There were so many of the one party, and so few of the other, that if he were once fairly "trussed," he affirmed that not a man among the faithful would dare to budge an inch.

He therefore informed his Majesty that he was secretly meditating a retreat to some place of security; judging very properly that, if he were still his own master, he should be able to exert more influence over those who were still well disposed, than if he should suffer himself to be taken captive.

A suppressed conviction that he could effect nothing, except with his sword, pierced through all his more prudent reflections.

He maintained that, after all, there was no remedy for the body but to cut off the diseased parts at once, and he therefore begged his Majesty for the means of performing the operation handsomely.

The general expressions which he had previously used in favor of broths and mild treatment hardly tallied with the severe amputation thus recommended.