A Knyphausen Adventure

[mildred_of_midgard]

mildred_of_midgard came across some letters from Tido von Knyphausen, older brother of Peter von Keith's wife Oriane, and pieced together some episodes in his life.

Oriane had one older brother who died as a baby, and one older brother, Tido Friedrich, of whom Wikipedia simply says "Went to Batavia." Batavia was in the Dutch East Indies, modern day Jakarta in Indonesia.




The information that he went to Batavia comes from a pamphlet from an English merchant in Bengal, written in 1783.

According to this pamphlet, Tido was a lieutenant in Prussian service. In 1742 or 1743 (but what context makes rapidly clear was 1741), Fritz fought his first battle. Fellow salongoers, this is Mollwitz. Fritz "took fright, and made a very un-soldier-like retreat; and was five leagues from the scene of action, when his General"--Cahn, this is Schwerin--"who commanded, recalled him, with the news of his enemies having been entirely routed."

These events inspired Tido to write a severe satire. When Fritz found out, he had Tido arrested. Tido got the sentinel who was guarding him to flee the country with him, and they ended up in the Netherlands. Despairing of a pardon, Tido joined the Dutch East India Company. The General of Batavia had some knowledge of the Knyphausen family and strongly recommended him. As a result, Tido was sent abroad, and ended up in Batavia (modern-day Jakarta, in Indonesia).

The merchant then goes on to say that this account may be a complete tall tale, because, "I had it from the Baron [Tido] himself; not in private conversation, but in very large and public companies; where, in an ostentatious display of his own great power and abilities, he constantly convinced his audience, that whatever might be his character as a merchant, as a politician, he was entirely free from the shackles imposed by virtue, christianity, and morality."

I realized that I'm in possession of some copies of handwritten letters by Tido, and I proceeded to decipher them.

The first letter is from June 1741. Tido's in the recently conquered Breslau, Silesia. Remember that Mollwitz was fought in April 1741. He's writing to his mother in a rather blase fashion, telling her that Fritz has written a letter to Colonel Münchow that reads:

Since Lieutenant von Knyphausen is in Breslau under the pretext of illness, have him brought there immediately and ordered to go to the city [??], and if he does not do so immediately, put him under arrest immediately and report to me.

But Tido kept insisting he was sick. The king's personal physician had to come and inspect him, and confirmed he did have a fever.

Tido's letter then carries on talking to his mother about horses, and ends on that note, like it's every day that the king threatens to have you arrested, and is not really worth worrying about, as long as you have a plausible excuse.

Then I don't have any more Knyphausen letters until November 1743 (I think that's a 3 in 1743), so we'll get back to the adventures of Tido, but after transcribing all these letters, it occurred to me that, much like Karl von Keith's duel, this *has* to be in Fritz's correspondence!

Sure enough, we get this letter from Fritz to Jordan in March 1742:

My dear Jordan, you will go to Madame de Knyphausen, and tell her that, after I have sufficiently informed her of my wishes on the subject of her son, whom she has made arrangements for despite my intentions, if she does not bring him back immediately, I will take revenge on her as an angry master who punishes a bad citizen who acts against the State. Announce my vengeance to her, and tell her that I have means in hand, more than she thinks, to make up for her unfaithfulness and her treason; that she has found a way to quarrel with everyone, and that in the end I am obliged to admit that the world is right; but that there are houses of correction for wicked women, just as there are places where bad citizens are sequestered. Farewell; be assured that I love you with all my heart.

This is the man who wanted Wilhelmine to lock up that journalist, all right.

Now, the timing and recipient of this letter are SO extremely interesting to me. Because you may recall that Jordan was Peter's go-between with Fritz in early 1742! In December 1741, Fritz wrote to Jordan that he would increase Peter's salary, and maybe now Peter would give him some peace.

Then in March, Fritz wrote the letter of fire and brimstone to Jordan about Peter's prospective mother-in-law (remember that Peter and Oriane are engaged, but won't get married until the summer).

