should become more
than half diminished; and immediately upon your death five or six
thousand of his majesty's subjects might, in two or three days, cut your
flesh from your bones, take it away by cart-loads, and bury it in distant
parts, to prevent infection, leaving the skeleton as a monument of
admiration to posterity.

"Thus, by the great friendship of the secretary, the whole affair was
compromised. It was strictly enjoined, that the project of starving you
by degrees should be kept a secret; but the sentence of putting out your
eyes was entered on the books; none dissenting, except Bolgolam the
admiral, who, being a creature of the empress, was perpetually instigated
by her majesty to insist upon your death, she having borne perpetual
malice against you, on account of that infamous and illegal method you
took to extinguish the fire in her apartment.

"In three days your friend the secretary will be directed to come to your
house, and read before you the articles of impeachment; and then to
signify the great lenity and favour of his majesty and council, whereby
you are only condemned to the loss of your eyes, which his majesty does
not question you will gratefully and humbly submit to; and twenty of his
majesty's surgeons will attend, in order to see the operation well
performed, by discharging very sharp-pointed arrows into the balls of
your eyes, as you lie on the ground.

"I leave to your prudence what measures you will take; and to avoid
suspicion, I must immediately return in as private a manner as I came."

His lordship did so; and I remained alone, under many doubts and
perplexities of mind.

It was a custom introduced by this prince and his ministry (very
different, as I have been assured, from the practice of former times,)
that after the court had decreed any cruel execution, either to gratify
the monarch's resentment, or the malice of a favourite, the emperor
always made a speech to his whole council, expressing his great lenity
and tenderness, as qualities known and confessed by all the world. This
speech was immediately published throughout the kingdom; nor did any
thing terrify the people so much as those encomiums on his majesty's
mercy; because it was observed, that the more these praises were enlarged
and insisted on, the more inhuman was the punishment, and the sufferer
more innocent. Yet, as to myself, I must confess, having never been
designed for a courtier, either by my birth or educa