He spoke, and every sound was hushed before the music of his voice.
'Conqueror of the world, that destiny with which it is in vain to
struggle has placed our lives and fortunes in your power. Your slaves
offer for your approbation specimens of their riches; not as tribute,
for all is yours; but to show you the products of security and peace,
and to induce you to believe that mercy may be a policy as profitable
to the conqueror as to the conquered; that it may be better to preserve
than to destroy; and wiser to enjoy than to extirpate.
'Fate ordained that we should be born the slaves of the caliph; that
same fate has delivered his sceptre into your hands. We offer you the
same devotion that we yielded to him, and we entreat the same protection
which he granted to us.
'Whatever may be your decision, we must bow to your decree with the
humility that recognises superior force. Yet we are not without hope.
We cannot forget that it is our good fortune not to be addressing
a barbarous chieftain, unable to sympathise with the claims of
civilisation, the creations of art, and the finer impulses of humanity.
We acknowledge your irresistible power, but we dare to hope everything
from a prince whose genius all acknowledge and admire, who has spared
some portion of his youth from the cares of government and the pursuits
of arms to the ennobling claims of learning, whose morality has been
moulded by a pure and sublime faith, and who draws his lineage from a
sacred and celebrated race, the unrivalled antiquity of which even the
Prophet acknowledges.
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