To the Chevalier Deterville at Malta.

If your mind, Sir, was not the most noble of the human race, how low should I fall! If you had not the most generous soul, and the most feeling heart, surely I should not have made choice of you as the person to have entrusted with my disgrace and my despair. But alas! what now remains for me to dread? what should I fear? every thing to me is lost.

It is no longer the loss of liberty, of rank, or banishment from my country that I lament; it is no longer an uneasiness at an innocent tenderness that draws tears from my eyes, but it is the violation of vows, it is love despised that tears my soul. Aza is unfaithful! Aza unfaithful! what force have those sad words over my soul! my blood freezes – a torrent of tears –

From the Spaniards I first learned to know misfortune; but none was equal to the last stroke. It is they that have torn from me Aza's heart; it is their cruel religion that renders me odious in his eyes; that religion approves, nay commands infidelity, perfidy, and ingratitude; but it forbids the love of our near relations. If I was a stranger, and my family unknown, Aza might love me; but being united by the ties of blood, he must abandon me, he must take away my life, without feeling, without regret, without remorse.

Alas! strange as this religion is, if I could, by embracing it, have recovered what it hath taken from me, I would have submitted to all its laws, without suffering my mind to be corrupted by its principles. In the bitterness of my soul, I desired to be instructed in it, but my tears were not regarded; for I cannot be admitted into so pure a society, without giving up the very motives which make me desire to be received into it, without renouncing my love, that is to say, without altering my nature.