III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12367

Fourteen scans from a file of the Prussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, kept in the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. The file is the second volume on the claim of Michalina Miączyńska, born Prusimska, and continues III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12366; its cover gives its span as January 1828 to the end of November 1833. The pieces scanned run from February 1828 to March 1832 and concern one matter: the compensation of Weigel, a banker at Wrocław, whose mortgage on the Trąbczyn estates in central Poland the Polish courts had struck out. They are eleven documents on 15 pages: eight in French, two in Polish and one in German.

Historical background

Prince Friedrich Ludwig of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen (1746-1818), a Prussian general, received the Trąbczyn estates in 1796, after Prussia had confiscated them from the Starost Antoni Prusimski. He borrowed 30,000 thalers on them from Grotowski, and the mortgage passed to Weigel. In 1807 the estates were returned to Prusimski’s daughter, Michalina Miączyńska. Between 1819 and 1826 the Polish courts held that the return had cancelled the debts raised in the meantime, and ordered Weigel’s mortgage struck out of the register. Prussia protested at St Petersburg in 1827.

Trąbczyn lay in the Kingdom of Poland, of which the Russian Emperor was king. His brother, Grand Duke Constantine, resided at Warsaw, and Baron Mohrenheim directed the Grand Duke’s diplomatic chancellery. Prussia was represented at Warsaw by a consul general, Schmidt. On 29 November 1830 a rising against Russian rule began at Warsaw. It was put down in September 1831, and a provisional government under Engel administered the Kingdom until March 1832.

Contents

Mohrenheim’s answers. On 7 February 1828 Mohrenheim answered Schmidt that he was not losing sight of the Weigel matter and would report what had been settled once the Grand Duke returned [1]. Two short private notes from him to Schmidt are not dated. In the first he writes that he read his memorandum on the affair of “Weigel & Eisenhardt” to the council the day before, that the council recognised unanimously that payment must be made, and that the manner of payment was still to be deliberated [2]. In the second he returns something Schmidt had lent him to read, promises to push the matter, and in a line in the margin asks for the loan of something else for two days [3]. On 20 February 1830 he reported that the Administrative Council had told the Grand Duke the previous August that the competence of the courts which had ruled against Weigel was open to question, because the case could be resolved only by diplomatic means. The Council had authorised the Commission of Finance and Treasury to declare a conflict of jurisdiction and to bring it before the Council of State, and the Grand Duke had now asked the Council to hasten the conclusion [4].

The minister of finance and Weigel, autumn 1830. A letter to Schmidt of 29 September 1830, whose signature has not been read, states that his notes on the suit between Miączyńska and her creditors, and on Weigel’s claim against the treasury of the Kingdom, had been laid before the minister of finance and had warned the Polish administration in time [5]. The minister, Prince Lubecki, wrote to Weigel himself on 22 September 1830. Weigel had asked for 63,100 thalers: 30,000 of capital, 31,800 of interest and 1300 of costs. Lubecki found the demand excessive and ordered the estates to be valued on the spot, so that the loss really suffered could be assessed [6]. Weigel replied from Wrocław on 14 October 1830 and sent the mortgage certificate and the court valuation of 1803. By the certificate the estates were worth 160000 Reichstaler and by the valuation 128917; the entries ranking before his came to 48166, so that on either figure his claim of 63100 was covered [7]. On 27 November 1830 Lubecki answered that the valuation dated from 1803, a time of inflated land prices, and that the claim must be reckoned by the present value of land, because the last judgment in Weigel’s case was given in 1826 and only from then could he have sought execution. He would wait for the new valuation [8].

After the rising. On 14 December 1831 the head of the finance commission wrote to Schmidt that he had ordered the commission to hasten the valuation of Trąbczyn and to examine how well Weigel’s capital was secured on it. He added that the special authority which the Emperor had given Lubecki to treat with Weigel could serve no one else, and that he had taken steps to remove that obstacle [9]. The letter is signed “R. Fuhrmann” on the scan. On 13 March 1832 Engel informed Schmidt that Józef Lubowidzki, president of the Bank of Poland, had been charged with carrying out the convention of 29 May 1830 between the two governments and was also authorised to settle the questions arising from Weigel’s claim [10]. On 20 March 1832 Fuhrmann reported that the Commission of Finance and Treasury had on 29 February charged Drake, a commissioner in the department of state domains, with valuing the Trąbczyn estates, and that the work would take some time [11].

