We, the mandarins, wishing [to
aid?] him, beg you that you may be pleased to pardon him; because
it would certainly be a great pity to treat as a rebel a faithful
mandarin, who merely showed his love for you.
Moreover, the viceroys and the _Chaiery_ of each province several times
sent you memorials advising you of the calamities of the people, and
begging that you be pleased to diminish the customs and impositions,
a matter worthy of careful consideration. In the same way, all the
mandarins of the court have often implored you, by means of memorials,
that you should go out _incognito_ to hear complaints for the good
of the government of the kingdom, and to bring it into harmony with
the will of Heaven. If you had done this, we would now find ourselves
in a very peaceful condition, and our empire would last a thousand
centuries; but oh king, as you neither listened to nor examined into
what was proposed to you, it appears, rather, that you are sleeping at
your ease in your palace. You act as if you did not notice what you
clearly see with your eyes. Hence for a long time the mandarins have
been very much troubled. We have seen rivers running with blood. Are
not all these matters of evil portent? There are indeed, other
disasters than the falling of the walls on the Tartar frontier. We
often sent memorials asking you to order that they be rebuilt; and at
last you sent two mandarins with two hundred thousand men to repair
them.
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