For twenty-seven years this strange man reigned. He was like no other monarch. Great wisdom and shrewdness were blended with unutterable folly and almost maniacal madness. Though a man of strong powers of mind, he was very illiterate. He certainly had some clear views of political economy. Carlyle says of him, “His semi-articulate papers and rescripts on these subjects are still almost worth reading by a lover of genuine human talent in the dumb form. For spelling, grammar, penmanship, and composition they resemble nothing else extant--are as if done by the paw of a bear; indeed, the utterance generally sounds more like the growling of a bear than any thing that could be handily spelled or parsed. But there is a decisive human sense in the heart of it; and there is such a dire hatred of empty bladders, unrealities, and hypocritical forms and pretenses, which he calls wind and humbug, as is very strange indeed.” His energy inspired the whole kingdom, and paved the way for the achievements of his son. The father created the machine with which the son attained such wonderful results. He commuted the old feudal service into a fixed money payment. He goaded the whole realm into industry, compelling even the apple-women to knit at the stalls. The crown lands were carefully farmed out. He drained bogs, planted colonies, established manufactures, and in every way encouraged the use of Prussian products. He carried with him invariably a stout rattan cane. Upon the slightest provocation, like a madman, he would thrash those who displeased him. He was thoroughly an arbitrary king, ruling at his sovereign will, and disposing of the liberty, the property, and the lives of his subjects at his pleasure. Every year he was accumulating large masses of coin, which he deposited in barrels in the cellar of his palace. He had no powers of graceful speech, but spent his energetic, joyless life in grumbling and growling. The Prussian minister, Baron Pöllnitz, in a letter from Berlin dated June 6, 1729, writes: “The king’s prime minister is the king himself, who is informed of every thing, and is desirous to know every thing. He gives great application to business, but does it with extraordinary ease; and nothing escapes his penetration nor his memory, which is a very happy one. No sovereign in the world is of more easy access, his subjects being actually permitted to write to him without any other formality than superscribing the letter _To the King_. By writing underneath, _To be delivered into his Majesty’s own hands_, one may be sure that the king receives and reads it, and that the next post he will answer it, either with his own hands or by his secretary. These answers are short, but peremptory. There is no town in all the King of Prussia’s dominions, except Neufchatel, where he has not been; no province which he does not know full well; nor a court of justice but he is acquainted with its chief members.”