Then in April 1741, Jordan wrote that Fritz had charged Jordan with a "commission" regarding Peter, which he had carried out. Jordan wrote that "This honest man would ask nothing better than to serve Your Majesty; but he would like not to be idle, at his age, while his friends are in the army; he regards his condition as a state of shame. He protests moreover that with his income he is not in a condition to live in Berlin, where indeed everything is very expensive."

The more I think about it, the more I think the "commission" was "Tell Peter he can't join the army, he's not getting any more money, and stop bothering me."

Then in May 1741, Jordan writes: "Madame Knyphausen is very sad to see that Keith, to whom she promised her eldest daughter, and whom she regarded as the future support of her family, is about to leave. I believe that she is seeking to retire to her estates in Ost-Friesland, and that she will ask permission. I will naturally confess to Your Mmajesty that I pity her fate. Keith cannot digest the mortification of remaining in Berlin while everyone else is in the army."

I didn't know that Fritz was so pissed off at Madame Knyphausen when Jordan wrote this! I knew he was annoyed with Peter, and that Jordan was being brave to take Keith's side, but wow.

Then in June, Jordan writes:

Knyphausen will go, I believe, to her estates; she continues to be ill. I pity her: not being well, having five daughters to marry, a son who is a vagabond, not being able to make arrangements for a man whom one would like to make one's son-in-law [Peter], there is in all this reason to be upset.

A little chronology reminder: the First Silesian War ends in June, and Peter's able to hold his head up in Berlin and marry Oriane in mid August.

Next up: what happened to Tido abroad, and how did he drag Peter into it?



The next letter from Tido, November 1743, is very melodramatic. It opens thus:

Madame,
My very dear and very honored mother,

Do not be offended, Madame, I beg you, that I dare to give you this name after all that I have done to lead you to no longer give me that of your son.

Someone's been disowned! Either that, or she's not writing to him, and he's extrapolating passive aggressively. (He's extremely passive aggressive, it's amazing. You'll see.)

Then he grovels, saying he was initially stubborn, but now that he's run out of money he sees the error of his ways, and repents! (He doesn't say anything about money at this point, but we'll get to that.) So much so that if she's not going to take him back into her good graces, he's going to roam the earth, seeking out danger, until he DIES, because that's obviously what she wants.

I have done everything possible to achieve this goal, but my example will prove to you, Madam, that although one may desire death, it is as eager to pursue those who avoid it as it is careful to flee those who seek it.

First he went to sea for three months, which was incredibly terrible and dangerous! But all his suffering only made him think that a sea voyage was the way to go. So he embarked on another ship at Marseilles, one bound for Martinique (yes, the one in the West Indies).

Unfortunately, his conscience, which weighed so heavily on him, combined with the storms to give him a high fever, so much so that he had to be put ashore at Valencia. A bad French surgeon gave up on him, but he recovered anyway! Slowly and painfully and he almost died.

Since the evil fate that stalks him wouldn't allow him to die, he decided to try *again* to go to America. He returned to Marseilles, but then he discovered that the army was going to try to cross the Alps.

"I know! That sounds dangerous! Just the place for me."

Google translated for speed, sorry for the clunkiness:

It would be out of place if I were to amuse myself by detailing this expedition to you at length, which would otherwise deserve it, but I could appear to want to arouse your compassion by stories that may be found exaggerated. I will be content to tell you a few words about our retreat, during which we were made to pass through the thickest snow of the most terrible mountains and precipices that nature has ever formed, while there was not a single soldier in the whole army who had not been absolutely fasting for at least twenty-four hours, by which you will see that it is rather difficult to decide whether it was hunger or cold that caused the death of three hundred and seventy-two soldiers and two officers of our small French army, and eight hundred soldiers and ninety-two officers of the Spanish army, on that single day.

It is impossible to determine the number of those who had frozen feet or hands, it goes beyond what you might imagine.

I do not know whether to call good or bad my destiny which made me survive so many evils, which I was perhaps less able to bear than any of those who succumbed to them, this reflection persuades me that Heaven, more favorable to me than I deserve, did not want me to lose this life, which I have so often prayed to take from me, in the bad dispositions in which I was, it pleased it (Heaven) to preserve me to give me time to beg you to remove from me your curse, which will not cease to pursue me and from which even death which I believed to be the only remedy for my evils could not have delivered me.

