Better to increase our Prussian force, by degrees; and, in some good way, with a minimum of violence, get the Holsteiners squeezed out of Stettin: Friedrich Wilhelm has so ordered and contrived.

The Prussian force having now gradually increased to double in this important garrison, the Holsteiners are quietly disarmed, one night, and ordered to depart, under penalties;--which was done.
Holding such a pawn-ticket as Stettin, buttoned in our own pocket, we count now on being paid our 60,000 pounds before parting with it.
Matters turned out as Friedrich Wilhelm had dreaded they might.

Here is Charles XII.

come back; inflexible as cold Swedish iron; will not hear of any Treaty dealing with his properties in that manner: Is he a bankrupt, then, that you will sell his towns by auction?
Charles does not, at heart, believe that Friedrich Wilhelm ever really paid the 60,000 pounds Charles demands, for his own part, to have, his own Swedish Town of Stettin restored to him; and has not the least intention, or indeed ability, to pay money.

Vain to answer: "Stettin, for the present, is not a Swedish Town; it is a Prussian Pawn-ticket!"-- There was much negotiation, correspondence; Louis XIV.
and the Kaiser stepping in again to produce settlement.