“We wish,” he frankly stated, “that any odium, however undeserved, should fall not on us ... but on the _General-Ober-Finanz-Kriegs-und-Domänen-Directorium_ [General Supreme Financial War and Domains Directory] or on one or other of the members of the same, unless it shall prove possible to make the public change its bad opinion.” The members were instructed to give such a turn to the business that this aim might be realised, “because,” as the King expressed it, “we wish to be frugal as regards the love and affection of our subjects and of the friendship of our neighbours.” The new body, as its name implies, was primarily concerned with finance, which lay at the root of all Prussian government. It was called into being at the moment when Frederick William amalgamated two machines for collecting and expending revenue. It presided over the administration of the old feudal revenue which came from the Domains and over that of the new national revenue which came from the Contribution and Excise,—taxes imposed for the support of the apparatus of war. Foreign affairs and justice, each of which formed the charge of two or three other ministers, lay outside the sphere of the General Directory. This consisted of four departments, each of which supervised the general administration on one great section of the soil of Prussia. The North-east, the Centre, the West, and the districts lying between the Centre and the West formed four distinct spheres of government, each of which was the special charge of a chief minister and several assistants. To these sectional departments, however, were assigned various minor charges extending over the whole kingdom. Thus the second department, which governed the Electoral Mark and Magdeburg, at one time also fulfilled the functions of commissary-general for all Prussia. It had in addition oversight over questions of salt, millstones, cards, and stamps, in whatever locality they might arise. If the chief of the department had four or five assistants a certain specialisation was possible, but he was obliged to reckon with the contingency that one or more of them might be commissioned to spend part of their time in another department. The General Directory, as Frederick found it, contained four departments, but five chief ministers. The fifth, whose functions were the general supervision of justice and of finance, was in Frederick William’s conception a royal spy upon his colleagues. If they were idle, deceitful, or inharmonious, it was his duty to report the facts to the King, “that His Majesty may get no short measure anywhere and may not be tricked.”