 Welcome back, everyone. And if you're just joining us now, welcome to the symposium. We're going to kick off our second speaker's paper now. So our second speaker is Dr. Lukas Hassis from the University of Oldenburg. And Lukas is a postdoctoral researcher and research coordinator of the UK-German collaborative project prize papers. The prize papers project is part of the German Academies Programme of the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities. It is based at the University of Oldenburg in Germany and the National Archives of the UK. Lukas's research focuses on 18th century mercantile culture, Hamburg merchants, letter writing practices, materiality studies and praxicological approaches in historiography and global micro history. Lukas is also a lecturer of early modern history at the University of Oldenburg. His book, The Power of Persuasion, becoming a merchant in the 18th century. A micro historical study of the establishment phase of a Hamburg wholesale merchant in the year 1744 to 1745 will be published in January 2021. So without further ado, Lukas, I will hand over to you. Thank you, Anna. I now have to screen. Can you see the presentation there? So I can see a Word document. No, that's wrong. That's wrong. Wait a second. I'm sorry about that. That's okay. The perils of Zoom conferencing. Yes. Once again. There we go. Now I can see your presentation. Putting boundaries. That is good. Once again, thank you, Anna and Greg for the invitation. Putting boundaries mercantile strategy and the benefits of maritime neutrality for a Hamburg merchant in France 1744. In May 1746, the merchant Anthony Lutkens appeared before the British High Court of Enreality in London. Lutkens, a resident of the city of London, but with German roots was acting on behalf of his nephew, the Hamburg merchant Anton Lutkens who have a year ago had suffered the loss of one of his merchant ships through an English privateer. The ship Les Pérons was assessed by the English ship of war during its voyage from Brest to Hamburg. It was suspected to be carrying French goods, therefore considered legitimate war loo during a time when England was at war with France during the war of the Austrian succession. Sitting in court in May 1746 Lutkens task was, however, to protest the confiscation of the ship. Lutkens was instructed by the ship owner to argue that the ship and its goods were actually of a lawful point of origin from Hamburg. Hence ship and goods would represent rightfully and truly property not of the French enemy of the British Crown, but on the contrary of a neutral trading partner, the free and imperious city of Hamburg. Thus, in turn, the generality would be nothing less than obligated to re-deliver the loot to Hamburg. In the ensuing proceedings referring to the ship in its alleged original German name, Die Hoffnung, Lutkens challenge was to convince the generality board of an unlawful appropriation of neutral property and his allegation would indeed prove successful. He presented supposedly clear evidence of the neutral status of the ship, as well as its goods. One example of which being the ship's sales contract, another the bill of lading, and finally he provided the court with the ship owners Hamburg passport denoting him as a legal citizen of the imperial city of Hamburg. The official experts investigating the case did not lack experience. Philip Stevens, Secretary of the Admiralty and Proctor for the Captors, and Philip champion Chris beanie proctor for the claimants. However, in this case, they never let them nevertheless felt for a trick or rather the overwhelming burden of written legal proof left them with no other option than to finally release the ship. Ultimately, the ship Die Hoffnung was restored and it would proceed on its voyage to Hamburg. This outcome notwithstanding the case left the English with a bit of an unpleasant aftertaste. Thus, it was likely not without reason that the British authorities eventually kept at least one part of the share of the spoils, one particular piece of evidence. Before proceedings, there had been one name that appeared repeatedly in regard to both the ship and its goods, a rather fantastical figure who was somehow involved, but still not individual libel in any of the legal matters. The active person in question was the wholesale merchant Nikolaus Gottlieb Lütgens. And the item the English kept is his complete business and letter archive found hidden among the cargo of the ship. And that with good reason, Nikolaus Gottlieb happened to be the registered lease holder of the ship Die Hoffnung, the hope. Furthermore, he was also the brother of said Anton Lütgens. Living and trading for several months in the French town of Brest, in the house of the French merchant Roudin as a commission agent for French goods while being on a business trip through France. So it came as no surprise that Stevens as and Crespigny were slightly suspicious regarding the involvement of this merchant in that case. However, they did not find any irregularities in the documents contradicting the presented pieces of evidence. Their suspicions would not engender further consequences. And with this failure, they, their verdict became a tragic error, because it was indeed Nikolaus Gottlieb Lütgens, who actually cheated the British authorities in May 7046. And how we succeeded in this regard is the general subject of my paper today