ship. This was the unhappiest voyage that ever man made; for
though I did not carry quite 100 pounds of my new-gained wealth, so
that I had 200 pounds left, which I had lodged with my friend's
widow, who was very just to me, yet I fell into terrible
misfortunes. The first was this: our ship making her course
towards the Canary Islands, or rather between those islands and the
African shore, was surprised in the grey 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 get 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 two hundred 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