"The favours your goodness confers upon me are such as can be equalled by but one thing in the world, and that is my just and grateful sense of them.--Charming would be the toils of war, did all employed in them meet a recompence like mine!--Is there a man, so mean, so poor in spirit, that praises such as I receive might not animate to actions worthy of them!--What acknowledgments can I make the count suitable to the immense obligations I owe him, for inspiring your lordship with sentiments, which, tho' the supreme wish of my aspiring soul, I never durst allow myself to hope; and which afford a prospect of future accumulated blessings, such as I could scarce flatter myself with being real, were not the transporting idea in some measure confirmed to me, by your having given a sanction to a correspondence I so lately despaired of ever obtaining!--Blessed change!--Extatic condescensions!--Fortune has done all she can for me, and anticipated all the good that, after a long train of services and approved fidelity, I scarce should have presumed to hope!--Oh my lord! I have no words to thank you as I ought! It is deeds alone, and rendering myself worthy of your indulgence, that must preserve your good opinion, and keep you from repenting having overwhelmed me with this profusion of happiness!--Yet how joyfully could I now pursue the rout to Paris, and content myself with owing every thing merely to your goodness, were I not with-held by all the considerations that ought to have weight with a man of honour!--My royal general is inflexible to the persuasions of almost all the courts in Christendom, and hurried by his thirst of fame, or some other more latent motive, has given orders to prepare for a march, where, or against whom, is yet a secret to the army; but by the preparations for it, we believe they are not short journeys we are to take.--Should I now quit a service where I have been promoted so much beyond my merit, what, my lord, but cowardice or ingratitude could be imputed to me as the motive! --Not all my reasons, powerful as they are, would have any weight with a prince, who is deaf to every thing but the calls of glory; and I must return loaden with his displeasure, and the reproaches of all I leave behind!--Now to return is certain infamy!--To go, is in pursuit of honour!--Your lordship will not therefore be surprized I make choice of the latter, since no hazard can be equal to that of forfeiting the little reputation I have acquired, and which alone can render me worthy any part of the favours I have received. _I am_, _With the extremest respect and submission_, _Your lordship's Eternally devoted servant,_ HORATIO." The last and most difficult task he had to go thro', was the refusal he must give to Dorilaus, who had laid his commands on him in such express terms; and it was not without a good deal of blotting, altering, and realtering, he at length formed an epistle to him in these terms: