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10th Mar. Bräker reacts to adverse reviews of his own work:

"That as an author I am not in my right place, that I concede to my Herren Reviewers. If they would be so kind as to make another place for me. Or if they care so patriotically for the free public, to buy my manuscripts and make pepperpots out of them, so as at least to free the reading public from this evil. For I cannot help myself. What's done is done. The manuscripts lie there in a little quarto volume, and I am a poor man, plagued and burdened with debts, I am not fit for business nor heavy work either. So my circumstances require with the greatest urgency that I should now profit from the products of my brain, however much the stuff may displease, and I live in high hopes that the dear reading public and my generous publisher will allow me to lay my hands on what is due to me, and that's my last word." [Böning, p 132]

12th Mar. (v 2 pp 33-35) Bräker writes to Füssli:

"Dearest and highly respected Herr Councillor Füssli - How is it that I hear so miserably little news from you - even though I see your daughter and your worthy son-in-law almost every week - and yet they tell me very little of you, except that you are healthy and well which comforts me - but now as always up to your neck in business - well, from all that I can see, best of friends, before Easter nothing more will happen concerning a second part of extracts from my diaries - well - I shall have to be content with that - and make the best of it - because I can't swim against the current - notwithstanding that I am bowed down to the ground by present critical circumstances - and am in such grave necessity - I would have thought to be allowed to hope for something on that account - [...]" [Voellmy, v 2 pp 33-34]

Voellmy [v 1 pp 33, 38] states that although Füssli [at this stage] did not know it, Bräker had written to Ebel in an attempt to find another publisher. Ebel moved to Paris in the following year and was still there at the time of Bräker's death.

1795 was a disastrous year for Bräker. His cotton trade was doing very badly because of the Coalition war. But far worse was the shame he felt when his daughter Anna Katharina and her husband Mathias Wälli were sentenced to prison for theft in St. Gallen. At about the same time he writes (Voellmy v 2 pp 37, 383) that his daughter has "quite taken on the disposition of this rascal. Even long before his marriage he had stolen from his master."

Their home was broken up and their furniture put up for auction in Lichtensteig. Bräker was one of their creditors and so was obliged, very unwillingly (v 2 p 52) to go to law to recover some of his money - he had paid for most of the furniture and invested 300 guilders in the business - but although the judgement went in his favour he recovered only the furniture, valued at 140 guilders, and this was at the expense of two other creditors who were good neighbours of his own.

6th Apr. "A good - yet a sad Easter!

"Sad at least for me, for my family and relations - I must see my loyal spouse dwindle and be destroyed by grief and anxiety - my children dissolved in tears - my relations and acquaintances are ashamed of me - my friends greet me coldly - my enemies and those who envy me triumph over me - my creditors threaten me - my innocent wife and children dare not leave the house and present themselves to the gaze of any other soul - I will and must spoil white paper with my complaints - then call upon the aid of my little store of philosophy, to act the man in all this misery, and not lament and despair like an old woman, for in spite of all I and my wife and all the children too are honest people and all innocent of any wrongdoing." [Voellmy, v 2 pp 37-38]

A creditor of the young couple set an embargo on their furniture and cash. Bräker opposed this, claiming that he had paid for the furniture. The court ruled in his favour but his opponent lodged an appeal. [Chronik, p 420]

14th-22nd Apr. Bräker seeks help from Girtanner. On the 17th Pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater, who is visiting Girtanner, writes a poem to comfort Bräker. On the 22nd Anna Katharina and her husband are sentenced, but Anna Katharina is allowed to go home with her father. Pastor

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