[p. 501]
|501| land, which lay further from the influence of the Empire, the estates themselves raised troops against their prince, concluded treaties with foreign powers and called their armies into the land and paid them. In this respect there is hardly a more instructive history than the excellent History of East Frisia2) composed by Wiarda; we see in it a connected picture of the most shameful, repugnant and destructive disorder, which proceeded from the relation of prince and estates of the realm in whose hands there were rights that belong to sovereignty. In larger strokes, incidentally, the like is present, for example, in the history of France and of England, before these countries had completed their formation into states, not to mention Poland, only that these histories are also freer from the disgusting side, namely the complete formalism of right and of paper of the German land.
2) Editors: Tilemann Dothias Wiarda, Ostfriesische Geschichte, 10 Bde., Aurich 1791-1814
To the historian named the archives of the East Frisian estates of the realm, in whose service he himself stands and at whose commission he wrote his work, were opened. The Württemberg estates of the realm have not occasioned such a history; the famous Moser3), who was capable of it and who was also their consultant, they drove out of their midst. Yet among other particulars which lie before the public, a pamphlet stands out which allows glimpses, at least for one period, into one side of the subject touched upon, into the independent administration of the chest by the estates, and which appeared under the title: The Administration of the Württemberg Land Chest by the Former, Now Cashiered Committees of the Württemberg Territorial Estates; Drawn from Territorial Accounts, Files and Documents (without place of printing) 1799. The assembly of the land, which in the year 1796, after some 25
3) Editors: Johann Jakob Moser, 1701-1785, jurist of public law
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