They repeated this so often, and with so much
deference and so much obstinacy, that the prince, totally forgetting the
original oracle, believed that he wanted to know who the woman was who
had the same name as her father. However, remembring there was something
in the question that he had taken for royal, he always said _the king
her father_. The prime minister consulted the red book or court-calendar,
which was _his_ oracle, and could find no such princess. All the
ministers at foreign courts were instructed to inform themselves if
there was any such lady; but as it took up a great deal of time to put
these instructions into cypher, the prince's impatience could not wait
for the couriers setting out, but he determined to go himself in search
of the princess. The old king, who, _as is usual_, had left the whole
management of affairs to his son the moment he was fourteen, was charmed
with the prince's resolution of seeing the world, which he thought could
be done in a few days, the facility of which makes so many monarchs
never stir out of their own palaces till it is too late; and his majesty
declared, that he should approve of his son's choice, be the lady who
she would, provided she answered to the divine designation of having the
same name as her father.
The prince rode post to Canton, intending to embark there on board an
English man of war.
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