VII. That I would take no part in affairs of state.
If there was no vessel ready for me to embark, I was allowed to remain at Trondhjem; but I must not leave the town without the governor's permission, or go further than a league from it. The king granted me for my journey 800 crowns of the money which had belonged to me, and hopes were held out of a pension.
The instruction concerning my engagement was very long. Guldberg, who had drawn it up, had interlarded it with a good many religious motives: he even alluded to the efficaciousness of Christ's blood; but, after all, it was probably to him that I owed the amelioration in my fate.
General von der Osten added to the conditions various articles, by which he hoped to pay court to the minister.
I signed what was asked, and though I felt perfectly well the value of an engagement imposed on a man who had not been legally convicted of any crime, I resolved to observe it. When this act was regularly drawn up, the general, in order to give the circumstance greater éclat, had me bled by his surgeon-major, after which he proposed to me a bottle of red wine to restore my senses.
I excused myself by observing that I did not drink, and offered him a liqueur, of which I possessed two bottles.
"I could carry them off," he said, after examining them; "but this commission must be worth more than that."
This was giving me to understand that he reckoned on a goodly portion of my 800 crowns. It may be supposed that my intentions on this point did not at all accord with his.
There was no vessel at Trondhjem destined for France, and I could not expect one for a long time, as from the beginning of September till the end of April the sea is very stormy in these latitudes, and hence I should have to wait eight full months before I could depart.