The church of St. Mary was taken from the Protestants, the
clergymen driven out, and the school closed. King Frederick William
had tried in vain at the time to help the unfortunate city. He had
prevailed upon all the neighboring powers to send stern notes, and had
felt himself bitterly grieved and humiliated when all his
representations were disregarded; now after fifty years his son came
to put an end to this barbarous disorder, and to unite again with
Prussia this land which before the Polish sovereignty had belonged to
the Teutonic order.
[Illustration: FREDERICK THE GREAT ON A PLEASURE TRIP
_From the Painting by Adolph von Menzel_]
Danzig, to be sure, indispensable to the Poles, maintained itself
through these decades of disorder in aristocratic seclusion. It
remained a free city under Slavic protection, for a long time
suspicious of the great King and not well disposed toward him. Thorn
also had to wait twenty years longer in oppression, separated from the
other German colonies, as a Polish border city. But the energetic
assistance of the King saved the country and most of the German towns
from destruction. The Prussian officials who were sent into the
country were astonished at the desolation of the unheard-of situation
which existed but a few days' journey from their capital. Only certain
larger towns, in which the German life had been protected by strong
walls and the old market traffic, and some sheltered country
districts, inhabited exclusively by Germans (such as the lowlands near
Danzig, the villages under the mild rule of the Cistercians of Oliva,
and the prosperous German places of the Catholic Ermeland), were left
in tolerable condition.
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