The unfortunate death of Polonius gave the king a pretense for sending Hamlet out of the kingdom. He would willingly have put him to death, fearing him as dangerous; but he dreaded the people, who loved Hamlet, and the queen, who, with all her faults, doted upon the prince, her son. So this subtle king, under pretense of providing for Hamlet’s safety, that he might not be called to account for Polonius’s death, caused him to be conveyed on board a ship bound for England, under the care of two courtiers, by whom he despatched letters to the English court, which in that time was in subjection and paid tribute to Denmark, requiring, for special reasons there pretended, that Hamlet should be put to death as soon as he landed on English ground. Hamlet, suspecting some treachery, in the nighttime secretly got at the letters, and, skilfully erasing his own name, he in the stead of it put in the names of those two courtiers, who had the charge of him, to be put to death; then sealing up the letters, he put them into their place again. Soon after the ship was attacked by pirates, and a sea-fight commenced, in the course of which Hamlet, desirous to show his valor, with sword in hand singly boarded the enemy’s vessel; while his own ship, in a cowardly manner, bore away; and leaving him to his fate, the two courtiers made the best of their way to England, charged with those letters the sense of which Hamlet had altered to their own deserved destruction. The pirates who had the prince in their power showed themselves gentle enemies, and, knowing whom they had got prisoner, in the hope that the prince might do them a good turn at court in recompense for any favor they might show him, they set Hamlet on shore at the nearest port in Denmark. From that place Hamlet wrote to the king, acquainting him with the strange chance which had brought him back to his own country and saying that on the next day he should present himself before his Majesty. When he got home a sad spectacle offered itself the first thing to his eyes.