account. I then proved my right to the family
estates, left by my uncle, beyond all dispute, and also of those
purchased by my cousin. The commissions appointed to inquire into these
rights even confirmed them; yet after they had been thus established, I
received the following order from the court, in the hand of the Empress
herself:--"The president, Count Grassalkowitz, takes it upon his
conscience that the Sclavonian estates do not descend to Trenck, _in
natura_; he must therefore receive the _summa emptitia et inscriptitia_,
together with the money he can show to have been expended in
improvements."

CHAPTER XIV.

And herewith ended my pleadings and my hopes. I had sacrificed my
property, laboured through sixty-three inferior suits, and lost this
great cause without a trial. I could have remained satisfied with the
loss of the personal property: the booty of a soldier, like the wealth
amassed by a minister, appears to me little better than a public robbery;
but the acquirements of my ancestors, my birth-right by descent, of these
I could not be deprived without excessive cruelty. Oh patience!
patience!--Yet shall my children never become the footmen, nor grooms, of
those who have robbed them of their inheritance; and to them I bequeathed
my rights in all their power: nor shall any man prevent my crying aloud,
so long as justice shall not be done.

The president, it is true, did not immediately possess himself of the
estates, but he took good care his friends should have them at such rates
that the sale of them did not bring the fiscal treasury 150,000 florins,
while I, in real and personal property, lost a million and a half; nay,
probably a sum equal to this in personal property alone.

The summa _inscriptitia et emptitia_ for all these great estates only
amounted to 149,000 florins, and this was to be paid by the chamber, but
the president thought proper to deduct 10,000 on pretence the cattle had
been driven off the estate of Pakratz; and, further, 36,000 more, under
the shameful pretence that Trenck, to recruit his pandours, had drained
the estates of 3,600 vassals, who had never returned; the estates,
therefore, must make them good at the rate of thirty florins per head,
which would have amounted to 108,000 florins; but, with much difficulty,
this sum was reduced, as above stated, to 36,000 florins, each vassal
reckoned at ten florins per head. Thus was I obliged, from the property
of my family