The Polish statesmen had no difficulty in refuting such nonsense as this. But King Stanislaus was convinced that true patriotism dictated obedience in order to save what remained. France and England were too intent on their own affairs to interfere by force. Hence a mixture of persuasion, bribery, and the presence of 30,000 soldiers was sufficient to procure the unanimous acquiescence of the Diet after six months’ negotiation (September 30, 1773). The Austrian ambassador was astonished at the trifling sums for which the nobles sold their votes. His Saxon colleague lamented that they shamelessly laid upon the gaming-tables the foreign gold with which they had just been bribed. Frederick’s share of the spoil amounted to more than sixteen thousand square miles, and in 1774 he was able quietly to filch two hundred additional villages from Poland. Long before the Diet consented to the cession he had inaugurated Prussian rule. In June, 1772, he made a triumphal entry into his new province. He gave out to all and sundry that no one could envy his good fortune, for as he came he had seen nothing but sand, pines, heath, and Jews. “It is a very good and very profitable acquisition,” he wrote to Prince Henry, “both for the political situation of the State and for its finances.” Men said that without Danzig, which along with Thorn remained Polish, West-Preussen was but a trunk without a head, but the King was full of schemes for partitioning the trade of Danzig among his own ports. Voltaire, finding him deaf to his exhortations to free the Greeks, lamented that the harbour of Danzig lay nearer his heart than the Piræus. Soon the poverty-stricken land echoed to the untiring march of Hohenzollern progress. The contempt which the King openly expressed for “this perfectly imbecile set with names ending in ki” was apparent in all his dealings with the privileged classes. His treatment of private estates as well as of provinces seemed to warrant the Poles who added the word _Rapuit_ to the _Suum Cuique_ which they saw inscribed beneath the Prussian eagle. The local officials were simply dismissed from office, and their lands appropriated at the cost of a trifling compensation. Though Frederick bound himself to respect the existing rights and property of the Roman Catholics, the bishops and abbots likewise lost their lands, but in their case an allowance amounting to nearly half of their previous incomes was conceded. Upon the nobles a tax of one-quarter of their net revenues was imposed, but Protestants were entitled to a discount of twenty per cent. In the hope of cleansing West-Preussen of its Polish inhabitants, the King went so far as to favour the purchase of noble lands by German peasants. Strict watch was kept on the frontier for Polish immigrants who might try to enter the country.