He was, indeed, soon convinced of his danger, for he had a private intimation that the king's vizirs were consulting together on the expedience of securing his person, under the apprehension that Zohák would be invading the country, and consigning it to devastation and ruin, if his retreat was discovered.

2. "Canst thou, and honour'd with a Christian name, Buy what is woman-born, and feel no shame; Trade in the blood of innocence, and plead Expedience as a warrant for the deed?"Cowper.

There remained the question whether the superiority extended to his guns; and such was the contempt of the British naval officers for American ships, that with this expedience before their eyes they still believed one of their thirty-eight-gun frigates to be more than a match for an American forty-four, although the American, besides the heavier armament, had proved his capacity to outsail and out-manoeuvre the Englishman.

It is I, Hannibal, who now solicit peace; who would neither ask for it unless I believed it expedient, nor will I fail to observe it for the same reason of expedience on account of which I have solicited it.