as a vivid example of Hamburg merchant's mercantile strategies and their gray zone practices in mid 18th century Atlantic trade. The decisive background story starts at the beginning of the year 7044, when Lütgens decided to write a confidential letter to his younger brother, Anton Lütgens. This letter apparently must have slipped by the court proceedings, just as the following letters between Nikolaus Gottlieb and his correspondence. It was a shame for Stevens and Crespigny, who just missed out on understanding the situation they were dealing with, but a stroke of luck for an historian investigating Hamburg commercial involvement at a time when the colonial powers cornered the world's trading markets and Hamburg merchants supposedly were forced to play the second fiddle. In my research, which will be presented in the book, The Power of Persuasion, I therefore enjoyed the privilege of being able to analyze this extensive letter archive of Lütgens, which still stored as a former piece of evidence at the UK National Archives in Kew. This archive, in turn, is allowing me to revise research tendency towards a marginalization of Hamburg participation on the international stage of business in the 18th century. In my paper today, during the process of uncovering Lütgens master's stroke for court, I will present two of several activities through which Hamburg merchants successfully participated in Atlantic trade and international business, decidedly benefiting from their neutral role in a contemporary world of conflict. Based on a thick description of what I shall from here on term, an operation of brotherly endorsement, realized via correspondence, I will illustrate the strategies, the legal limbo, the subtleties and the contingencies of commercial trade and shipping business. These two decisive ways through which the anti-addict merchants entered the Atlantic sales markets, literally through the back door. On the words of another Hamburg merchant Bartolt Herzog, these special ways with which the hamburgers could fill their bags with species taller, but none of which are ordinary money bags, but rather heavy hop and sake grain bags that almost crick their bags. The prerequisite for Lütgens deception of the board of the British Admiralty is the same as a prerequisite for the voice activities and commission trade and shipping business. It is the mercantile commitment to a distinctive skillful and particularly shrewd letter writing practice. The correspondence brought the word to a merchant's desk, why that happened, how that could happen and what effects it had on Hamburg trade activities. The first subject of my presentation, it will then set the stage on which the specific features of the operation of brotherly endorsement become clear and significant. In the second part, I shall subsequently present an alternative story of the events preceding the court proceedings in May 7046. Tending to correspondence was a pressing demand and an ordinary fact of life for every merchant. It remained the backbone of European long distance trade. For Hamburg merchants, the judgment of Francesca Trevellato regarding the role of correspondence during the 18th century is of particular significance. Why is that the case? In the 18th century, the most lucrative, the core business of a wholesale merchant was the wholesale trade with colonial goods. Thus, Hamburg merchants were faced with a problem. Due to the protectionist and mercantilist policies and restrictions by the colonial powers of the century, Lütgens traveled and traded in France. They were legally strictly forbidden to trade directly with the colonies. Therefore, also the direct access to sugar, coffee or tobacco sales markets was denied to them. So they had to find alternative ways and routes to trade in these goods. With these alternative routes, however, they became very successful. What did they do? What did they do? Literally drawing from the motto, when to crevel the third rejoices, Hamburg advocated and put effort into staying out of any acts of war between the colonial powers. Over centuries, Hamburg persisted in its neutrality in international politics, sticking solely to trade activities. And by doing so, they opened the floor to the colonial powers to cooperate with them, and likewise to benefit from a trading partner that contributed and commercial customer without simultaneously strengthening the power of the colonial enemies of the time. Hamburg merchants were welcomed in the markets of France, the Dutch Republic or Britain, legally secured through special commercial treatises like the peace treaty and commercial treaty of 1716 between France and Hamburg. The Elbe City became one of the number one importing harbours of the time. Thus, by making a virtue out of necessity, the Hamburg merchants were following a second motto. If their access to the Atlantic world was restricted, then they would simply wait for its products to arrive at their market store steps. Hamburg merchants established a dense network, supply and support between Hamburg and the mainland shipment supports of Atlantic trade, so Bordeaux, Anand, Brest, Bilbao, Saint-Sébastien, London, Amsterdam. Within these cities, their role became that of logistic intermediaries. One of their main areas of operation therefore became commission trade. That is, as commission agents, they accepted or sold goods for the account of other merchants, but