ithout heirs male.

This will was sent to be proved, according to form, at Vienna, after
having been authenticated in the most legal manner in Hungary. The court
called Hofkriegsrath, at Vienna, neglected to provide a curator for the
security of the next heir; yet this could not annul my right of
succession. When Trenck succeeded his father, he entered no protest to
this, his father's will; therefore, dying without children, in the year
1749, my claim was indisputable. I was heir had he made no will: and
even in case of confiscation, my title to his father's estates still
remained valid.

Trenck knew this but too well: he, as I have before related, was my worst
enemy, and even attempted my life. I will therefore proceed to show the
real intent of this his crafty testament.

Determined no longer to live in confinement, or to ask forgiveness, by
which, it is well known, he might have obtained his freedom, having lost
all hopes of reimbursing his losses, his avarice was reduced to despair.
His desire of fame was unbounded, and this could no way be gratified but
by having himself canonized for a saint, after spending his life in
committing all the ravages of a pandour. Hence originated the following
facts:--

He knew I was the legal claimant to his father's estates. His father had
bought with the family money, remitted from Prussia, the lordships of
Prestowacz and Pleternitz, in Sclavonia, and he himself, during his
father's life, and with his father's money, had purchased the lordship of
Pakratz, for forty thousand florins: this must therefore descend also to
me, he having no more power to will this from me, than he had the
remainder of his paternal inheritance. The property he himself had
gained was consigned to administrators, but a hundred thousand florins
had been expended in lawsuits, and sixty-three suits continued actually
pending against him in court; the legacies he bequeathed amounted to
eighty thousand florins. These, he saw, could not be paid, should I
claim nothing more than the paternal inheritance; he, therefore, to
render me unfortunate after his death, craftily named me his universal
heir, without mentioning his father's will, but endeavoured, by his
mysterious death, and the following conditions, to enforce the execution
of his own will.

First,--I was to become a Catholic.

Secondly,--I was to serve only the house of Austria; and,

Lastly,--He made his whole estate, without excepting the