sailor. For, as he took delight to introduce me, I took delight to
learn; and, in a word, this voyage made me both a sailor and a
merchant; for I brought home five pounds nine ounces of gold dust
for my adventure, which yielded me in London at my return almost L300,
and this filled me with those aspiring thoughts which have since so
completed my ruin.

  Yet even in this voyage I had my misfortunes too; particularly, that
I was continually sick, being thrown into a violent calenture by the
excessive heat of the climate; our principal trading being upon the
coast, for the latitude of 15 degrees north even to the line itself.

  I was not set up for a Guinea trader; and my friend, to my great
misfortune, dying soon after his arrival, I resolved to go the same
voyage again, and I embarked in the same vessel with one who was his
mate in the former voyage, and had now got the command of the ship.
This was the unhappiest voyage that ever man made; for though I did
not carry quite L100 of my new-gained wealth, so that I had L200 left,
and which I lodged with my friend's widow, who was very just to me,
yet I fell into terrible misfortunes in this voyage; and from the
first was this, viz., our ship making her course towards the Canary
Islands, or rather between those islands and the African shore, was
surprised in the gray of the morning by a Turkish rover of Sallee, who
gave chase to us with all the sail she could make. We crowded also
as much canvas as our yards would spread, or our masts carry, to
have got clear; but finding the pirate gained upon us, and would
certainly come up with us in a few hours, we prepared to fight, our
ship having twelve guns, and the rogue eighteen. About three in the
afternoon he came up with us, and bringing to, by mistake, just
athwart our quarter, instead of athwart our stern, as he intended,
we brought eight of our guns to bear on that side, and poured in a
broadside upon him, which made him sheer off again, after returning
our fire and pouring in also his small-shot from near 200 men which he
had on board. However, we had not a man touched, all our men keeping
close. He prepared to attack us again, and we to defend ourselves; but
laying us on board the next time upon our other quarter, he entered
sixty men upon our decks, who immediately fell to cutting and
hacking the decks and rigging. We plied them with small-shot,
half-pikes, powder-chests, and such like, and cleared our deck of them
twice. However, to cut short this melancholy part of our story, our
ship being disabled, and three of our men killed and eight wounded, we
were obliged to yield, and were carried all prisoners into Sallee, a
port belonging to the Moors.

  The usage I had there was not so dreadful as at first I had
apprehended, nor was I carried up the country to the emperor's
court, as the rest of our men were, but was kept by the captain of the
rover as his proper prize, and made his slave, being young and nimble,
and fit for his business. At this surprising change of my
circumstances from a merchant to a miserable slave, I was perfectly
overwhelmed; and now I looked back upon my father's prophetic
discourse to me, that I should be miserable, and have none to
relieve me, which I thought was now so effectually brought to pass,
that it could not be worse; that now the hand of Heaven had
overtaken me, and I was undone without redemption. But alas! this
was but a taste of the misery I was to go through, as will appear in
the sequel of this story.

  As my new patron, or master, had taken me home to his house, so I
was in hopes that he would take me with him when he went to sea again,
believing that it would some time or other be his fate to be taken
by a Spanish or Portugal man-of-war; and that then I should be set
at liberty. But this hope of mine was soon taken away; for when he
went to sea, he left me on shore to look after his little garden,
and do the common drudgery of slaves about his house; and when he came
home again from his cruise, he ordered me to lie in the cabin to
look after the ship.

  Here I meditated nothing but my escape, and what method I might take
to effect it, but found no way that had the least probability in it.
Nothing presented to make the supposition of it rational; for I had
nobody to communicate it to that would embark with me, no
fellow-slave, no Englishman, Irishman, or Scotsman there but myself;
so that for two years, though I often pleased myself with the
imagination, yet I never had the least encouraging prospect of putting
it in practice.

  After about two years an odd circumstance presented itself, which
put the old thought of making some attempt for my liberty again in
my head. My patron lying at home longer than usual without fitting out
his ship, which, as I heard, was for want of money, he used
constantly, once or twice a week, sometimes oftener, if the weather
was fair, to take the ship's pinnace, and go out into the road
a-fishing; and as he always took me and a young Maresco with him to
row the boat, we made him very merry, and I proved very dexterous in
catching fish; insomuch, that sometimes he would send me with a
Moor, one of his kinsmen, and the youth the Maresco, as they called
him, to catch a dish of fish for him.

  It happened one time that, going a-fishing in a stark calm
morning, a fog rose so thick, that though we were not half a league
from the shore we lost sight of it; and rowing we knew not whither
or which way, we labored all day, and all the next night, and when the
morning came found we were pulled off to sea instead of pulling in for
the shore; and that we were at least two leagues from the shore.
However, we got well in again, though with a great deal of labor,
and some danger, for the wind began to blow pretty fresh in the
morning; but particularly we were all very hungry.

  But our patron, warned by this disaster, resolved to take more