In the course of his efforts the King endeavoured at different times to supplant Hamburg, to ruin Danzig, and to make Silesia an impenetrable barrier between Polish wool-growers and their customers in Saxony. It was a peculiar feature of Prussia that her straggling frontiers were crossed by many roads and rivers which connected foreign states. The Hohenzollern laboured to turn this fact to account and to favour Prussian merchants by hampering foreigners with enormous tolls. The result was that commerce was compelled to avoid the borders of his dominions. Frederick was indefatigable in inciting his subjects to take up new enterprises as well as in striving to procure for them advantages abroad. As a rule, however, the commercial companies which he formed either decayed or relapsed into the position of State undertakings. It may be surmised that what might have been possible to the Frederick and the Prussia of 1740 had been rendered well-nigh impossible by the changes in both which a generation of militarism had produced. The system of despotic command and automatic obedience was fatal to the growth of a class of self-reliant merchants, and the King complained bitterly that neither individuals nor corporations would act with enlightened patriotism in developing the commerce of Prussia. Able advisers of the Crown, indeed, did something to atone for this lack of initiative. Thanks to the talent of Hagen, the Bank, which was established in 1765, survived its early perils and became serviceable to Prussian trade. The Marine Commercial Company also outlived many of Frederick’s semi-official creations.