dashing out the brains of all who came near.
That I knew the ingredients very well, which were cheap and common; I
understood the manner of compounding them, and could direct his workman
how to make those tubes of a size proportionable to all other things in
his majesty's kingdom, and the largest need not to be above a hundred
feet long; twenty or thirty of which tubes, charged with the proper
quantity of powder and balls, would batter down the walls of the
strongest town in his dominions in a few hours, or destroy the whole
metropolis if ever it should pretend to dispute his absolute commands.
This I humbly offered to his majesty as a small tribute of
acknowledgment, in return for so many marks that I had received of his
royal favor and protection.

The king was struck with horror at the description I had given him of
those terrible engines, and the proposal I had made. He was amazed, how
so impotent and grovelling an insect as I (these were his expressions),
could entertain such inhuman ideas, and in so familiar a manner, as to
appear wholly unmoved at all the scenes of blood and desolation, which I
had painted, as the common effects of those destructive machines,
whereof, he said, some evil genius, enemy to mankind, must have been the
first contriver. As for himself, he protested, that although few things
delighted him so much as new discoveries in art or in nature, yet he
would rather lose half his kingdom than be privy to such a secret, which
he commanded me, as I valued my life, never to mention any more.

A strange effect of narrow principles and short views! that a prince
possessed of every quality which procures veneration, love, and esteem;
of strong parts, great wisdom, and profound learning, endowed with
admirable talents for government, and almost adored by his subjects,
should, from a nice unnecessary scruple, whereof in Europe we can have
no conception, let slip an opportunity put into his hands, that would
have made him absolute master of the lives, the liberties, and the
fortunes of his people. Neither do I say this with the least intention
to detract from the many virtues of that excellent king, whose character
I am sensible will on this account be very much lessened in the opinion
of an English reader; but I take this defect among them to have arisen
from their ignorance, by not having hitherto reduced politics into a
science, as the more acute wits of Europe have done. For I remember very
well, in a