. The unhappy child being the only hope of the family of
Alvarez, the uncle immediately ordered a minute inquiry to be set on foot; in
consequence of which he was informed, that the orphan had been sold to a Turk,
who had afterwards transferred him to an English merchant, by whom he was
conveyed to London.
    An express was immediately dispatched to this capital, where he understood
that the unhappy exile had, in consideration of his faithful services, been
bound apprentice to a French barber-surgeon; and after he had sufficiently
qualified himself in that profession, been received into the family of the count
de Gallas, at that time the emperor's embassador at the court of London. From
the house of this nobleman, he was traced into the service of count d'Oberstorf,
where he had married his lady's chamber-maid, and then gone to settle as a
surgeon in Bohemia.
    In the course of these inquiries, several years elapsed; his uncle, who was
very much attached to the house of Austria, lived at Barcelona, when the father
of this empress queen resided in that city, and lent him a very considerable sum
of money in the most pressing emergency of his affairs: and when that prince was
on the point of returning to Germany, the old count finding his end approaching,
sent his father confessor to his majesty, with a circumstantial account of the
barbarity he had practised against his nephew, for which he implored
forgiveness, and begg'd he would give orders, that the orphan, when found,
should inherit the dignities and fortune which he had unjustly usurped.
    His majesty assured the old man, that he might make himself easy on that
score, and ordered the confessor to follow him to Vienna, immediately after the
count's death, in order to assist his endeavours in finding out the injured
heir. The priest did not fail to yield obedience to this command: he informed
himself of certain natural marks on the young count's body, which were known to
the nurse and women who attended him in his infancy; and, with a gentleman whom
the emperor ordered to accompany him, set out for Bohemia, where he soon found
the object of his inquiry, in the capacity of major domo to a nobleman of that
country, he having quitted his profession of surgery for that office.
    He was not a little surprized, when he found himself circumstantially
catechised about the particulars of his life, by persons commissioned for that
purpose by the emperor. He told them, that he was absolutely ignorant of his own
birth, though he
