Letter 27
To the administrator of the royal estates in the Moselle valley,
The annual accounting for the estates under your management has been received and reviewed. Overall the accounts are satisfactory, and we commend you for the care with which they have been prepared.
We have one question: the revenue from the vineyard estates in the southern portion of your district shows a significant decline from the previous three years. The accounting attributes this to poor harvests and we have no reason to doubt that explanation in itself, but we want to understand whether the decline is entirely natural or whether there are management questions that need addressing. Please provide us with a fuller account of conditions in those estates, including the state of the workforce, the condition of the equipment and buildings, and your assessment of likely yields in the coming years.
We are also considering whether certain of the less productive estates in your district should be reorganized. We will take no action without consulting you, but begin thinking about which properties might benefit from different arrangements.
By order of the royal treasury
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.