sufficient argument to condemn you to death, without the formal
proofs required by the strict letter of the law.

"But his imperial majesty, fully determined against capital
punishment, was graciously pleased to say, that since the council
thought the loss of your eyes too easy a censure, some other way
may be inflicted hereafter. And your friend the secretary, humbly
desiring to be heard again, in answer to what the treasurer had
objected, concerning the great charge his majesty was at in
maintaining you, said, that his excellency, who had the sole
disposal of the emperor's revenue, might easily provide against
that evil, by gradually lessening your establishment; by which, for
want of sufficient for you would grow weak and faint, and lose your
appetite, and consequently, decay, and consume in a few months;
neither would the stench of your carcass be then so dangerous, when
it should become more than half diminished; and immediately upon
your death five or six thousand of his majesty's subjects might, in
two or three days, cut your flesh from your bones, take it away by
cart-loads, and bury it in distant parts, to prevent infection,
leaving the skeleton as a monument of admiration to posterity.

"Thus, by the great friendship of the secretary, the whole affair
was compromised. It was strictly enjoined, that the project of
starving you by degrees should be kept a secret; but the sentence
of putting out your eyes was entered on the books; none dissenting,
except Bolgolam the admiral, who, being a creature of the empress,
was perpetually instigated by her majesty to insist upon your
death, she having borne perpetual malice against you, on account of
that infamous and illegal method you took to extinguish the fire in
her apartment.