Some of your
servants were to have private orders to strew a poisonous juice on your
shirts and sheets, which would soon make you tear your own flesh, and
die in the utmost torture. The general came into the same opinion; so
that for a long time there was a majority against you: but his majesty
resolving, if possible, to spare your life, at last brought off the
chamberlain.
Upon this incident, Reldresal, principal secretary for private affairs,
who always approved himself your true friend, was commanded by the
emperor to deliver his opinion, which he accordingly did; and therein
justified the good thoughts you have of him. He allowed your crimes to
be great, but that still there was room for mercy, the most commendable
virtue in a prince, and for which his majesty was so justly celebrated.
He said, the friendship between you and him was so well known to the
world, that perhaps the most honorable board might think him partial;
however, in obedience to the command he had received, he would freely
offer his sentiments; that if his majesty, in consideration of your
services, and pursuant to his own merciful disposition, would please to
spare your life, and only give orders to put out both your eyes, he
humbly conceived that, by this expedient, justice might in some measure
be satisfied, and all the world would applaud the lenity of the emperor,
as well as the fair and generous proceedings of those who have the honor
to be his counsellors: that the loss of your eyes would be no impediment
to your bodily strength, by which you might still be useful to his
majesty: that blindness is an addition to courage, by concealing dangers
from us: that the fear you had for your eyes was the greatest difficulty
in bringing over the enemy's fleet: and it would be sufficient for you
to see by the eyes of the ministers, since the greatest princes do no
more.
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