At last I am forced by the intrigues and cabals and contemptible actions of all kinds to leave the only surviving German fatherland on the invitation of his Royal Majesty of Westphalia, I am going thither as chapelmaster with an annual salary of 600 ducats in gold--I have only to-day sent my assurance that I will come by post and am only waiting my decree before making preparations for my journey which will be by way of Leipsic--therefore in order that my journey shall be the more brilliant for me I beg of you if not too prejudicial to your interests not to make anything known of my works till Easter--in the case of the sonata which is dedicated to Baron Gleichenstein, please omit the “K. K. Concipist,” as it is distasteful to him. In all probability abusive letters will again be written from here about my last musical academy to the “Musikalische Zeitung”; I do not ask that what is against me be suppressed; yet somebody ought to be convinced that nobody has more personal enemies here than I; this is the more easily to be understood, since the state of music here is steadily growing worse--we have chapelmasters who know so little about conducting that they can scarcely read a score themselves--it is worst of all, of course, ~auf der Wieden~--there I had to give my academy and all kinds of obstacles were put in my way. The Widows’ Concert, and Herr Salieri is among the first, was guilty of the hideous act of threatening to expel every musician who played for me--notwithstanding that several mistakes which I could not help were made, the public accepted everything enthusiastically--nevertheless, scribblers from here will certainly not fail again to send miserable stuff against me to the “Musikalische Zeitung”--the musicians were particularly angry because when a blunder was made through carelessness in the simplest, plainest place in the world, I suddenly commanded silence and loudly called ~Again~--such a thing had never happened to them before; the public at this showed its enjoyment--but it is daily growing worse. The day before my concert, in the easy little opera Milton, at the theatre in the city, the orchestra fell into such disorder that chapelmaster and director and orchestra veritably suffered shipwreck--for the chapelmaster instead of being ahead was behind in his beat and then came the director. (On the back of the cover): I beg of you to say nothing with certainty about my appointment in Westphalia until I write to you that I have received my decree.--Farewell, etc. [Sidenote: PLAN TO KEEP BEETHOVEN IN VIENNA]