Volume III Part 8 (1/1)

With my Wife and Child I now returned to Europe, full of Years, and, I hope, notwithstanding some Ups and Downs, full of Honours too We were in no hurry, however, to return to England; for I had wandered about Foreign Parts so long in Discredit, and Danger, and Distress, that I thought myself well entitled to see the world a little in Freedom and Independence, and with a Handsome competence at erous,--I have dropped htly rank of late years,--and furnished with all necessary passports and safe-conducts, we made our way across the Black Sea to Odessa, ain the way of trade; and after a most affable reception by the Russian Governor of that place, journeyed at our ease through the Tauric Chersonese, norested fro to the Muscovites Next, in a handsoreat City of Moscow,--the old Capital of the Great Dukes of Russia,--where we abode thole years, and went aly Equivoque with a young gentleoons, and who, I declare, stole a diamond- the same (the Snuff-box, I mean) into the pocket of his pantaloons Him I was co; andsufficiently impressed with the turpitude of his Offence, but the rather inclined to regard it as a venial Prank or Whimsey, I did Batoon him within an inch of his life, and until there were more wheals on his Body than bars of silver-braid on his Jacket This led to a seriousbetween Justice and myself I was not Imprisoned, but was sue they call an assessor, who addressed a nuatories to me, which, at a moderate computation, reached, in the course of five weeks, three thousand seven hundred and nine questions This one on till Doomsday, but for the kind offices of a Muscovite friend, who hinted to me that if I discreetly slipped a Bank-bill for five hundred roubles into the hand of the Exae, I should hear no more of the affair This I did, and was soon after honourably acquitted; after which I gave the young Spark who hia tired of Moscoe re, where I had a handsome mansion on the Fontanka Canal, and was on more than one occasion adhty Czarina Catherine; a fine, bold, strapping woreat taste for Politics, Diamonds, the Fine Arts, and affairs of Gallantry The First time I made my obeisance to her Majesty (which was at her suned, s affably, to say to lais qui avez rosse ens, la-bas, a Moscou Je voudrais que vous en fissiez autant pour iven to understand in very high quarters that I had only to ask, to receive a lucrative and honourable Appointment in the service of the Czarina,--either as a General by Land, or as an Ad too; so at last, in disgust, I gave upwith , whence, after a brief sojourn, I travelled to France

My sainted Wife, hom, after our reunion, I lived most happily, died in Paris, in the year 1773; and then, feelingto lay land, after an absence ofthat the old Mansion that had belonged to my Grandmother was for sale by Public Auction, I purchased the Freehold, repaired and beautified it, and ca and happy leisure by the composition of these Memoirs And if any one of my Readers experiences one-hundredth part the pleasure in Reading these Pages (and that I dare scarcely hope) that I have experienced in Writing theerous will indeed be amply repaid

THE END OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN DANGEROUS