What you have heard, is very true, in every particular; for it is most certain, that all my Collegues are returned Home, and poor I am left behind, alone. And, whereas you put several Questions to me, as, what Fate, or what malevolent Star, kept me back from accompanying them in their Return? And why I did not shake Hands with that barbarous Country, to enjoy the wish’d for Comforts of my own? And withal, you demand, what memorable Matters I have seen or heard of since I wrote last? Promising to give Credit to whatever drops from my Pen, as if it were as true as Gospel. And moreover, you desire to know the course of my Studies, and how I relieve my self, both in my Solitudes and Sufferings? And whether I go abroad, or always stay at home? All these Demands put together, will engage me to write rather Commentaries or Diaries, than a single Letter, especially, since you are very earnest to know, how _Bajazet_’s Matters stand, concerning which, you say, there are various Reports with you. You claim a Promise from me, and unless I perform it, you tell me you will commence an Action against me, and have already drawn your Breviat. To pursue your Metaphor, let me persuade you to stay a while, _Leniter qui sæviunt, sapiunt magis_, says the old Proverb, no Haste to kill true Men: But if you are so much given to Law, take Use and Principal too, rather than I will answer your Suit, for I am averse from _Lawing_. And besides, the distance of Place is so great between us, that if I should put in an Exception to your _Plea_, yet your Writ would hardly abate. But, however it be, I will rather satisfy your Desires, than contend with you in the least. When my Collegues (whose Names I gave you in my last Letters) perceived, that our three Years Abode in this Place had produced little Good hitherto, either to the making of a firm Peace, or the continuing the Truce; and that small Hopes of either did appear for the future, they laboured with Might and Main to be dismissed by this Court; and when, with much ado, _Solyman_’s Consent was obtained therein, (for ’tis no easy matter to get a Dismission from hence) the only Question was, whether we should all go, or only those of us that came first, and so had been longest there? For cunning _Solyman_, that he might not seem over desirous of Peace, by retaining one of us, remitted the Matter wholly to our own Choice. In these Circumstances, my Companions thought it very adviseable, and for our Master’s Service, that one of us should stay behind; and I my self was of the same Mind: But we resolved to dissemble our Sentiments, and conceal them from the _Turks_, so that, as often as we had any Discourse with them on that Subject, I always pretended an utter Unwillingness to stay behind. ’Tis true, I told them I came thither to reside as Ambassador in Ordinary; but it was on Supposition, that Peace would be made between both Empires. That not being yet done, I did not see how I could well stay, but to the