Perhaps this repenting prince might conclude with one general acknowledgment to them all,—I have involved every rank of my subjects in anxiety and distress, and have nothing to offer you in return, but the certainty of national dishonour, an armed truce, and peace without security.
If these accounts were settled, there would still remain an apology to be made to his navy and to his army. To the first he would say, you were once the terror of the world. But go back to your harbours. A man, dishonoured as I am, has no use for your service. It is not probable that he would appear again before his soldiers, even in the pacific ceremony of a review[1]. But, wherever he appeared, the humiliating confession would be extorted from him. I have received a blow,—and had not spirit to resent it. I demanded satisfaction, and have accepted a declaration, in which the right to strike me again is asserted and confirmed. His countenance, at least, would speak this language, and even his guards would blush for him.
- ↑ A Mistake: he appears before them every day, with a mark of a blow upon his face.—proh pudor!
