"Prussia now ranked as one of the great powers of Europe. Frederick the Great left for his successor an army of two hundred and twenty thousand men, and treasure to the value of fifty million dollars. He was succeeded by his nephew, Frederick William II., in 1786, who added forty thousand square miles to his kingdom by engaging in the second and third partitions of Poland. In 1797 he was followed by his son Frederick William III., who was the father of the present King of Prussia. He lacked the decision necessary to carry his kingdom safely through the troubles of his time. His armies were defeated by Napoleon, and for six years the conqueror held him in subjection, and deprived him of half his domain. The Prussian soldiers under Blucher, however, took an important part in the overthrow of the Emperor of the French, and in the Congress of Vienna, when the affairs of Europe were readjusted, his territory was restored, and even increased, so that the kingdom, at his death, consisted of one hundred and seven thousand square miles. In 1840 he was followed by his son Frederick William IV. In 1848 an insurrection broke out in Berlin, the result of which was a considerable modification of the absolutism of the government. A constitution was adopted, and repeatedly altered and amended. But the king had the best of it in the end, and Prussia was finally pacified. In 1857 the king was attacked by disease of the mind, and his brother William became regent, and in 1861 succeeded him as king, under the title of William I. He is decidedly absolute in his tendencies, and claims to hold his crown by the grace of God, and not by the will of the people. "In speaking of Denmark, I told you in what manner the war of 1866, between Prussia and Austria, was produced. In the terrible battle of Sadowa, Austria was completely humiliated. Prussia dictated her own terms of peace, and annexed a territory nearly equal in size to the state of Maine, including Hanover, Schleswig-Holstein, Hesse Cassel, Nassau, and other German states. The population of Prussia, with these additions, is nearly twenty-three millions. The real engineer of Prussia's magnificent fortunes is not the king, but Bismarck--Count Otto von Bismarck-Shönhausen. He was born in 1814, was liberally educated, and elected a member of the Constituent Assembly in 1848. He served as minister or ambassador to Russia, France, and the Diet at Frankfort, and was appointed minister of foreign affairs and chief of the ministers in 1862.