We returned home without having effected any thing, and my chief object was to secure the King’s affections by all the variety of pleasure and entertainment I could possibly think of. I had in my palace a neat little theatre, where I entertained the King with such pieces as seemed to have been written for the very purpose of charming the senses. My actresses were chosen from among the handsomest girls in all Berlin. I always made them appear in such dresses as would add, if possible, to their charms. With the same view, I generally chose the subjects of the entertainment from mythology; for instance, Jove and Leda, Venus and Cupid, Hymen’s Wake, &c. A celebrated man of learning of the capital, the manager of my little theatre, took with a smile the presents which the enchanted monarch gave him, and since that time abstained from inveighing against the King’s mistress in his satirical writings. Some disturbances, which took place in the provinces, and particularly at Berlin, gave me the fairest opportunity to induce the King to prohibit the publication of all such works as treated of liberty, equality, and the imprescriptible rights of man, and in general of all such trash. A kind of inquisition, which, through my interference, was introduced throughout the country, enabled me to obtain a knowledge of all the pamphlets that represented me in my true colours to the world, and to suppress them. And, if at any time some determined scribbler had the audacity to transgress the limits of the liberty of thinking and writing, it would, through the medium of my creatures, represent the act as an attempt nothing short of high treason against the King’s Majesty itself, in which case imprisonment for life, or banishment from the King’s dominions, was the unavoidable consequence. Such was the fate of the merchants Z---- C----, of Doctor K----, and of Captain L----.