The scans end with that letter. They do not show whether Weigel was paid.

Form and language

The letters to Schmidt are the originals he received, with the letterhead of the Kingdom’s foreign affairs or the signature and address of the sender; Engel’s letter is a copy. The three pieces exchanged between Lubecki and Weigel are copies. Beside each of Lubecki’s Polish letters stands a German translation of the time, written in a second column; it is not transcribed here.

Related holdings

The first volume of the same file, 1818 to 1827, with Miączyńska’s claim against Prussia and the judgments against the creditors: III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12366. The claim of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen and his heirs to be compensated for the same estates, 1814 to 1820, kept by the same ministry: III. HA MdA, III Nr. 12765. The grant of 1796: Oe 1 Bü 14525 and I. HA GR, Rep. 7 C, Nr. 3570. The letters of the Prince’s agent Triebenfeld, which follow the loans from Grotowski and Weigel: Oe 1 Bü 9454.

Scans

The archive photographed fourteen images from the volume: the cover, twelve single pages and one opening of two facing pages. The opening has writing on both sides and was cut at its fold into two pages. The edition has 15 pages and the cover.

Transcription

The editor supplied the transcription as one text. The French and Polish documents are written paragraph by paragraph and not line by line; Weigel’s German letter follows the lines of the manuscript. The text was divided to match the pages: where a paragraph runs over a page turn it is cut there. The opening holds the whole of Weigel’s letter and the beginning of the letter that answers it, which starts partway down the right-hand page.

Division into documents

Each letter is one document, eleven in all. Dates are taken from each document’s own dateline. The letters from the Russian side are dated in both calendars, and the western date is used. Two private notes carry no date and are left undated.

Corrections

An AI model (Claude) compared the whole transcription with the scans and corrected it where the page is plain and the corrected form is a word that fits its sentence. 63 passages were corrected, most of them typing slips; many of the corrections in the two Polish letters and in the two hurried notes change more than one word. The German translation written beside each Polish letter served as a check on the Polish. Each change is logged with its reason. The writers’ own spelling was kept, and the Polish keeps the spelling of its time. Three names stand in the editor’s usual form where the scribe spells them otherwise.

Signatures

The editor asked whose signature stands under four of the documents. It is that of Baron Mohrenheim, written out in full on the first letter and shortened on the others, down to the single initial M; the same flourish closes all four. It is given on each page as it stands there, with the abbreviated title filled in between square brackets. On one note the transcription had left out the signature and the word “Mardi” (Tuesday) beneath the text; both were added from the scan. The signature of the letters of December 1831 and March 1832 reads “R. Fuhrmann” on the scans and is not part of the transcription. The signature of the letter of 29 September 1830 has not been read: it is a short word under a heavy stroke, and it is neither Mohrenheim’s nor Fuhrmann’s as they sign elsewhere in the file.

Summaries

The summaries were written in German from a reading of each document against its scan, and translated into English. Each statement in them was then checked against its document, under the same rules as the separate check that the summaries of other holdings received: a summary may say only what the document says. One sentence of the German was weakened: the minister of finance ordered the estates to be valued on the spot, but the valuation was not yet made, as his second letter shows.

Translation

The documents were translated into English in a working session under the same rules as the other holdings: every figure, name and mark of doubt carried across, names in the edition’s settled forms where it has settled them and otherwise as the page spells them, and passages that do not read left visibly doubtful rather than smoothed. Each letter was translated from its own language: the French letters from the French, the two Polish letters from the Polish, and Weigel’s reckoning from the German, with its sums in thalers and groschen as he gives them. The dateline “Tuesday” of Mohrenheim’s second note had been attached to the following letter by mistake; it was put back at the foot of the note, where it is written, before the translation. The same automatic check as elsewhere then confirmed that every figure and every mark of doubt survives into the English.

Still to do

The German translations beside the two Polish letters are not transcribed, by the editor’s decision: the Polish is given, and that is enough. The addresses at the foot of several letters are not transcribed either. At the editor’s request the end of Mohrenheim’s second note was read again on enlargements of the scan: its last sentence is now given as it stands on the page, and the line written sideways in its margin has been added and is set apart on the page. Two words of that line are doubtful and marked so.