In 1666, he was made councillor of commerce () at Vienna, where he had gained the powerful support of the prime minister of Emperor Leopold I. Sent by the emperor on a mission to the Netherlands, he wrote there in ten days his "Methodus Didactica", which was followed by the "Regeln der Christlichen Bundesgenossenschaft" and the "Politischer Discurs von den eigentlichen Ursachen des Auf- und Abblühens der Städte, Länder und Republiken". In 1669, he published his "Physica subterranea"; the same year, he was engaged with the count of Hanau in a scheme to acquire Dutch colonization of Guiana from the Dutch West India Company.