Charles, quite convinced that the Kan and the Pasha intended to hand him over to his enemies, ordered M. Funk, his envoy at the Ottoman Court, to lay his complaints against them before the Sultan and to ask for 1,000 purses more. His great generosity, and his indifference to money, hindered him from seeing the baseness of this proposal. He only did it to get a refusal so that then he might have a fresh pretext for failing to depart; but a man must be reduced to great straits when he has recourse to such tricks. Savari, his interpreter, a crafty and enterprising character, carried the letter to Adrianople in spite of the Grand Vizir’s care to have the roads guarded. Funk was forced to go and deliver this dangerous message, and all the answer he got was imprisonment. Thoroughly angry, the Sultan called an extraordinary Divan and made a speech at it himself. His speech, according to the translation then made of it, was as follows-- “I hardly knew the King of Sweden, but from his defeat at Pultawa and the request he made to me to grant him sanctuary in my empire. I am under no obligation to him, nor have I any reason either to love or fear him; yet, thinking only of the hospitality of a Mussulman and my own generosity, which sheds the dew of its favour on small and great alike, I received and aided him, his ministers, officers and soldiers, in every respect, and for three years and a half have continually loaded him with presents. “I have granted him a considerable guard to take him to his own country. He has asked for 1,000 purses to defray expenses, though I am paying them all, and instead of 1,000 I have granted him 1,200. After getting these from the serasquier of Bender he wants 1,000 more, and refuses to go under the pretext that the guard is too small, whereas it is too large to pass through the country of a friend and ally. I ask you, then, is it any breach of the laws of hospitality to send this prince away, and whether foreign princes would have any ground for accusing me of cruelty and injustice if I used force to make him go?” All the Divan answered that the Sultan might lawfully do as he said. The Mufti declared that Mussulmans are not bound to offer hospitality to infidels, much less to the ungrateful, and he granted his festa, a kind of mandate, which generally accompanies the Sultan’s important orders. These festas are revered as oracles, though the persons who issue them are as much the Sultan’s slaves as any others. The order and the festa were taken to Bender by the Master of the Horse and the first Usher. The Pasha of Bender received the order at the Kan’s, whence he went at once to the Varnitsa to ask if the King would go away in a friendly way, or would force him to carry out the Sultan’s orders.