Upon the Receipt of his Letter, Ferdinand was at a stand; he did not fully believe, nor yet altogether disbelieve him; he was inclined to suspect, that the Memory of his former Sufferings, and the Fear of future ones, did deter him from that Employment, rather than the Danger of his Disease; and yet, on the other side, he did not think it creditable for himself to employ a Man that had so well deserved of him and of the Commonwealth, in any Service against his Will. But the Death of Malvezius, which followed a few Months after, did sufficiently convince him, that his Disease was not pretended, to decline the Employment, but was really a Mortal one.
Upon this, I was substituted in the Place of Malvezius: But, being unexperienced (as I said before) in the Affairs and Manners of the Turks, King Ferdinand thought it adviseable for me to bestow a Visit upon Malvezius in his Sickness, that so, by his Directions and Advice, I might be better cautioned and armed against any Impositions of the captious Turks. Two Days I staid with him, which was as much as the straitness of my Time would permit; and I husbanded them so well, as to be informed by him, what I was to act, and what to avoid, in my daily Convention with the Turks.
Whereupon, I posted back to Vienna, and began, with great Application and Diligence, to prepare Necessaries for my Journey. But such was the Flush of Business, and so little the Time allowed to dispatch it, that, when the Day fixt for my Departure came, though the King did earnestly press me forward, and I had been extremely Busy all the Day in equipping myself, and in causing Bag and Baggage to be pack'd up, even from the fourth Watch; yet it was the first Watch of the
