CHAPTER XIV.
_Our Baron excels Baron Tott beyond all comparison, yet fails in part of his attempt--Gets into disgrace with the Grand Seignior, who orders his head to be cut off--Escapes, and gets on board a vessel, in which he is carried to Venice--Baron Tott's origin, with some account of that great man's parents--Pope Ganganelli's amour--His Holiness fond of shell-fish._ Baron de Tott, in his Memoirs, makes as great a parade of a single act as many travellers whose whole lives have been spent in seeing the different parts of the globe; for my part, if I had been blown from Europe to Asia from the mouth of a cannon, I should have boasted less of it afterwards than he has done of only firing off a Turkish piece of ordnance.

What he says of this wonderful gun, as near as my memory will serve me, is this:--"The Turks had placed below the castle, and near the city, on the banks of Simois, a celebrated river, an enormous piece of ordnance cast in brass, which would carry a marble ball of eleven hundred pounds weight.

I was inclined," says Tott, "to fire it, but I was willing first to judge of its effect; the crowd about me trembled at this proposal, as they asserted it would overthrow not only the castle, but the city also; at length their fears in part subsided, and I was permitted to discharge it.

It required not less than three hundred and thirty pounds' weight of powder, and the ball weighed, as before mentioned, eleven hundredweight.

When the engineer brought the priming, the crowds who were about me retreated back as fast as they could; nay, it was with the utmost difficulty I persuaded the Pacha, who came on purpose, there was no danger: even the engineer who was to discharge it by my direction was considerably alarmed.