msday, but
for the kind offices of a Muscovite friend, who hinted to me that if I
discreetly slipped a Bank-bill for five hundred roubles into the hand of
the Examining Judge, I should hear no more of the affair. This I did,
and was soon after honourably acquitted; after which I gave the young
Spark whom I had batooned his revenge, by allowing him to duff me out of
a few score pieces at the game of Lansquenet. By and by, being tired of
Moscow, we removed to the stately northern Capital, Petersburg, where I
had a handsome mansion on the Fontanka Canal, and was on more than one
occasion admitted to an audience with the Empress of Russia, the mighty
Czarina Catherine; a fine, bold, strapping woman, with a great taste for
Politics, Diamonds, the Fine Arts, and affairs of Gallantry. The First
time I made my obeisance to her Majesty (which was at her summer
residence of Peterhoff, on the River Neva), she deigned, smiling
affably, to say to me:--

"_Ah, ah! vous etes le Sabreur anglais qui avez rosse mes gens, la-bas,
a Moscou. Je voudrais que vous en fissiez autant pour mes faquins de
Chevalier-Gardes a Petersbourg._"

I was given to understand in very high quarters that I had only to ask,
to receive a lucrative and honourable Appointment in the service of the
Czarina,--either as a General by Land, or as an Admiral at Sea; but I
was sick of fighting, and of working too; so at last, in disgust, I gave
up my House, and taking shipping with my family at Cronstadt, retired to
Hamburg, whence, after a brief sojourn, I travelled to France.

My sainted Wife, with whom, after our reunion, I lived most happily,
died in Paris, in the year 1773; and then, feeling my Days drawing to a
close, and desiring to lay my Bones in my own Country, I returned to
England, after an absence of more than Thirty Years. Finding that the
old Mansion that had belonged to my Grandmother was for sale by Public
Auction, I purchased the Freehold, repaired and beautified it, and came
to reside in it, occupying my long and happy leisure by the composition
of these Memoirs. And if any one of my Readers experiences one-hundredth
part the pleasure in Reading these Pages (and that I dare scarcely hope)
that I have experienced in Writing them, John Dangerous will indeed be
amply repaid.

THE END OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN
DANGEROUS.

NOTE EXCULPATORY.

IT may be as well to state, for the benefit of stic