Then he blames the evil advisors for turning her against him.

Then he grovels some more.

Then in a postscript he sends his love to his brothers and sisters. Then he mentions having sent a message to Monsieur Girard regarding a reply that he hoped from her. At which I promptly went, "Ooohhh. Money is a problem!"

As we learned in the Leining letters, "Messrs Girard Michelet & Comp." were paying out d'Alembert's pension in Paris, which led us to conclude they were bankers or some such.

Well, subsequent letters will demonstrate that 1) I was right, money is *the* problem, 2) Monsieur Girard is deeply involved in these transactions, so yes.

In April 1744, Tido gets news that his mom has gotten him a position as a lieutenant in the Bavarian army. He's supposed to go to Lyon, where someone will equip him with a uniform, a horse, and everything else he needs to set out and join the Second Silesian War.

He is extremely astonished, as he thought she would put him in the French army, but okay! To Bavaria he will go! He thanks his mom effusively, and says that he will go to Lyon promptly. He will explain the delay to the colonel of his regiment by saying that he took a bad fall on his travels and can't set out just yet.

But then he gets to Lyon, and the person who was supposed to outfit him for the army claims to know nothing of the arrangement, and definitely isn't giving him stuff for free.

So then it's all letters to everybody asking for money, money, money!

He writes to somebody, I'm not sure whom, who has been a benefactor to him in the past, and whom he is surprised and pleased to find is now in Prussian service, asking him to please use his influence with Mom to get him out of "the cruel embarrassment into which her manner of acting, which I dare call unreasonable, has plunged me."

Then my least favorite words, "I won't bore you with the complete detail of everything she's done in regard to me."

Me: No! Bore him! Historians centuries hence need to know!

BUT, he goes on to say, "I wrote the complete detail in a letter to Mr. de Keith two years ago, and I asked him to communicate everything to you. I'll content myself with saying that, unbeknownst to me, having received the position of lieutenant, without doubt due to his/her solicitation..." And then he recounts his financial situation and the difficulties he ran into at Lyon.

I'm assuming "Mr. de Keith" is Peter, because there aren't *that* many Keiths in Berlin; George and James hadn't arrived in 1742 (and still haven't in 1744); and what other Keith would you write to to try to get your mom to send you money, if not the man your sister just married?

So that happens, and eventually he ends up in Germany with the Bavarian army, but only at great personal expense and after having to "call in sick" multiple times the colonel.

Then in August he writes a letter from Altstadt, to what I believe is a Monsieur de Kraut, saying that Kraut has always had a lot of influence with Mom, can he please get her to send him the same monthly allowance he used to get when he was in the Prussian army, this is completely unreasonable. Lots of detail on how much things cost. Some military detail, and how he's been lucky to escape unwounded.

Mr. de Kraut forwards the letter to Mom and says, "I got this letter from your son, and I didn't want to reply without your permission and without knowing what your intentions are."

-- Kind of what I feel Peter did too.

And that's all the letters I have from Tido (though I may add in more detail as I remember more and/or reread; I'm going largely from memory here).

There's one letter from Monsieur Girard, sent from Lyon in June 1741, which I've only partially read, because his handwriting is so *weird*, plus long loops on every letter that cover the line below it, so all the writing is partially obscured. What I was able to make out without putting in too much effort didn't make it look like it was worth the effort of mastering his handwriting right now, but it looks like it might have a better explanation of the financial troubles Tido ran into in Lyon.

Anyway! This is all from Tido for now, until some English merchant who doesn't like him writes about him in 1783. (Wikipedia tells me Tido died in 1780.)

ETA: Oh, right, I forgot his suicide threat!

I let her know by Mr. de Keith that however far I am from making new and unpleasant business with her, that I am nevertheless very resolved to take a course in which I will listen only to my despair, if she does not want to grant me my necessities.


Now it's time to quote extensively from "Five Letters From a Free Merchant in Bengal to Warren Hastings."

