Under ordinary Circumstances, it might have gone hard with me; for the Turks reckon it as an unpardonable crime for a Christian to assume the Mussulman Garb, and conform outwardly to that religion, without having gone through the Proper Rites. However, as I have said, the French Ambassador was just then in high favour with the Porte. He made interest with the Captain Bashaw, the Kislar Aga, and the Grand Vizier himself. The services I had rendered to the Great Turk by suppressing the Insurrection at Broussa were taken into consideration; and it was at length agreed, that if I would convey myself away privately, and take my Wife with me, no more should be said about the matter. It was given out at Broussa that I had been appointed to another and more distant Government; and he who had been Vizier to the unlucky Fat Man got his much-coveted Preferment, and, I have no doubt, was very happy in it, till the inevitable Tartar came, and he was Bowstrung, like his predecessor. So Gholab Bashaw resigned the Three Horse-tails that during so brief a period had waved at his Flagstaff, and became once more plain JOHN DANGEROUS. The Sublime Porte, however, confiscated all my Property at Broussa, including my Wives--I mean, my Women Servants. With my Wife and Child I now returned to Europe, full of Years, and, I hope, notwithstanding some Ups and Downs, full of Honours too. We were in no hurry, however, to return to England; for I had wandered about Foreign Parts so long in Discredit, and Danger, and Distress, that I thought myself well entitled to see the world a little in Freedom and Independence, and with a Handsome competence at my Back. Therefore, as the Chevalier Captain John Dangerous,--I have dropped my Knightly rank of late years,--and furnished with all necessary passports and safe-conducts, we made our way across the Black Sea to Odessa, a mean kind of place, but rising in the way of trade; and after a most affable reception by the Russian Governor of that place, journeyed at our ease through the Tauric Chersonese, now wrested from the Tartar Khans of Simpheropol, and belonging to the Muscovites. Next, in a handsome wheeled carriage-and-four, we made for the great City of Moscow,--the old Capital of the Great Dukes of Russia,--where we abode two whole years, and went among the very best people in the place; although I had an ugly Equivoque with a young gentleman of Quality that was an officer of Dragoons, and who, I declare, stole a diamond-mounted Snuff-box of mine off my wife's Harpsichord, putting the same (the Snuff-box, I mean) into the pocket of his pantaloons. Him I was compelled to expel from my house, the Toe of my Boot aiding; and meeting him subsequently at a Coffee-house, and he not seeming sufficiently impressed with the turpitude of his Offence, but the rather inclined to regard it as a venial Prank or Whimsey, I did Batoon him within an inch of his life, and until there were more wheals on his Body than bars of silver-braid