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A Letter From a Gentleman in Transilvania to his Friend in America - 11

ver have been brought into such difficulties. Had the Traitors been punish’d according to their Demerit, there never wou’d have been an Appeal to Vienna. How then can you place your chief confidence in a sect who have been the sole cause of your misfortunes? These invincible arguments stagger’d his Excellency; but being a Man of weak Intellects, and abandon’d (like * Sardana palus) to wine, musick and Women, was soon confirm’d in his former opinion, by his other Counsellors, who told him, that all the People in the Province were a set of Villains, but the Piss--Brute---tarians and themselves, and hop’d he wou’d govern himself accordingly. Thus the Council broke up. But I am afraid I have transgress’d the bounds of a single Letter, and have only tired your patience with some few hints about the Politicks of a Country, the name of which is scarcely known in America. You see by this how I improve my time in my Travels, and I hope to return to America equally accomplish’d with those of my Countrymen who have made this Tour before me. Adieu, dear Sir, at present! You need not expect to hear from me,

* The last King of the Assyrian Empire, who for his Extreme Effeminacy was so disdain’d by his own Captains, that they conspired against him. When he saw himself so straitned, that there was no escaping, he turned valiant, and making a funeral pile of all his precious Things (fiddles) he burnt himself in his Palace, and went out in a blaze.

See a full account of him in Justin.

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