In this connexion the case of Miller Arnold is of world-wide celebrity. A miller living near the Polish border was condemned by his lord to be evicted for persistent non-payment of rent. He appealed to the chief court of the province for restitution, alleging that another noble, who afterwards bought the mill, had deprived him of water by restoring a fish-pond higher up the stream. When the court decided against him, he availed himself of the privilege of petition which Frederick accorded to all his subjects. The King deputed one of his colonels to investigate the matter in company with a member of the provincial court. The colonel reported in favour of Arnold, but his colleague upheld the previous decision. The King, convinced that his colonel was in the right and that a poor man was being robbed of his livelihood by a legal quibble, ordered the provincial court to make a fresh enquiry. This second investigation only served to confirm their previous view of the case, though an expert in drainage was of opinion that the fish-pond really restricted the flow of water to the mill. They declined to alter their verdict and Frederick ordered the judges at Berlin to revise it. The judges obeyed and revised the depositions with great care. Once more sentence was pronounced against Arnold. Thereupon the King determined to make an example of those who in his name oppressed the poor under form of law. He summoned before him the Chancellor and the three judges at whose door he supposed the guilt to lie. To the Chancellor he addressed six words only: “March, thy place is filled already.” The three judges were first rated like malefactors and then flung into the common gaol. It would be tedious to recite all the items of the King’s vengeance. His hand fell as heavily upon the provincial court as upon the judges at Berlin. When the Minister of Justice refused to pronounce sentence against them, Frederick himself condemned them to loss of office, a year’s imprisonment, and the payment of all that Arnold had lost. Thus the miller triumphed, though he had in truth suffered no loss of water power. Not till the succeeding reign was his knavery exposed and the royal decree reversed. These proceedings, which took place in the later years of the reign, serve to show that Frederick was strong enough to trample the law and its ministers underfoot. In general, however, he proved himself practical, impartial, and firm in all that pertained to the judicial system. The story that a miller of Potsdam refused to sell his wind-mill to the King and answered his threats with a reference to the courts, has been destroyed by modern criticism. “The laws must speak and the sovereign be silent,” was, however, one of his maxims. The distrust of lawyers which caused him to prefer the verdict of one colonel to that of many judges did much to inspire the sweeping changes for which the years following the Peace of Dresden are illustrious.