Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/506

 king), from motives of vanity only, by the pride of the Jesuits, and the ignorance of the consul, hurried in one day into apostacy and slavery! Whatever Maillet thought of Poncet's conduct, his bringing Murat, and him only, cook as he was, was the very luckiest accident of his life.

French flatterers will say this would not have happened, or, if it had, a vengeance would have followed, worthy the occasion and the resentment of so great a king, and would have prevented all such violations of the law of nations for the future. To this I answer, The mischief would have been irreparable, and the revenge taken, however complete, would not have restored them their religion, and, without their religion, they themselves would not have returned into their own country, but would have remained necessary sacrifices, which the pride and rashness of the Jesuits had made to the faith of Mahomet.

, where is the threatened revenge for the assassination of M. du Roule, then actual ambassador from the king of France, of which I am now to speak? Was not the law of nations violated in the strongest manner possible by his murder, and without the smallest provocation? What vengeance was taken for this? — Just the same as would have been for the other injury; for the Jesuits and consul would have concealed the one, as tenderness for the Francisan Friars had made them cover the other, lest their abominable wickedness should be exposed. If the court of France did not, their consul in Cairo should have known what the consequence would be of decoying twenty-eight Abyssinians from their own country, to be perverted from