On the one hand, as MAIRE DU PALAIS to the incompetent Otto, and
using the love-sick Princess for a tool and mouthpiece, he pursues a
policy of arbitrary power and territorial aggrandisement. He has
called out the whole capable male population of the state to
military service; he has bought cannon; he has tempted away
promising officers from foreign armies; and he now begins, in his
international relations, to assume the swaggering port and the
vague, threatful language of a bully. The idea of extending
Grunewald may appear absurd, but the little state is advantageously
placed, its neighbours are all defenceless; and if at any moment the
jealousies of the greater courts should neutralise each other, an
active policy might double the principality both in population and
extent. Certainly at least the scheme is entertained in the court
of Mittwalden; nor do I myself regard it as entirely desperate. The
margravate of Brandenburg has grown from as small beginnings to a
formidable power; and though it is late in the day to try
adventurous policies, and the age of war seems ended, Fortune, we
must not forget, still blindly turns her wheel for men and nations.
Concurrently with, and tributary to, these warlike preparations,
crushing taxes have been levied, journals have been suppressed, and
the country, which three years ago was prosperous and happy, now
stagnates in a forced inaction, gold has become a curiosity, and the
mills stand idle on the mountain streams.

On the other hand, in his second capacity of popular tribune,
Gondremark- is the incarnation of the free lodges, and sits at the
centre of an organised conspiracy against the state. To any such
movement my sympathies were early acquired, and I would not
willingly let fall a word that might embarrass or retard the
revolution. But to show that I speak of knowledge, and not as the