This declaration was addressed to a ruler who had made no engagements hostile to Frederick, and who now offered to observe perfect neutrality and to allow his troops to pass. A commentary upon it is supplied by a document which was probably drawn up several days earlier, and which was soon to be put in force. By this “instruction” for the administration of Saxony during the war, “in order that His Majesty may not leave a highly dangerous enemy in his rear,” the Prussian minister von Borcke is directed to suspend the native administration of the land and to substitute a Prussian Directory of War. The Saxon royal revenue, it is said, amounts to about six million thalers, but Frederick “will be contented with five million, so that the inhabitants may be solaced thereby.” In other respects the order and temperance which distinguished the Prussian Government were to be applied to the subjects of Augustus. Such was Frederick’s plan for the future of Saxony, a would-be neutral, during the war. The problem which the King set himself was to cripple Austria before Russia or France could come to her assistance. Austria had assembled forces in Moravia and in Bohemia. If Frederick attacked the former the Bohemian army might cut off his retreat. He therefore directed Schwerin to guard Silesia while he himself converted Saxony into a base for the invasion of Bohemia. From the Saxons he expected little or no opposition. He therefore proposed to march in three columns upon Pirna, a fortress situated at the point at which the Elbe bursts through the mountain-wall of Bohemia to enter the fertile plains of Saxony. Then, with a granary and a highway behind him, he would follow the river into Bohemia as far as Melnik, less than twenty miles north of Prague, where it ceases to be navigable. He would thus at the very least have gained a commanding position on the further side of the mountains. “As he does not think that the Austrians will soon be ready to attack him,” wrote Mitchell on August 27th, “he imagines they will throw in a strong garrison into Prague, that [_sic_] as the winter approaches, he can have good quarters in Bohemia, which will disorder the finances at Vienna and perhaps render that court more reasonable.” To the ambassador of England Frederick made light of his enterprise and insisted that it would permit him, if necessary, to defend Hanover. But it is difficult not to surmise that he looked for a great campaign. The capture of Prague, the rout of the army of Bohemia, and the seizure of its magazines—all this would be a fitting sequel to the coercion of Saxony. It was not too grave a task for the main host of Prussia.