44 AGEICrLTUEE ON THE RHINE. 



tending the transformation of so much circulating into 

 fixed capital. The former test was too fresh in the me- 

 mory of the peasants, and was too vividly pictured by the 

 reformers of the time, to allow of much consideration for 

 the latter. Experience proved the best solver of this 

 difficulty. Where trade had created circulating capital 

 and credit, the rents and dues were eagerly redeemed by 

 the landowners ; where those resources could not be 

 commanded, things remained as they were. In the county 

 of Mark, and in the adjacent manufacturing districts, not 

 only were the services early redeemed by money-payments, 

 and the landholders placed in the situation of English 

 copyholders, but the estates offered by the crown for 

 sale, having fallen to the royal demesne as indemnification 

 for ceded territories elsewhere, found purchasers at 

 moderate prices. Whatever sacrifices were made under 

 these circumstances were justified by the prudent use 

 made by the Prussian government of the money. There 

 was but one idea to follow in our financial age : public 

 credit had to be supported. This has been achieved 

 during the reign of King Frederick William III. of 

 Prussia. His success is recorded in the present price of 

 the public funds, and still more intelligibly in the impos- 

 sibility which M. Thiers found of executing his me- 

 naced attack on the left bank of the Rhine. We return 

 to the present condition of the German peasant. 



Wherever holdings were large enough to maintain a 

 family, and the population thin enough to feel no pres- 

 sure from its increase, the old forms of dress and mode of 

 living have been preserved as strictly as if sumptuary laws 

 and feudal control still prevailed. The peasant's position 

 was, however, even more materially affected by an inno- 



