of the like
nature in my own name. He was very angry, but I persisted;--I mentioned
the uniform support of our three votes in the House, touched modestly
on services abroad, though valuable only in his Royal Highness's having
been pleased kindly to accept them, and founded pretty strongly on his
own expressions of friendship and goodwill. He was embarrassed, but
obstinate. I hinted the policy of detaching, on all future occasions,
the heir of such a fortune as your uncle's from the machinations of the
disaffected. But I made no impression. I mentioned the obligation which
I lay under to Sir Everard, and to you personally, and claimed, as the
sole reward of my services, that he would be pleased to afford me the
means of evincing my gratitude. I perceived that he still meditated a
refusal, and, taking my commission from my pocket, I said (as a last
resource), that as his Royal Highness did not, under these pressing
circumstances, think me worthy of a favour which he had not scrupled
to grant to other gentlemen, whose services I could hardly judge more
important than my own, I must beg leave to deposit, with all humility,
my commission in his Royal Highness's hands, and to retire from the
service. He was not prepared for this;--he told me to take up my
commission; said some handsome things of my services, and granted my
request. You are therefore once more a free man, and I have promised for
you that you will be a good boy in future, and remember what you owe to
the lenity of Government. Thus you see MY PRINCE can be as generous as
YOURS. I do not pretend, indeed, that he confers a favour with all the
foreign graces and compliments of your Chevalier errant; but he has a
plain English manner, and the evident reluctance with which he grants
your request, indicates the sacrifice which he makes of his own
inclination to your wishes. My friend, the adjutant-general, has
procured me a duplicate of the Baron's protection (the original being in
Major Melville's possession), which I send to you, as I know that if you
can find him you will have pleasure in being the first to communicate
the joyful intelligence. He will of course repair to the Duchran without
loss of time, there to ride quarantine for a few weeks. As for you, I
give you leave to escort him thither, and to stay a week there, as
I understand a certain fair lady is in that quarter. And I have the
pleasure to tell you, that whatever progress you can make in her good
grac