Leibniz
P.S. You also requested news of your friend Princess Eleanor and her daughter Princess Caroline. I have met them in Berlin; little Caroline is just as charming as you claimed, and just as intelligent. Eleanor has been betrothed to the Elector of Saxony, who is an ogre straight out of a f?ry-tale, and who has a mistress reputed to be even worse. The best place to send letters to them will probably be the Electoral court at Dresden.
Eliza to Samuel de la Vega
5 MAY 1692
Here is how peculiar France is: They are calling people Jews who have no trace of Jewishness. It is a long story, of which I’ll tell you more if we ever see each other again. It put me in mind of Amsterdam, where there are to be found Jews who really are Jews—a much more logical arrangement!
That is not my only reason for writing to you. For some years I have made little effort to follow the commodities markets in Amsterdam, as, from the remove of Versailles, it it impossible to do this competently. Lately, however, I have taken a position in silver. The details are unimportant. Suffice it to say that I must needs be alert to any moves in the silver market that may occur in the first half of June. My sources of information are not what they once were, and so I am reduced to the estate of a little girl with her nose pressed against the glass; I must judge the trends in the market by observing the behavior of larger and better-informed players.
Though the House of Hacklheber is not the largest, it is probably the best-informed concern in metals. Accordingly, I have resolved to take my cues from them. It would be of great significance to me if the Hacklhebers were suddenly to remove a large quantity (a few tons) of silver from their Amsterdam warehouse. You know where it is. If my guess is correct, the bullion would be transferred directly to a ship on the Ijsselmeer.
Can you spare someone to keep an eye on the Hacklhebers’ warehouse? As time draws nearer, I shall supply more precise information as to the exact time at which the transfer might occur. The information that I shall require is as follows: the name of the ship carrying the bullion and a complete description of her sail plan, &c., so that she may be identified from a distance, as well as the date and time of her departure from Amsterdam.
In coming weeks, I’ll be moving around quite a bit, and so there is little point in your trying to guess my whereabouts. Rather, you should send the particulars to me in care of my good friend and confidant, Captain Jean Bart, of Dunkerque. Captain Bart is a trustworthy fellow; there is no need (and there shall be no time!) to encrypt the message. You know more than I about getting messages out fast, so I’ll hold my tongue where that is concerned; but I am guessing you’ll want to send riders out from Amsterdam to Scheveningen and there transfer the message to a fast boat, Dunkerque-bound. There should be plenty of time to arrange this; but if you want help setting up the boat, just inform Captain Bart.
I think I have given you enough information now that you shall be able to place bets of your own in the silver market, which are likely to profit you; but if, when all is said and done, you have spent more than you have gained, forward your complaints to me in St.-Malo and they’ll not fall on deaf ears.
Eliza
Eliza to the Marquis of Ravenscar
15 MAY 1692
Your Grace’s recent letter to me was so courteous as to put the lucubrations of these French flatterers to shame. I must warn you, however, that en route it must have fallen into the hands of some mischievous boy, who added a very rude postscript.
It was most considerate of you to answer all of my silly questions about the Mint. As you must have surmised, I do have in mind taking part in a transaction that will only profit me if the price of silver should happen to rise late in the month of May. I only hope and pray that all of the silver in London is not bought up in the meantime! I tell you this in confidence, my lord, not wishing that you, who have been so forward in assisting me, should suffer any reverses in consequence of what I am about to do. Know, then, that to be in possession of a large quantity of silver, in London, late in the month of May, would be no bad thing. But do you make your purchases discreetly, lest you touch off a buying panic that would drive up the price to absurd heights. For if people see that the Marquis of Ravenscar is selling gold to buy silver, they will assume he is privy to something, and flock to Threadneedle Street to follow his example. While you might admittedly profit from such a speculative bubble by selling into it at the peak (by no means later than the middle of June), it would cause any amount of disturbance and trouble to the current Government; which I am certain you, a good English patriot, should prefer to avoid, even if you are a Whig and that government be run by the Tories.
Eliza
Eliza to Samuel Bernard
18 MAY 1692