I Saw This Reasoning In Its Full Force, And
Determined To Do My Utmost To Preserve The Blacksmith From So Dreadful A
Fate.
I therefore told the king's son that I was ready to go with him,
upon condition that the blacksmith, who was an inhabitant of a distant
kingdom, and entirely unconnected with me, should be allowed to stay at
Joag till my return:
To this they all objected; and insisted, that as we
had all acted contrary to the laws, we were all equally answerable for
our conduct.
[8] Maana is within a short distance of the ruins of Fort St. Joseph,
on the Senegal river, formerly a French factory.
I now took my landlord aside, and giving him a small present of
gunpowder, asked his advice in so critical a situation. He was decidedly
of opinion that I ought not to go to the king: he was fully convinced, he
said, that if the king should discover anything valuable in my
possession, he would not be over scrupulous about the means of obtaining
it. This made me the more solicitous to conciliate matters with the
king's people; and I began by observing, that what I had done did not
proceed from any want of respect towards the king, nor from any wish to
violate his laws, but wholly from my own inexperience and ignorance,
being a stranger, totally unacquainted with the laws and customs of their
country. I had indeed entered the king's frontier, without knowing that I
was to pay the duties beforehand, but I was ready to pay them now; which
I thought was all that they could reasonably demand.
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