in their own name. Thus, the benefits were clear. That way, the Hamburgers could legally bypass the colonial restrictions and access the markets of sugar, coffee and tobacco indirectly, making profit from the commission fees and at the same time, they could offer very broad product range. The colonial powers on the other hand enjoyed the advantage of having a wider distribution area, e.g. through the Baltic area or the hinterlands of the Holy Roman Empire. And with regard to the export sector in general, through the reclassification of their goods as neutral goods, they even had the opportunity to cross colonial borders. So Lutkens, for instance, traded and transported French and English goods at the same time, which directly leads us to the second main area of Hamburg trade participation, the shipping industry. Hamburg merchants were highly active as private entrepreneurs in the sale, purchase and hiring of merchant ships, with which yet again they made these bad fellows with their bourbon neighbors, who suffered greatly due to the uncertainty of international waters with regard to the privateering activities of their enemies. The Hamburg merchants provided a logistic infrastructure that was relatively, relatively safe. Hamburg ships maneuvered relatively freely between the different territories controlled by the various naval powers. In short, on the North or European playing field of the colonial maritime sector, the Hamburgers became wildcards. Put together the two fields of operation evoke a clear picture of the role and integration of Hamburg merchants in international business. By no means do they appear to be mere victims of their circumstances, but quite on the contrary, they definitely made the best out of their situation, using existing legal loopholes and mercantile strategies to trade in order to transport colonial goods. And by doing so, furthermore with their commission trade activity and shipping industry, they acted as, in my opinion, as no less than the friction reducing lubricant of Atlantic markets. There is however one final limitation and requirement coming back to travel out as assessment. Hamburg merchants had to spend a great deal of their time at the merchants desk. In the Hamburg case correspondence was not only the backbone of trade, it allowed them access to trade in the first place. Letter writing became the core activity in trade business because most of their business was settled on paper. Containing a French, the Hamburg French long distance network as well as carrying out commission trade and being profitable in shipping industry it all relied heavily and first and foremost on doing the paperwork. The loophole of Hamburg participation in trade activity was as simple as it was ingenious and obvious it was letter writing. The merchants transcended boundaries, undermined limitation and crossed borders via mail. They let the paper speak and thereby literally brought the world into the offices and to the desk. The question where Nikolaus Gottlieb Lütkens would find a suitable place to plan this mercantile undertakings should now be foreseeable. Most definitely, the operation of brotherly endorsement originated from a private chamber in a French merchant house in Bordeaux in 1944 in March, equipped with quill pen and paper in secrecy, Lütkens devised his plot to trick the English. This episode will show the complexities and still the imponderable factors of Hamburg commission trade and shipping industry. It will reveal how Hamburg merchants cope with the potential risks and uncertainties of the activities during concrete realization. It will show the power of correspondence and the power of persuasion by group perspectives. In the spring of 7044, Nikolaus Gottlieb Lütkens traded in Bordeaux as a commission agent in the French German house of Biedmann and Amber. During this time, he primarily dealt with French sugar. As it happened in April 7044, he planned to send 20 barrels of Martinique sugar to Hamburg in the name of the German Dutch house of Herzl and van Boebert in Hamburg. For this purpose, he took a six-part share in the French ship La Dominienne. The other parts of the ship carrying 40 more barrels of sugar were held by the French merchants, the Chigarizien, and Biedmann and Amber. The ship departed, but on its way to Hamburg, it was captured by the English. A month later, in London, appearing before the Admiralty Court, grandfather Anthony Lütkens, whose name already sounds familiar to us, represented him before court. In the interest of the other partial owners of the ship, Nikolaus Gottlieb asked his grandfather in the letter to try his best to reclaim the whole 60 barrels of sugar. So not only the 20 barrels of sugar. On the 8th of May, his answer arrived stating, so the answer of Anthony Lütkens in London, if it would be the case, of which I'm not perfectly sure about at this moment, that all of these 60 barrels of sugar would name Herzl and van Boebert as well-known certificated Hamburg citizens as their original owners, the prospects of getting the goods back would be promising. His grandson got the rather obvious hint. Without further ado, all the sugar was re-labeled as Hamburg property. This was done in accordance with Herzl and van Boebert, who of course, clearly accepted the offer. Respectively, in their own letter in June, they thanked Nikolaus Gottlieb for grasping the opportunity to take all