On The Contrary, He Insisted On His
Delivering Up To Him General Patkul, Ambassador From The Czar, Who At
That Time Was A Prisoner In Saxony, Being Determined To Put Him To Death
As A Traitor, Having Been Born His Subject, And Now Entered Into The
Service Of His Sworn Enemy.
Augustus beseeched him in the most abject manner to relinquish this one
point, and remonstrated to him that the czar, his present master, would
look on it as the utmost indignity offered to himself in the person of
his ambassador:
He assured him he hated Patkul, but feared the giving
him up would be resented by all the princes of Europe. All he could urge
on this head was to no effect; the king of Sweden was not to be moved
from any resolution he had once made; and the unfortunate Patkul was
sent to Alranstadt and chained to a stake for three whole months, and
afterwards conducted to Casimir, where he was to receive his sentence.
Horatio, who was an entire stranger to the motive of this behaviour in
the king, and had never seen any thing before in him that looked like a
cruel disposition, was one day mentioning his surprize at it to a young
officer with whom he had contracted a great intimacy, on which he gave
him the following account:
This Patkul, said he, is a Livonian born, which, tho' a free country, is
part of the dominions annexed to the crown of Sweden: Charles XI. began
to introduce a more absolute form of government than was consistent with
the humour of that people; his son has been far from receding in that
point, and Patkul being a person of great consideration among them,
stood up for their liberties in a manner which our king could not
forgive: - he ordered him to be seized, but he made his escape, and was
proscribed in Sweden; on which he entered into the service of king
Augustus, and was made his general; but on some misunderstanding;
between him and the chancellor, he quitted Poland and went to Russia,
where he got into great favour with the czar, was highly promoted, and
sent his residentiary ambassador in Saxony. Augustus, whose fate it has
been to disoblige every body, on some pretence clapp'd into prison the
representative of his only friend, and now, we see, has given him up to
death, to satiate the demands of his greatest enemy.
Horatio could not keep himself from falling into a deep musing at the
recital of this adventure: he thought Patkul worthy of compassion, yet
found reasons to justify the king's resentment; and as this officer had
often disburthened himself to him with the greatest freedom, he had no
reserve toward him, and this led them into a discourse on arbitrary
power. - Horatio said, that he could not help believing that nature never
intended millions to be subjected to the despotic will of one person,
and that a limited government was the most conformable to reason.
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