'Having been hitherto the instrument of procuring glory to the Swedish arms, I cannot think of proving the cause of their ruin. I therefore declare myself ready to sacrifice the crown, and my personal interests, to the preservation of the sacred person of their king, as I can see no other method of releasing him from the place where he now is.' Having made this declaration (which is here given in his own words), he prepared to set out for Turkey, in hopes of being able to soften the inflexible temper of his benefactor, by the sacrifice he had made for him. His ill fortune would have it, that he arrived in Bessarabia at the very time that Charles, after having given his word to the sultan, that he would depart from Bender, and having received the necessary remittances for his journey, and an escort for his person, took the mad resolution to continue there, and opposed a whole army of Turks and Tartars, with only his own domestics. The former, though they might easily have killed him, contented themselves with taking him prisoner. At this very juncture, Stanislaus arriving, was seized himself; so that two Christian kings were prisoners at one time in Turkey. At this time, when all Europe was in commotion, and that France had just terminated a war equally fatal against one part thereof, in order to settle the grandson of Lewis XIV. on the throne of Spain, England gave peace to France, and the victory gained by Marshal Villars at Denain in Flanders, saved that state from its other enemies. France had been, for upwards of a century, the ally of Sweden, and it was the interest of the former, that its ally should not be stript of his possessions in Germany. Charles, unhappily, was at such a distance from his dominions, that he did not even know what was transacting in France.