Snarleyyow eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 524 pages of information about Snarleyyow.

Snarleyyow eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 524 pages of information about Snarleyyow.

About the same hour of night that the letter was put into the hands of Mynheer Krause, a packet was brought up to Lord Albemarle, who was playing a game of put with his Grace the Duke of Portland; at that time put was a most fashionable game; but games are like garments, as they become old they are cast off, and handed down to the servants.  The outside of the despatch was marked “To Lord Albemarle’s own hands.  Immediate and most important.”  It appeared, however, as if the two noble lords considered the game of put as more important and immediate, for they finished it without looking at the packet in question, and it was midnight before they threw up the cards.  After which, Lord Albemarle went to a side table, apart from the rest of the company, and broke the seals.  It was a letter with enclosures, and ran as follows: 

     “MY LORD ALBEMARLE,

“Although your political enemy, I do justice to your merits, and to prove my opinion of you, address to you this letter, the object of which is to save your government from the disgrace of injuring a worthy man, and a staunch supporter, to expose the villany of a coward and a scoundrel.  When I state that my name is Ramsay, you may at once be satisfied that, before this comes to your hands, I am out of your reach.  I came here in the king’s cutter, commanded by Mr Vanslyperken, with letters of recommendation to Mynheer Krause, which represented me as a staunch adherent of William of Orange and a Protestant, and, with that impression, I was well received, and took up my abode in his house.  My object you may imagine, but fortune favoured me still more, in having in my power Lieutenant Vanslyperken.  I opened the government despatches in his presence, and supplied him with false seals to enable him to do the same, and give me the extracts which were of importance, for which I hardly need say he was most liberally rewarded; this has been carried on for some time, but it appears, that in showing him how to obtain your secrets, I also showed him how to possess himself of ours, and the consequence has been that he has turned double traitor, and I have now narrowly escaped.
“The information possessed by Mynheer Krause was given by me, to win his favour for one simple reason, that I fell in love with his daughter, who has now quitted the country with me.  He never was undeceived as to my real position, nor is he even now.  Let me do an honest man justice.  I enclose you the extracts from your duplicates made by Mr Vanslyperken, written in his own hand, which I trust will satisfy you as to his perfidy, and induce you to believe in the innocence of the worthy syndic from the assurance of a man, who, although a Catholic, a Jacobite, and if you please an attainted traitor, is incapable of telling you a falsehood.  I am, my lord, with every respect for your noble character.

     “Yours most obediently,

       “EDWARD RAMSAY.”

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Snarleyyow from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.