_Some Account of the two Persons who came in Chains._
I omit this chapter, as it is quite unnecessary for the story, and
an absurd relation concerning the two prisoners who came in the
English ship with Maurice. The woman, who is called Rosamund, is a
very abandoned and wicked person; and at last, in consequence of the
excessive infamy of her conduct, she has been sentenced to banishment,
and ordered to be set on shore on a desert island, in company with
Clodio, a man, whose crimes do not appear to be of a nature that would
have brought him to punishment in the present day. "I have," says he,
"a certain satirical spirit, and a backbiting one, a ready pen, and
a free tongue, I delight in malicious wit, and for a bon mot, would
sacrifice, not only one friend, but a hundred. Prisons could never
silence my tongue, nor exile move me; threats could not intimidate, nor
punishment mend me."
He thought being chained in company with Rosamund, the worst part of
his sentence, and declared that death would have been preferable;
whilst she, on her side, assures him, that she would have thrown
herself into the sea to escape from him, had she not been deterred by
the reflection, that she must have carried him into the other world
with her, which would greatly increase her punishment there. "Far
better," said she, "had it pleased the king to take away my life in my
own country, than to make me expiate my crimes by the wounds thy tongue
inflicts at every step, and from which not even angels or saints are
safe."
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