Frederick William I ("the Soldier King"), Instructions on the Formation and Functioning of the General Directory (December 20, 1722)

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A person helping a deserter to escape has earned the gallows and shall, as soon as he is convicted of the crime, be hanged, without waiting for Our confirmation.

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XVIII. Leasing of agents’ leaseholdings, demesne farms, and other Crown properties.

1. The General Directory shall work with tireless diligence, fidelity and application, and shall always keep in mind that Our Crown estates and leaseholdings are to be improved and set in better order every year, and, where new demesne farms can with advantage be established, or new dairy farms, or where wild and uncultivated fens can be cleared and drained, they are to set about the work at once, without fail, and in every way to see how, through industry and expertise, the yields of Our Crown properties can be increased without equal or greater loss to Our war or other revenues. If, for example, the Commissariat for Crown Properties improved the “Amt” of Potsdam by 400 Reichsthaler a year, and this brought Us a corresponding loss of 400 thalers on the Potsdam excise, this would be no real improvement.

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3. The General Directory is to apply these principles in all improvements and to act at once where We find a real advantage, no matter into which of the accounts the surplus goes, so long as We get real advantage out of it.

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29. The Directory will be able to see from the above instructions as clearly as man could desire that it is Our will that reports and queries submitted to Us from the said Directory shall and must always be in such form that We can rely on them confidently and without misgivings, and be satisfied that everything contained in the reports corresponds exactly to the facts and has been previously well examined and thrashed out. And as We shall be dependent on the Directory, if it should report any matter to us erroneously, it follows that it must keep many spies in the Provinces to guide it aright.

Nor is it admissible that the General Directory should try to put the blame on the Provincial Commissariats and Chambers by saying that they reported so and so and the Directory trusted them and consequently submitted the matter to Us as it was reported to them.