which I shall put into execution without giving any warning to the
Venetian Government.

"In future all goods for Lombardy will be embarked here and disembarked
at Mezzola without troubling the Republic. Mezzola is in the territories
of the Duke of Modem; a ship can cross the gulf in the night, and our
goods will be placed in storehouses, which will be erected.

"In this way we shall shorten the journey and decrease the freights, and
the Modenese Government will be satisfied with a trifling sum, barely
equivalent to a fourth of what we pay to Venice.

"In spite of all this, I feel sure that if the Venetian Government wrote
to the Austrian Council of Commerce expressing their willingness to take
two per cent henceforth, the proposal would be accepted, for we Austrians
dislike novelties.

"I shall not lay the matter before the Town Council for four or five
days, as there is no hurry for us; but you had better make haste, that
you may be the first to inform your Government of the matter.

"If everything goes as I should wish I hope to receive an order from
Vienna suspending the decree just as I am about to make it public."

Next morning the governor was delighted to hear that everything had been
finished before midnight. He assured me that the consul should not have
official information before Saturday. In the meanwhile the consul's
uneasy state of mind was quite a trouble to me, for I could not do
anything to set his mind at ease.