I had now once more earnestly to turn my attention to procuring certain and settled employment.  In truth, as regarded my future, I stood quite alone.  I had no one to lend me a helping hand, so I made up my mind to go forward, trusting only in God and destiny.  I determined to seek for a situation by means of the Allgemeine Anzeiger der Deutschen,[27] a paper then very much read, and I thought it would be good to send in to the editor, as a proof of my assertions of competency, an architectural design, and also a specimen of my work in practical surveying, together with explanations of both of them.  As soon as my plan was fully conceived I set to work at it.  For the architectural sketch I chose a design of a nobleman’s country mansion, with the surrounding outbuildings.  When I had finished it, with very few professional appliances to help me, it contained a complete working out of all the various necessary plans, and as a critical test of its accuracy and suitability to the proposed scale of dimensions, I added a statement of all the particulars and conditions involved in it.  For the land-surveying I chose a table of measurements compiled from the map I had previously drawn, which I carried through under certain arbitrary assumptions.  These works, together with my advertisement, I sent in 1803 to the office of the paper I have mentioned, with the request that the editor, after reading my testimonials and inspecting my work, would add a few confirmatory words as to my qualifications.  Work and testimonials alike were to the satisfaction of the editor, and my request for an editorial comment was granted.  I received several offers, each one containing something tempting about it.  It was difficult to make a choice, but at last I decided to accept a position offered me as private secretary to the President and Privy-Councillor Von Dewitz, of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, at this time resident on one of his estates, Gross-Milchow.

Amongst the other offers was one from Privy-Councillor Von Voldersdorf, who was looking out for an accountant for his estates in the Oberpfalz.[28] This situation did not suit me so well as the other, but I accepted a proposition to fill up the time till the arrangements for the other post had been completed, by going down to these estates of Herr Von Voldersdorf, and bringing into order, according to a certain specified plan, the heavy accounts of his steward, which were at this time much in arrear.  I set off for the Oberpfalz in the first days of 1804.  But I was soon called away to Mecklenburg to the situation at Gross-Milchow which I had definitively chosen, and in the raw, frightfully severe winter-time of February I journeyed thither by the mail-coach.  Yet, short as had been my stay in the Oberpfalz, and continual and uninterrupted as had been my labour in order that I might get through the work I had undertaken, the time I spent in Bavaria yielded me much that was instructive.  The men, ingenuous, lively young fellows from Saxony and Prussia,