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LETTER XV."

Mr. Walpole-A trick-Minister of police-Correspondence -Sweetmeats.

I BEGAN my letter to Mr. Walpole, by referring him to the communications which I knew had been already made to him, reminding him very respectfully of the protection it was his duty to afford me, and how little it would tend to his good reputation hereafter, when better times should come, and inquiries be made, to have been consenting to so very refined and barbarous an execution of a man to whom he could impute no crime. I told him, moreover, of the dangerous state of my health, and requested that since he would not see me, a medical person might at least be allowed to visit me. I added, that upon the faith of a solemn agreement I had written to my wife and children to come to me; and that all communication between us having been intercepted, I remained in a state of most cruel uncertainty, and therefore begged for permission to write in order to prevent, if it were not yet too late, so great a calamity. I told him, that cut off from all pecuniary resources, I wished to discharge a servant, who had already, for being my servant, suffered torture and imprisonment; and that my papers, which were the guarantees of my personal safety, being seized, I begged they might be restored to me. For the rest, I was better pleased to remain where I now was, than to be exposed to any new insult or atrocity.

A messenger was called, who, instead of taking my letter to the British ambassador, took it to the intendente of the police, which I discovered from him on his return to be paid, and complained of it to the gaolers. They all with one consent set up a hypo

critical lamentation for the ruin brought upon them by permitting me to write. I paid no more regard to this than to any other of their vile farces, but offered Joachim a cruzada nova to carry another letter to the British ambassador, and bring me an answer. wrote without any opposition and without any difficulty. Joachim undertook to carry my letter. This letter was only to inform Mr. Walpole that a former one addressed to him had been carried to the intendente of the police, and to request that he would have the goodness to send for it, and favour me with an answer..

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SIR, AS I have no intercourse with the intendente of police to authorize me to send for the letter you allude to, I must confine myself to acknowledging the receipt of that which has been just delivered to me; And am, sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

"ROBT. WALPOLE."

The next day I sent my servant with a guide to Mr. Walpole's, who delivered him a letter as nearly as possible in the words of that which had been given to the intendente of the police, and received this answer:

"Lisbon, April 18, 1799.

"SIR,-I have received your letter of this morning; that to which you refer of yesterday has not yet been delivered to me. I shall make application for the leave you request, which I have no doubt will be granted to you. I am, sir, your most obedient humble servant, "ROBT. WALPOLE."

I waited some days without further result, and again sent my man, who returned with the following letter:

---

"Lisbon, April 21, 1799. "SIR, I must assure you, that I immediately complied with my promise, of making the application you required of me by your letter of Friday evening, and I received an answer from the secretary of state that orders were given by the intendente to report upon the subject of your imprisonment. I was in hopes that some speedier method might have been adopted in regard to what more immediately, in point of humanity, concerns you personally. I shall immediately renew my application, which I hope will be attended to. I am, sir, your most obedient humble servant, "ROBT. WALPOLE."

On this, as on the former occasion, my servant had been sent to the house of Mr. Matthews, (so I think his name was,) the secretary of Mr. Walpole. He was kindly treated by this gentleman, as also by a lady at his house, who expressed much concern for me, and sent me as a present a pot of conserves of Brazil.

But they told my man that I was to be sent on board an English ship-of-war to an English prisonship at Gibraltar; and when he murmured against such injustice in the English government, from whose ministers alone such orders could proceed, he was cautioned by the lady to hold his tongue, and advised, if he should be interrogated, to say nothing, but merely that he was my servant and ignorant of my affairs; otherwise, she said, it might be worse for him than for me.

LETTER XVI.

The doctor-Difficulties-Intendente.

Ar length came the doctor; I do not recollect his name, but I understood he was the accoucheur of the intendente's lady. He so far differed from the bridewell doctor, that he treated me with respect and good manners. He excused his minister from all share in my persecution, assuring me that his lordship was very sorry for me, and very much concerned for what I was made to suffer. He complimented me on my patience which he called animo grande; he said, justly, that it was not of medicines I had need for the restoration of my health, but of liberty and tranquillity, and that nothing was so dangerous for me as a prison. He promised to use all his interest with the intendente in my favour, and asked me what country I should like to go to, mentioning several times France and Spain. I answered, that having been so long deprived of all political intelligence, I could not tell what countries were in alliance with England, what were in hostility, or what were neutral. Or in the strange changes that succeeded each other, how long any country might remain in its present posture. But as to the two countries he had named, France and Spain, I could not consent to go to either of them, because I had made an agreement, to which it was my intention, as to every other of my life, to be true; at least, until it should be so flagrantly broken on the other part as to leave me no choice. I then explained to him the labyrinth of vexations in which I was involved. To France or Spain I could not go, because those countries being at war with the king of England, it might be made a pretext for subjecting me to the penalties of high trea

son, and serve at least as a justification for the crimes already committed against me. That my going to a neutral country, or even to one in alliance with the king of England, might be turned to my disadvantage, as I was obliged, before I could get out of bridewell, to give security that I should go to Portugal, and remain there during the continuance of the war. And if I went home or to any part of the British dominions, I was a felon by act of parliament, and transportable to Botany Bay; and though that parliament had shortly after this atrocious law annihilated itself, yet, to use the words of the greatest of our English poets, "The mischief that men do, lives after them."

Amongst all the neutral countries of which I thought, two only seemed free from objection, Genoa and Hamburg. The former I might have preferred on account of its climate, the latter on account of its proximity to my own, and the greater facility of having communication with my family; with either I should have been contented. You know, however, to what unexampled misery the one was afterwards reduced by the war, and how in the other the rights of nations and of hospitality have been violated in a degree beyond what had ever before happened amongst the hordes of the deserts. Thus it is that mean and jealous tyranny hems in its victims on every side with snares and dangers.

I do not know whether what I said to this gentleman might have surprised his sensibility, or whether the symptoms he betrayed were counterfeited, but they were those of strong emotion, and he promised to repeat all I had said to the intendente with equal force, and hoped to obtain for me the permission to remain in Portugal, as I desired, though he said it might be under some restrictions.

After. some days he returned and told me, that the minister had been very much affected by my story, and that particularly when he mentioned the chain of difficulties by which I was encompassed, that he had started as if with surprise aud agitation, and de

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