It is curious that the first open resistance to this arose among the officials themselves, and that the opposition was carried on, for the first time, in Prussia, through the modern weapon of the press. The most violent complainant was the chief custom-house officer, Von Held; he accused Count Hoym, Chancellor Goldbeck, General Ruechel, and many others, of fraud, and compared the present state of Prussia with the just time of Frederic II. The case made an immense sensation. Investigations were commenced against him and his friends; they were prosecuted as members of a secret society, and as demagogues. Held's writings were confiscated; and he himself imprisoned and condemned, but at last set at liberty. In his imprisonment the irritated and embittered man attacked the King himself:[37] he accused him of too great economy--which we consider the first virtue of a King of Prussia; of hardness--which was unfounded; and of playing at soldiering--this, unfortunately, with good grounds. He complained: "When the Prince will no longer hear truth, when he throws upright men and true patriots into prison, and appoints those who have been accused of fraud to be directors of the commission appointed to try them, then must the honest, calm, but not the less warm, friends of their Fatherland sigh." Meanwhile he did not satisfy himself with sighing, but became satirical. From this dispute, which only turns on an individuals circumstances, we learn how bold and reckless was the language of political critics in old Prussia; and how low and helpless the position of its princes against such attacks. As the King took the whole government upon his own shoulders, he bore also the whole responsibility, as he alone guided the machine of the State; so every attack on the particular acts of the administration, and upon the officials of the State, was a personal attack upon him. Wherever there was an error the King bore the blame, either because he had neglected something or because he had not punished the guilty. Every peasant woman who had her eggs crushed by the excise officers at the city gates felt the harshness of the King; and if a new tax irritated the city people, the boys in the streets cried out and jeered behind the King's horse, and it was even possible that a handful of mud might be thrown at his noble head. Again broke forth a quiet war betwixt the King of Prussia and the foreign press. Even Frederic William I. had, in his "_Tabakacollegium_," exercised his powers of imagination in composing a short article against the Dutch newspaper writers who had annoyed him; his great son, also, was irritated by their pens, but he knew how to pay them in like coin. Quite a volley of scorn and spite was fired in innumerable novels, satires, and pasquinades against his successor. Of what avail against this was violence, the opening of letters and secret investigations? What use was confiscation? The forbidden writings were still read, and the coarse lies were believed.