Hardly less chequered were the fortunes of Captain Wake, the only regularly accredited Prussian privateer of whom anything is known. The operations of his ship, the _Embden_, in the Mediterranean also resulted in ceaseless bickerings, and he was delayed in Cagliari for two years by disputes of one sort or another. At last, growing weary, he set off to Berlin to prosecute his claims to a Swedish ship which he had seized, but of which the authorities at Cagliari would not permit him to dispose. Four and a half years after the capture, she was adjudged his good prize; but before he could enter into possession of her she was sunk at her moorings by a violent storm. The total gain of the Prussian Government from the activity of these three privateers was quite negligible; while, on the other hand, the trouble and annoyance caused by them was immeasurable. The anticipations that the seas would be swept of Austrian and Swedish commerce by a swarm of vessels under the Prussian flag proved to have been quite illusory, and it was a particular disappointment to Frederick that the German shipowners looked askance at the whole business, and in no single instance applied for letters of marque. A noteworthy feature of the episode is that Frederick's Government, reversing the practice of the Hansa, laid down for its privateers the rule that a neutral flag covered the enemy's goods, and that neutral goods were safe from capture even when under the enemy's flag. This, it is maintained, has ever since been Prussian tradition. A final word is due to the "Société de Commerce Maritime"--now under the name "Seehandlung," the State bank of the Kingdom of Prussia--which was established by Frederick the Great in 1772, "to carry on shipping under the Prussian flag, and trade with the ports of Spain and all other places where reasonable and certain prospects of substantial profits from imports and exports are to be found." It was vessels of this corporation which, towards the close of the first half of the nineteenth century, bore a German flag for the first time round the world, and its foundation shows that the Great Elector's ideas were only dormant and not dead.