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john gutenberg at strasburg
stood that the fair would be held that same year, but 'when they were all ready, and prepared to work out the secret [i. e. to manufacture the merchandise intended for the fair] the fair was postponed to the following year. Thereupon, they [Anthony and Andrew] had made request that Gutenberg would hide nothing from them which he knew or would discover of secrets and inventions, and they at once proposed to him to name his terms; and it was then agreed that they should add to the sum first named 250 guilders, making in all 410 guilders; and that they should at once pay 100 guilders in cash—of which sum, at that time, Andrew Heilmann paid 50, and Andrew Dritzehen paid 40—so that Andrew Dritzehen remained a debtor to the amount of 10 guilders. It was also understood that the two partners should pay the 75 guilders due and unpaid, at three different dates which were stipulated; but before the expiration of these dates Andrew Dritzehen had died, still in debt to Gutenberg. At the time when the agreement was made, it had been decided that the accomplishment of their secret [the duration of copartnership] should occupy five entire years: in the event of the death of any one of the four partners, during this five years, all the implements pertaining to the secret, and all the merchandise that had been manufactured, should be vested in the remaining partners, and that the heirs of the partner who had died should receive, at the end of five years, 100 guilders. Consequently, and because the contract, which is expressed in these very terms, and which contract was found at the house of Andrew Dritzehen, fully set forth all these stipulations, and those that preceded it, as he John Gutenberg hopes to prove by good witnesses, he demands that George Dritzehen and his brother Claus should deduct the 85 guilders which were still due to him from their late brother, from the 100 guilders, and then he would consent to return to them the 15 guilders, although he was still fairly entitled, according to the terms of the contract, to several years, before this money should be payable. As to the declaration made by George Dritzehen that the late Andrew Dritzehen, his brother, had taken much money by the pledge of his goods and of his inheritance from his father, he did not think it worth consideration, for he [Gutenberg] had not received from the goods or inheritance anything more than he had before first stated, except a half-omen of wine, a basket of pears, and a half-ruder of wine, which Andrew Dritzehen and Andrew Heilmann had given to him; that, moreover, the two men had consumed the equivalent of this and more besides at his house, for which they had never been asked to pay anything. Moreover, when he, George Dritzehen, demanded to be admitted in the partnership as an heir, he knew very well that this claim was no better founded than any other;
