out our freedom.

"Not long ago that noble merchant--and here I trust you will pardon me
that I am so moved as to perhaps appear to suffer in want of respect to
this great Council--this noble merchant passed to his account--leaving to
a near kinsman of his own the royal fortune which he had amassed. Only a
few hours ago that worthy kinsman of the benefactor of our nation made it
known to me that in his last will he had bequeathed to me, by secret
trust, the whole of those estates which long ago I had forfeited by
effluxion of time, inasmuch as I had been unable to fulfil the terms of
my voluntary bond. It grieves me to think that I have had to keep you so
long in ignorance of the good thought and wishes and acts of this great
man.

"But it was by his wise counsel, fortified by my own judgment, that I was
silent; for, indeed, I feared, as he did, lest in our troublous times
some doubting spirit without our boundaries, or even within it, might
mistrust the honesty of my purposes for public good, because I was no
longer one whose whole fortune was invested within our confines. This
prince-merchant, the great English Roger Melton--let his name be for ever
graven on the hearts of our people!--kept silent during his own life, and
enjoined on others to come after him to keep secret from the men of the
Blue Mountains that secret loan made to me on their behalf, lest in their
eyes I, who had striven to be their friend and helper, should suffer
wrong repute. But, happily, he has left me free to clear myself in your
eyes. Moreover, by arranging to have--under certain contingencies, which
have come to pass--the estates which were originally my own retransferred
to me, I have no longer the honour of having given what I could to the
national cause. All such now belongs to him; for it was his money--and
his only--which purchased our national armament.

"His worthy kinsman you already know, for he has not only been amongst
you for many months, but has already done you good service in his own
person. He it was who, as a mighty warrior, answered the summons of the
Vladika when misfortune came upon my house in the capture by enemies of
my dear daughter, the Voivodin Teuta, whom you hold in your hearts; who,
with a chosen band of our brothers, pursued the marauders, and himself,
by a deed of daring and prowess, of which poets shall hereafter sing,
saved her, when hope itself seemed to be dead, from their ruthless hands,
and broug