hee a present; but the false varlet no
sooner saw me falling to work but he sent me word to desire me to
give over, for that he would have no such doings in his house. I
had not been long in this nation before I was told by one for whom
I had asked a certain favour from the chief of the king's servants,
whom they here call the lord-treasurer, that I had eternally
obliged him. I was so surprised at his gratitude that I could not
forbear saying, 'What service is there which one man can do for
another that can oblige him to all eternity?' However, I only asked
him, for my reward, that he would lend me his eldest daughter
during my stay in this country; but I quickly found that he was as
treacherous as the rest of his countrymen.

"At my first going to court, one of the great men almost put me out
of countenance by asking ten thousand pardons of me for only
treading by accident upon my toe. They call this kind of lie a
compliment; for when they are civil to a great man, they tell him
untruths, for which thou wouldst order any of thy officers of
state to receive a hundred blows on his foot. I do not know how I
shall negotiate anything with this people, since there is so little
credit to be given to them. When I go to see the king's scribe, I
am generally told that he is not at home, though perhaps I saw him
go into his house almost the very moment before. Thou wouldst fancy
that the whole nation are physicians, for the first question they
always ask me is, how I do; I have this question put to me above a
hundred times a day; nay, they are not only thus inquisitive after
my health, but wish it in a more solemn manner, with a full glass
in their hands, every time I sit with them at the table, though at
the same time they would persuade me to drink their liquors in such
quantities as I have found by experience will make me sick.

"They often pretend to pray for thy health also in the same manner;
but I have more reason to expect it from the goodness of thy
constitution than the sincerity of their wishes. May thy slave
escape in safety from this double-tongued race of men, and live to
lay himself once more at thy feet in the royal city of Bantam."

This double-tonguedness of which we have spoken is anything but
creditable to an age that makes claim to such a high