the commissions for the Chigarizien, and Biedmann and Amber, too. The respective bills of lading were received by Anthony Lütkens in June 1744. The result was that the reclamation of the goods now labeled as neutral Hamburg goods proved successful. The sugars were released for further transport. Within this episode, the aforementioned advantages of Hamburg commission trade become obvious. However, as the crucial factor of the practical implementation of the operation, the writing reveals itself with its power and its malleability as the decisive instrument forging and controlling the activity, the Hamburg lubricant masterly did its duty. This success notwithstanding with this episode, one issue still remains. As luck would have it, the English did free the cargo, but they kept the Schibler dominion, due to it being a French ship. The transshipment of goods was inevitably delayed. Even Nikolaus Gottlieb was powerless. At this stage of his life, he himself was unfortunately not yet in possession of a Hamburg citizenship, and only such a Hamburg large citizenship and passport would have enabled him to act legally as a neutral merchant. For the English authorities without a passport, he therefore clearly was conducting French shipping business, which meant in turn that again in the words of Herzer, the English were right in confiscating your ship, since you are staying and trading as a resident of France, enemy of England. This was a great pity. Accordingly, his grandfather in London admonished him strongly desiring that Nikolaus Gottlieb would eventually become a Hamburg citizen with an attested passport that classifies him as a neutral hamburger and a Protestant. The problem however was that Nikolaus Gottlieb Lütkens already had other plans, namely to stay in France. Nonetheless, he would find a solution to the situation and actually learn from his mistakes. Two days after receiving the root reminder from his grandfather, he wrote a letter to his brother in Hamburg, Anton Lütkens. Anton happened to be a merchant apprentice, 20 years old, working in the house of Lüer Lüers in Hamburg. Therefore, the letter to Anton was enclosed in a letter to his master, Lüer Lüers. In the letter to his brother, Nikolaus Gottlieb revealed his plans, writing the following impressively telling sentence. Since I'm not yet a citizen of Hamburg and I'm on voyage and because of terminal of war, which all leads to the consequence that my ships could be in danger and ideas springs to my mind. How about if you, my dear brother would become a citizen of Hamburg instead and would sell you and I would sell you all of the ships and ships parts that I'm holding at the moment, performer course. I would therefore draft a notarial contract issued in Hamburg, certifying that you are the original true and real holder of the ships. At the same time, however, I would borrow the parts back from you, but you will nevertheless be paid a reasonable easing rate. Anyhow, if God forbid any of the ships should be taken, you could legally pledge on your Hamburg passport and we will get the ships back. Your profit would be 2100 mark in two years without doing anything. It's a very sophisticated strategy. At the same time, speaking from the perspective of Anton in Hamburg, what sounds like a proposal was actually clean. Anton had no other choice than to agree, since his master was simultaneously receiving a letter with the same wording. Still, the offer was lucrative for Anton. In his response letter, he thanked his brother accordingly for the generous offer. Anton's Hamburg passport was issued within days by the Hamburg Senate. Furthermore, all of the ships of Nikolaus Gottlieb-Bürttgen's nine ships in total were signed over to Anton and become notoriously attested as lawful Hamburg property. Every single one of the ship sales contracts was reissued. Helzand von Boebert congratulated Nikolaus Gottlieb in the next letter with a pronouncement from now on all problems should be solvable and their opinion should prove entirely right. All of the ships that Nikolaus Gottlieb bought in the following years will immediately receive the owner's name of his brother Anton and therefore stay relatively safe on international waters. He himself in turn nevertheless remained a French resident for the next one and a half years without a hand up passport, leaving him the opportunity to search for a place of settlement in France. Again, what becomes clear in this episode is that also the Hamburg shipping industry, its pitfalls, correspondence therefore provided an accurate foundation to overcome these difficulties or in Lutken's own words, they helped to create facts that accurately quote, feed the greedy hungry mouth of his counterparts, a statement which should ultimately become especially true in the case of one very special ship. But in 1744 in Bilbao, as an originally English ship that was taken by the Spanish, the ship also immediately became part of the operation of brotherly endorsement. Thus, the ship operated without disruption for almost a year. In the meantime, however, the ship would change its name from Le Bretagne to D'Hoffnum and Les Barons and her later fate is already well known to us. The German in between us. In May 1746, Steven's and Crespigny and the British High Court of Royalty fell victim to a very common form of trickery in the sea business of the 18th century. In contemporary German