His Prussian Majesty has been maturing his plans, all this while;--gathering moneys, getting lands ready. We saw him hanging Schlubhut in the autumn of 1731, who had peculated from said moneys; and surveying Preussen, under storms of thunder and rain on one occasion. Preussen is to be the place for these people;Tilsit and Memel region, same where the big Fight of Tannenberg and ruin of the Teutsch Ritters took place: in that fine fertile Country there are homes got ready for this Emigration out of Salzburg.
Long ago, at the beginning of this History, did not the reader hear of a pestilence in Prussian Lithuania? Pestilence in old King Friedrich's time; for which the then Crown-Prince, now Majesty Friedrich Wilhelm, vainly solicited help from the Treasury, and only brought about partial change of Ministry and no help.
"Fifty-two Towns" were more or less entirely depopulated; hundreds of thousands of fertile acres fell to waste again, the hands that had ploughed them being swept away. The new Majesty, so soon as ever the Swedish War was got rid of, took this matter diligently in hand; built up the fifty-two ruined Towns; issued Proclamations once and again (Years 1719, 1721) to the Wetterau, to Switzerland, Saxony, Schwaben; [Buchholz, i. 148.] inviting Colonists to come, and, on favorable terms, till and reap there. His terms are favorable, well-considered; and are honestly kept. He has a fixed set of terms for Colonists: their road-expenses thither, so much a day allowed each travelling soul; homesteads, ploughing implements, cattle, land, await them at their journey's end;their rent and services, accurately specified, are light not heavy; and "immunities" from this and that are granted them, for certain years, till they get well nestled. Excellent arrangements:
and his Majesty has, in fact, got about 20,000 families in that way. And still there is room for thousands more. So that if the tyrannous Firmian took to tribulating Salzburg in that manner, Heaven had provided remedies and a Prussian Majesty. Heaven is very opulent; has alchemy to change the ugliest substances into beautifulest. Privately to his Majesty, for months back, this Salzburg Emigration is a most manageable matter. Manage well, it will be a god-send to his Majesty, and fit, as by pre-established harmony, into the ancient Prussian sorrow; and "two afflictions well put together shall become a consolation," as the proverb promises! Go along then, Right Reverend Firmian, with your Emigration there: only no foul-play in it,--or Halberstadt and Minden get locked:--for the rest of the matter we will undertake.
And so, February 2d, 1732, Friedrich Wilhelm's Proclamation [Copy of it in Mauvillon, February, 1732, ii. 311.] flew abroad over the world; brief and business-like, cheering to all but Firmian;--to this purport: "Come, ye poor Salzburgers, there are homes provided for you. Apply at Regensburg, at Halle: Commissaries are appointed; will take charge of your long march and you. Be kind, all Christian German Princes: do not hinder them and me." And in a few days farther, still early in February (for the matter is all ready before proclaiming), an actual Prussian Commissary hangs out his announcements and officialities at Donauworth, old City known to us, within reach of the Salzburg Boundaries; collects, in a week or two, his first lot of Emigrants, near a thousand strong;and fairly takes the road with them.
A long road and a strange: I think, above five hundred miles before we get to Halle, within Prussian land; and then seven hundred more to our place there, in the utmost East. Men, women, infants and hoary grandfathers are here;--most of their property sold,--still on ruinous conditions, think of it, your Majesty.
Their poor bits of preciosities and heirlooms they have with them;made up in succinct bundles, stowed on ticketed baggage-wains;"some have their own poor cart and horse, to carry the too old and the too young, those that cannot walk." A pilgrimage like that of the Children of Israel: such a pilgrim caravan as was seldom heard of in our Western Countries. Those poor succinct bundles, the ****** of them up and stowing of them; the pangs of ****** hearts, in those remote native valleys; the tears that were not seen, the cries that were addressed to God only: and then at last the actual turning out of the poor caravan, in silently practical condition, staff in hand, no audible complaint heard from it;ready to march; practically marching here:--which of us can think of it without emotion, sad, and yet in a sort blessed!
Every Emigrant man has four GROSCHEN a day (fourpence odd) allowed him for road expenses, every woman three groschen, every child two: and regularity itself, in the shape of Prussian Commissaries, presides over it. Such marching of the Salzburgers: host after host of them, by various routes, from February onwards;above seven thousand of them this year, and ten thousand more that gradually followed,--was heard of at all German firesides, and in all European lands. A phenomenon much filling the general ear and imagination; especially at the first emergence of it. We will give from poor old authentic Fassmann, as if caught up by some sudden photograph apparatus, a rude but undeniable glimpse or two into the actuality of this business: the reader will in that way sufficiently conceive it for himself.