prepared to fight; our ship having twelve guns, and the rover 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 sails 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 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 I 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.