mercantile literature, this willy strategy was listed under the term of Luchendreirein, defining the mercantile strategy of providing false or dubious passports, flags and bills of lading for merchant ships in order to circumvent capture. However, in the case of the Lutkens brothers, things were not that simple. The main profiteer and mastermind of the whole situation was surely Nicolas Gottlieb Lutkens, a merchant trading and shipping from a French port without possessing a neutral Hamburg passport. However, the documents Anton, Anthony Lutkens presented to the British High Court of Royalty had been all in all legally valid and binding sealed by the authority of the Hamburg Senate. So how can we evaluate the situation. In my opinion, the operation of brotherly endorsement ultimately delivers a textbook example of how Hamburg merchants could become part and took advantage of the colonial world map surrounding them. In a particular case, the phenomenon of Luchendreirei was reinterpreted in a legal manner. Lutkens acted perfectly within an area that was generally predestined for Hamburg merchants, a pre-existing gray zone, and he pushed the envelope in the true sense of the world. The only thing that remains problematic here if at all would be moral qualms regarding the fact that the true and real owner of all these ships was a 20 year old apprentice. To conclude my presentation with a view regarding this point from Nicolas Gottlieb Lutkens himself as a response to a letter from his younger brother Anton, who had complained about this vague feeling that he is not at all the real owner of the ships Lutkens rebukes him. Think about it, if someone buys a house and then rents his house to another person, who is the real owner of the house, the landlord or the tenant. Thank you. Brilliant Lucas. Thank you so much for that great paper. Really interesting stuff and great use of of micro history and the prize paper archives. I'm going to open up to two questions just like last time and but just to let you guys get your questions in order and put them in the question chat I will kick off Lucas with a question I actually have a couple. So, when you when you talk that letter writing is everything, right that this is the way that strategy is made. You know this is this is something that for historians that that look at strategy post 19th century is inconceivable because for them that's a period where it starts to be written down and published books and it starts to be theorized in a way that is very, I suppose, academic, you could almost say. So, I was wondering if the if you have any record or any knowledge of strategy being passed down within the families in a way that is not just letters. So a sense of, you know, writing a book for how to conduct your, your merchant business in times of war for the next generations or if it was all just done, and sort of in hand and training as you go. Thank you for the question. I think, in the case of Lucas his father or the priest, which makes his sense, his case even more interesting. So, but his two grandfathers were merchants so we learned a bit from them. In general, it's a learning by doing things, especially these conducting these, let's call it gray zone practices, and doing this kind of secret thing in letters. This is something they would learn in practice and learn by doing. He did his apprenticeship with the Dutch merchant in Hamburg. So maybe it's also a place where he learned this thing but I did not find any, let's say, book or anything with strategy in his belongings in this personal archive. I find everything that he owned doing the years in France. And the interesting thing is that there were no books in it. So it's only letters really 95% letters and then both relating and so on and so on, but I don't find any books, and I find some books in the list of him, his personal belongings, but it's a Bible and so on. So interesting. The interesting thing is in my opinion that these gray zone practices should not be written down in a book so that everyone can conduct them. But I think it's really kind of giving from given from merchant to merchant and especially when they're doing these trades among themselves within the letters. So it's more kind of a network thing I think. It's also where I learned about these practices I couldn't find them in the books, or anything, and in contemporary manuals or something, but I learned about them in the letters themselves and writing and reading letters from both perspectives. So, incoming and outgoing letters. This is where I learned about these things and this is interesting thing. I find that really interesting as well because if you look. So your period you're looking at 1744 1746 ish. So by the time that we get into the Napoleonic Wars and looking at prize affairs there. You actually start seeing the publish tracks written by, you know people who practice in the prize courts, saying, This is the stuff that the merchants are doing this is how they're trying to evade our laws and we have to crack down on this. This sense of the development of the law and the development of the practices over this period of time which I just as I just think is delightful probably because I love the prize papers. And so, Greg. Oh yeah, go ahead. And again, because this is an interesting thing, because they learned like like they learn from the experience of years and years and years of merchants