He rose to protest against these parallels with England; Prussia had its own problems which must be settled in its own way.
"Parallels with foreign countries have always something disagreeable....

At the Revolution, the English people were in a very different condition from that of Prussia to-day; after a century of revolution and civil war, it was in a position to be able to give away a crown and add conditions which William of Orange accepted.

On the other hand, we are in possession of a crown whose rights were actually unlimited, a crown held by the grace not of the people but of God, and which of its own free-will has given away to the people a portion of its rights--an example rare in history." It shows how strong upon him was the influence of his friends in Pomerania that his longest and most important speech was in defence of the Christian monarchy.

The occasion was a proposal to increase the privileges of the Jews.

He said: "I am no enemy of the Jews; if they become my enemies I will forgive them.