In 1535-6 the forces of the Hanse were defeated both by land and sea, and the war party saw the error of its ways. Sastrow was released, and his uncle-in-law was restored to office to die two years later, in 1539. But meanwhile things had gone ill with the Sastrow finances. Some skilful but dishonest ladies had purchased large consignments of cloth, not to speak of borrowing considerable sums of money from Nicholas Sastrow, and declined to pay their bill. During his imprisonment Nicholas had been unable to sell the stock of salt which he had laid in with a view to the Schonen herring season. A certain Mrs. Bruser, wife of a big draper, with a hardy conscience, had bought 1,725 florins' worth of the Sastrow cloth of the dishonest ladies. The Sastrows determined to get the money out of the Brusers. Bruser first avowed the debt, and then repudiated it, taking a mean advantage of the civic troubles of Stralsund and the decline of the Smiterlow-Sastrow interest. Thereupon began litigation which was not to cease for thirty-four years. The case was heard before the town court of Stralsund, then before the council of Stralsund, then before the _oberhof_ or appellate court of Lubeck, and finally before the Imperial court of Spires. Bartholomew accompanied his father on the Lubeck journey, obtained his first insight into legal chicanery, and was, no doubt, effectually inoculated with the anti-Bruser virus. In 1541 the elder Sastrow obtained permission to return to Greifswald, and Bartholomew attended for a year the lectures of the Greifswald professors. The family circumstances, however (there were by this time five daughters and three sons), were too straitened to support the youth in idleness. Accordingly, in June, 1542, the two eldest sons left their home, partly to seek their fortunes, but more especially to watch the great Bruser case, which was winding its slow and slippery course through the reticulations of the Imperial Court at Spires.