progress. They proceeded for several years (1700-10) on the lines suggested by Luben von Wulffen for the creation of hereditary peasant tenures, till official interests interfered with the continuation of the system-providing for the cultivation of waste lands, encouraging continuous immigration, and preparing the abolition of serfdom. It would be an error to regard the reign of Frederick I as a period of retrogression or stagnation in respect of important questions of home administration; his Government, like himself, well knew that their endeavours were being sympathetically watched by Leibniz, and chronicled for the edification of posterity by Pufendorf. Undoubtedly, the aspect under which the reign of Frederick I of Prussia is most readily remembered is the splendour with which he surrounded his newly established royal throne. He was not a ruler of genius, or even of inborn grandeur, like Louis XIV - he was, in truth, too sensitive about his personal dignity to be capable of merging it in that of his royal office; and there was, moreover, something so frankly self-centred in his love of show that Queen Sophia Charlotte on her death-bed could take comfort in the thought of the satisfaction which he would find in the arrangements for her funeral. But his reign was marked by the foundation of institutions of lasting importance for the advancement of learning and research. Such were the University of Halle, founded in 1694, and destined, after passing through a first period of florescence and being twice closed by Napoleon, to be revived, and to absorb the University of Wittenberg; the Academy of Arts (1696); and the Academy of Sciences, founded in 1700, on the initiative of Sophia Charlotte and her great philosopher and friend, Leibniz, whose political activity often went hand in hand with his scientific interests. He delighted in his rôle of intermediary between the Hanoverian and Prussian Courts, and was at least as much valued at Berlin and Lützenburg by Queen Sophia Charlotte as he was at Herrenhausen by her mother, the more lighthearted and perhaps less strong-willed old Electress Sophia. It is noteworthy, that the objects of the Berlin Academy included the preservation of the purity of the German tongue. Yet the language of the Prussian Court was French; and, as has been hinted in an earlier chapter, it was perhaps well for the future of the national literature that the German tongue should have been taught something of freedom and ease of movement by the very influence against which the instincts of the nation were already beginning to revolt. Manifestly, the taste for things French at the Court and in the Brandenburg capital was materially advanced by the continued influx of French refugees into the Mark. By the close of the seventeenth century their numbers there had reached a total of 20,000; and this important addition to the most useful classes of the population had exercised a beneficial effect in various ways besides refining the life 1688-1713] Sophia Charlotte.-Frederick I's religious views 671 of the Court and intensifying the Calvinistic dogmatism of certain of the strata of society. The French refugees of this period consisted of nobles (frequently military officers), merchants, manufacturers of high standing, and skilled workmen of proved efficiency. Frederick I consistently upheld his father's principle of allowing as much liberty of conscience as possible; and the fact that the royal family were Calvinists, while the great body of the population in both Brandenburg and Prussia remained Lutherans, could not but tell in favour of toleration. Nor should it be forgotten that among the select spirits of the age the hope was growing that the day was not far distant when a Reunion might be accomplished between the several varieties of Protestantism, perhaps even between Protestantism and Catholicism. Here, too, the influence of Leibniz was actively exerted, and it found a reflexion in the elevated piety of Sophia Charlotte, for which her son Frederick William had so little understanding that he called her "a bad Christian." Apart from the training of her son, whose thoughts. and tastes could not fall in with télémaque, Queen Sophia Charlotte had some troubled experiences at Berlin-more especially at the time of the ascendancy of Christian Cochius, a court-preacher of a perennial type. His opposition to the Queen's mundane influence typified by her patronage of the opera, was unworthily fomented by the Minister, Kolbe von Wartenberg, whose wife enjoyed the particular favour of the King. There can at the same time be little doubt that Sophia Charlotte, whose mind had many features in common with that of the greatest of her descendants, Frederick II, was unable to sympathise with some of the qualities most deserving of admiration in the character of her husband. Frederick I had inherited deep and ardent religious convictions from the Great Elector, whom he also resembled in his broad application of these principles to his system of government. Like his father, he favoured Calvinism ceteris paribus, and hated popery; but both were equally averse from all persecution and forcing of consciences; and Frederick I desired that even Catholics should retain the rights which, more especially in his western dominions, they possessed. In this he was of course influenced by his wish to remain on good terms with the Emperor; but even in remote Neuchâtel the Protestant character of his government was unmistakably emphasised, and Father Wolff's proposal to marry the Crown Prince to an Archduchess never had a chance. But, though a sturdy Protestant at heart and one who preferred the Bible to all other books, and though ready to counteract the intrigues of the Saxon Lutherans by appointing Pietists to the Lutheran parsonages of the Mark, Frederick I was himself no Pietist; and Spener gained no real influence over his Court. The King's own desire was for a union of the two Protestant confessions in his dominions; and, with the aid of Bishop Daniel Ernst Jablonsky, he moved on more 672 Results of the reign [1688-1713 rapidly in this direction than seemed judicious to Leibniz, whose fears were justified by the event. Thus, on the whole, the reign of the first Prussian King not unfitly continues the long period of progress through which his State had passed before his assumption of a royal Crown. The population of his dominions, notwithstanding many obstacles, was steadily in creasing; the public revenue had all but doubled; the resources of the territory were being developed; there was every reason for looking forward hopefully to the future. At a time when Spain was in collapse, though