According to this website:

"Five Letters from a Free Merchant in Bengal to Warren Hastings" was a pamphlet published in 1783 from London by Captain Joseph Price. Joseph Price as the title of the pamphlet was a free merchant, who operated alongside the East India Company in India. Joseph Price went to India in 1750, to trade on his own behalf from the Asian ports. Initially based in Bombay, Price later shifted to Calcutta in 1767. Price's trade extended when he took over the business of Richard Gregory another free merchant. Once his fortunes declined, Price returned back to India in 1780 trying to settle with his creditors. It was in Britain that Price made his name as a pamphleteer. Between 1782-83 he published as many as fourteen pamphlets, including "Five Letters from a Free Merchant in Bengal to Warren Hastings". Price came back to Indian in 1784 as marine storekeeper. In 1786 he was promoted to marine paymaster. Price continued his trade till 1793, when he sent back. Price died in 1796.

He writes about Tido's time in "Bussorah", which Wikipedia tells me is Basra, a port city in modern-day Iraq.

Here's what Joseph Price has to say about Baron Tido von Knyphausen.

(Note that a factory in a place of manufacture, as we use the term today, but a collective of merchants with its own bylaws, hospital, cemetery, chaplain, and chapel.)

It was a maxim with the Baron, that the Dutch and English factory flags should never fly in sight of each other. But the English were not the rivals of the Dutch at Bussorah. The former had neither sugar nor spice to send there; the latter brought very little else. The Baron's story has been made up since his expulsion: And the Dutch at Batavia, have their ears ever open to believe any disadvantageous story of their rivals in trade. The Baron, who used truth or falshood in his narratives, as best suited his purpose, laid the blame of the treatment he received from the Turkish government, entirely to the account of the English, as with intent to cover the real cause of his expulsion. The truth is this; the Baron was a man of great intrigue, and had a very high opinion of his own abilities in the service of the fair. His vanity often prompted him to boast of favours he never received. It is not easy for a European, and a Christian, in so conspicuous a situation, as that in which the Baron acted at Bussorah, to negociate for himself, in affairs which lead to an intimate intercourse with Mahometan ladies. The law positively forbids such commerce, even with the meanest of the people, and a discovery is very fatal to both parties.

Knyphausen's ambition led him to seek an intimacy with Duchesses and Lady Marys; and the pimps of Bussorah, like their brethren in all other parts of the world, promise Junos, though they deal in clouds. One of those honest men taught the Baron to believe, that the young spouse of a rich old Turkish merchant, sighed for his embraces. Secret passages, trap doors, and every other apparatus of intrigue, was prepared at the Dutch factory. Hush money was in golden showers advanced; and a trained goddess from the public stews, was conducted with great mystery to the Baron's arms. The art of the well taught courtezan, her fine clothes, which had been procured by the Baron's bounty, together with his ignorance in the Turkish and Arabian languages, enabled the pimp and drab to impose on him for some time.

But nothing could secure him from the effects of his own absurd vanity. He puffed of his success so often, and so publicly, that the Cadies Officers got intelligence of the intrigue. The factory was surrounded, and the happy pair taken together. The Baron was confined, the Lady drummed with ignominy round the town, and the Pimp lost his nose and ears. I have several times since seen the miserable mutilated wretch, imploring charity from the passengers in the public way.

Whether the Baron received a bambooing or not, I really do not remember; but I know that the English Resident, interested himself extremely with the government, to prevent so disgraceful and painful an application, to the feet of a national Resident. Be that as it may, it cost the Baron large sums to make the matter up, and obtain his release. He was however, at length discharged, went to Batavia, and had art enough to procure some ships of force, with which he returned to the Gulf of Persia; landed on the Island of Carrack, and sent his ships to block up the entrance to Bussorah River; laid the government under contribution, as well as the foreign merchants; and for a time interrupted the trade of the port; and obtained repayment of the money which had been forced from him, with large premium.

Then Joseph recounts Tido having more adventures in a province formerly belonging to Persia, intriguing, getting involved in coups, etc.

In the archives, there is a document or set of documents concerning "The arrest of Baron Tido Friedrich zu Inn- und Knyphausen at the request of his mother." I am planning to attempt to get a copy of this document.