Petrović, Nikola: Hajózás és gazdálkodás a Közép-Duna-Medencében a merkantilizmus korában (Vajdasági Tudományos és Művészeti Akadémia, Novi Sad - Történelmi Intézet, Beograd, 1982)
Summary
forints from the building site safe. But this was only a small part of their total debts with the company. The actual sum could not be established until after the completion of works on the canal and the final accounts. The civil engineering enterprise had promised to build the canal for a sum of 850000 forints, but by 1800 a total of over two million was spent! The changes made in the design meant further outlays for the company. The lock at Sent Tomas had to be constructed, and a number of other expensive works carried out. The Kiss brothers, the management thought, would have no further claims on the company, quite the contrary, only the final accounts had to be awaited to settle the matter. As a practical solution, A. Aponyi proposed to the Court Chamber that the Kiss brothers be offered an alternative — to wait until the accounts were drawn up, or to accept arbitration, which would be more favourable for them. This the Chamber accepted, but no evidence can be found on how the matter was finally settled. However, from some sources it may be deduced that the Kiss brothers lost all the money they had invested into the project. Major Gabor Kiss returned to the army, but died soon after. Further information on the fate of József Kiss was discovered in a diary he had kept during the last years of his life, living in retirement in Vrbas, in a modest cottage on the canal, near the lock. This dwelling he himself named ,.Josephsruhe" (Josephs Peace). He was buried near the cottage, and the pyramidal tombstone (restored a few years ago) bears an epitaph composed by himself. He himself designed this stone. In the year of his death, 1813, he wrote in the diary (kept now at the Secsenyi library in Budapest) words of bitter resentment and anger. „Unrewarded and unrecognized" he begged his enemies to leave him in peace at least in death, „when his tired head sags and eternal peace embraces his soul". But he nevertheless belived that „Hungary and Baéka would for many centuries only too happy to express their gratitude to him... for creating the first canal in the district". His last years he spent in privation, living on only a fourth of the pension, granted him by the emperor out of „charity", his annual income was only 312 forints. The rest went in repayment of the debts to the company. His only son, Michaly, in order to support himself had to take a job as bailiff on an estate belonging to the Chamber. The text of the epitaph Jozzef Kiss composed for himself in Latin says: „Here lies Jozzef Kiss, a Hungarian by nationality. His immortality is witnessed by the Francis Canal, his mortality by this cold stone". Somewhat restyled this text appears on his tembstone today. Thus, in resignation and quiet decline ended the life of the father of this great artificial waterway of the central Danube Basin. 513