still capable of periodical patriotic effort-when France was brought to the verge of ruin by the sacrifices imposed upon her by the ambition of her master—when among the German electorates Saxony all but exhausted her resources in order to meet the exactions of the selfish voluptuary through whose person she was tied to Poland, and the Palatinate, after having been once more brought to the verge of material ruin, was terrorised by religious persecution Brandenburg-Prussia, in spite of adverse circumstances, of defects of administration, and of vast unprofitable expenditure upon the gewgaws of the Court, steadily progressed. There was nothing of greatness in King Frederick I, or, except in a few leading principles, in either the home or the foreign policy of his Government. But the history of his reign illustrates at least one valuable truth: that an advance in civilisation and refinement is not incompatible with progress in material prosperity and with the consolidation of those foundations on which is built up the real strength of a State. Still, these foundations needed to be yet more firmly laid before a political structure could be erected upon them that might take its place among the Great Powers of Europe. The accomplishment of this last preliminary task was reserved for the reign of Frederick I's successor. CHAPTER XXII THE COLONIES AND INDIA (1) THE COLONIES BEFORE the middle of the seventeenth century a new stage had been reached in the spread of European activity into the continents and islands of the West. The younger maritime Powers had made good their claim to share in the opportunities which this vast colonial field disclosed. Breaking in upon the prized monopoly which Spain and Portugal had won by their earlier enterprise and happy fortune, Dutch, English, and French had opened the door to a new series of experiments in colonyplanting and colony-government. As they secured their footholds in the New World and began to mark out the spheres of their ambition, they created new arenas of contest and developed new rivalries; so that their common hostility to Spain gradually lost its former importance, and ceased to provide the central thread of interest in their doings. The years that elapsed between the Treaties of Westphalia and Utrecht were years of the greatest activity in colonisation; but they were years of transition, when old issues and conditions were giving place to new, and when the field was being prepared for the long struggle between England and France which the eighteenth century was to witness. None the less they form a period of a very definite character, and with a conspicuous place in the history of the New World. For they saw the foundation and growth of colonies possessing a vitality and strength of their own offshoots for the most part of the northern nations of Europe, springing up in the vacant spaces of the continent, and on the islands. abandoned or lost by Spain. Over the centuries the race was to be to the settler rather than to the soldier or even to the trader. The competition of colonising genius was to continue the transference of power which the competition of maritime strength had begun. not the least momentous question to which the events of these years gave an answer was whether the methods of English, French, and Dutch - in founding dependent communities, in fostering commerce, in the exploitation of forest, mine, and field, in the treatment of aboriginal peoples, and in strengthening the mother country with the resources of new lands— colonial Hence, 43 674 The progress of Brazil [1500-1650 would be more or less successful than those of their predecessors had been, or under the stimulus of competition might yet be. In the East, supremacy was destined to pass to the Power that most surely increased its prestige amongst the races of Hindustan, and at the same time secured for itself the mastery of the sea; but in the West, to the peoples who knew best how to turn the resources of a young country to the service of civilised man, and so to build new societies possessing unity, and the powers of self-help and growth. It was for this reason that the Portuguese, in spite of the decline of their maritime strength, maintained a high rank as a colonising nation. In the growing wealth and commercial activity of their settlements in Brazil they found some compensation for the disasters which had befallen them in the Eastern Seas. From unpromising beginnings Brazil was mounting to a position of considerable importance. The cultivation of the sugar-cane, introduced by Jewish immigrants, had been attended with great success, and had become the staple industry of the country. The dense vegetation and the difficulties in the navigation of nearly all the streams prevented the colonist from penetrating far inland; but along the Atlantic shore, within a belt of land some twenty or thirty leagues wide, a number of settlements had been established, a few towns had been founded, and the mansions of the planters had steadily multiplied. The mother country could not supply the emigrants needed to people even this coast-belt, apart from the vast interior of the continent which she claimed; and, what was more, sugar-planting, though it offered a fairly extensive field for the employment of capital, made but a small demand for European labour. Nevertheless, the progress of the colony had been continuous; and, at a time when the colonial empire of the Portuguese seemed likely to succumb beneath the weight of a defective administration and before the relentless rivalry of the Dutch, it became evident that in South America the race had planted firm roots. The story of Brazil shows how a young society, if allowed sufficient free play, may maintain itself in spite of the enfeeblement of the mother country, and even replenish the veins of her energy with its own life. Nothing could have been more gratifying to King John IV than the part which his Brazilian subjects played in freeing themselves from the dominion of the Dutch West India Company. Their uprising had followed closely upon the return of the Dutch Governor, Count Maurice of Nassau, to Holland in 1644, and soon assumed a formidable character. Though some of the insurgents were mere desperadoes, they were led by men of undoubted ability and patriotism, and enjoyed the sympathy of every section of the community-so strong was the hatred which the Dutch, as conquerors and as Protestants, had inspired. With the mulatto, Fernandes Vieira, who was the soul of the movement, were associated the Indian Camarão, Vidal de Negreiros, a white, and the courageous negro Henrique Dias. Had it been possible for King John |