kind of tricking them. So what I have is of course the legal literature about neutrality what they have to do to be neutral and so on, but what they do about it, how they really kind of perform these neutrality in the letters. So this is what I learned only from the letters, but it's as you said it's interesting to see that they kind of learn in the course of time of course they were also very good already in 7040 and the 7040s. So that we have a lot of cases where they came behind the ideas and the tricky but in this case it was kind of hidden thing. It's wonderful I think I think the prize papers are so far although your project is changing this and an unappreciated archive of strategic thinking in a way where it just has not been used so far, of course until your book comes out. So there's a question from again from Professor Greg Kennedy. So he says, if letters become currency and hold that value. Then is it the case that multiple copies are required, and thus copiers as opposed to authors. And does that system introduce the opportunity for those making copies to gain knowledge that could be sold outside of their own work. He says a malware of their day. That's an interesting question because they in these letters and this is also something special about the prize papers that we find letters which are still in their original form. So we find letters inserted in letters and a lot of copied letters in the letters. So they use this practice to copy other letters from other merchants for the information policy. So they copied themselves or they copy letters from other merchants and they leave some information out they put some information in so it's really kind of an insider game. Once again. Yes. In Lutkin's case, the point is that he himself copies all the letters so he is not at this stage of time. He's, he's on his own. So he doesn't have a partner or an associate on anything or clerk. So he copies all the letter himself even his copy book is full of his own copies of his letters and the incoming letters. So in this case I can't identify what changes if someone else copies the letters. And say is if the information comes out of the circle. So if someone uses the copies, which has been have been sent in the letters and show them to to another merchant so this happens three or four times that the information came out, and Lutkin's wasn't amused amused about it. And so he also always used response letters to kind of rebuke the partner and confront him with the thing that he will be out of the network if he does this again. So of course copying letters is a practice and it is used widely. And if it is used by merchants to show information which is not to be seen for others, then it always ends up in rebukes. So this is what I can say, but in Lutkin's case he's the one who copies the letter so he's also controlling what what's inside the letters. What you say really reminds me of of of of Lamecky's point in his book about trust and the networks of trust between merchants in the sense that if you, I suppose if you were caught selling that type of information. You would, you would be unemployable, and you would be an absolute outcast for the rest of your life in any sort of merchant circles, because that was the only way that those networks could survive. And so he planned his marriage in letters to so it was an arranged marriage, and this information came out too too soon. So this was a kind of really a big thing because someone told told another merchant and this is where you can see the effects of if, if these circuits are crashed. So this is really comes to the point. I do have another question for you and just to remind all of our participants that if you do have a question, please just pop it in the chat or in the Q&A section which you'll find as a button on the bottom of your screen. So look at when you were, we're looking at the correspondence and then obviously the court documents that come from from Britain. Did you ever find any evidence of your merchants corresponding directly with the proctors or advocates assigned to their case, or not really. That's a pity. I don't have the letters between himself and his grandfather. This is really something that that's a pity, because there we would have a lot of strategy and strategic thinking. So it's kind of his grandfather does the best in his, what he can do, but I don't have any correspondence between them. So I only have them regular mercantile correspondence between him and the, and his grandfather, but not with relating to the case. This is the problem. I don't, I don't think I've ever found the correspondence between merchants and proctors either. No, it does not. It does not seem to have made it into any sort of extant archive or it's you know sitting in the private papers of someone's house somewhere in Hamburg or over here in Britain. How should we do that? How should we trick them? What should we do? So no, no letters, but we should ask the people in TNA if they find have found such such letters. I'm sure they found some correspondence because they find everything. Absolutely. Brilliant. Well, Lucas, thank you so much for a brilliant paper, and for kicking us off on on maritime mercantile strategy. So, folks, we will be back at 515 for Professor Stephen Neff's paper. And until then, and, you know, get a coffee, have a little break and we'll see you again soon. Thank you very much.