For your part, my dear Casanova, you would give us an acceptable proof of your patriotic zeal, and would furnish in addition an infallible sign of your complete conversion from all those tendencies for which, during your imprisonment in The Leads, you had to atone by punishment which, though severe, was not, as you now see for yourself (if we are to believe your epistolary assurances), altogether unmerited.

I mean, should you be prepared, immediately on your return home, to act in the way previously suggested, to seek acquaintance with the elements sufficiently specified above, to introduce yourself to them in the friendliest fashion as one who cherishes the same tendencies, and to furnish the Senate with accurate and full reports of everything which might seem to you suspicious or worthy of note.
"For these services the authorities would offer you, to begin with, a salary of two hundred and fifty lire per month, apart from special payments in cases of exceptional importance.

I need hardly say that you would receive in addition, without too close a scrutiny of the items, an allowance for such expenses as you might incur in the discharge of your duties (I refer, for instance, to the treating of this individual or of that, little gifts made to women, and so on).
"I do not attempt to conceal from myself that you may have to fight down certain scruples before you will feel inclined to fulfil our wishes.
Permit me, however, as your old and sincere friend (who was himself young once), to remind you that it can never be regarded as dishonorable for a man to perform any services that may be essential for the safety of his beloved fatherland--even if, to a shallow-minded and unpatriotic citizen, such services might seem to be of an unworthy character.
Let me add, Casanova, that your knowledge of human nature will certainly enable you to draw a distinction between levity and criminality, to differentiate the jester from the heretic.

Thus it will be within your power, in appropriate cases, to temper justice with mercy, and to deliver up to punishment those only who, in your honest opinion, may deserve it.
"Above all I would ask you to consider that, should you reject the gracious proposal of the Supreme Council, the fulfilment of your dearest wish--your return to Venice--is likely to be postponed for a long and I fear for an indefinite period; and that I myself, if I may allude to the matter, as an old man of eighty-one, should be compelled in all human probability to renounce the pleasing prospect of ever seeing you again in this life.
"Since, for obvious reasons, your appointment will be of a confidential and not of a public nature, I beg you to address to me personally your reply, for which I make myself responsible, and which I wish to present to the Council at its next sitting a week hence.

Act with all convenient speed, for, as I have previously explained, we are daily receiving offers from thoroughly trustworthy persons who, from patriotic motives, voluntarily place themselves at the disposal of the Supreme Council.