privateer, and imprisoned at St Malo, 'where
we were used with such inhumanity and cruelty that if we had been taken
by the Turks we could not have been used worse.' The prisoners were
almost starved, and their condition was wretched in every respect.
'These and their other barbarities made so great an impression on me
that I did resolve never to go a prisoner there again, and this
resolution I did ever since continue in.' But when he was for the second
time made prisoner--this time on board the _Friend's Adventure_--there
seemed no escape from this evil fate. The crew were all removed from the
ship, excepting Lyde and one boy, who, under a prize-master and six men,
were to help in sailing her to St Malo. The idea of returning to the
identical prison where he had endured such misery made Lyde desperate,
and, finding no easier expedient, he determined to pit himself against
the seven as soon as he could persuade the boy to join him. The boy, not
unnaturally, hung back from such a venture, and before he could screw
his courage to the sticking-place they had arrived off a small harbour
near Brest, and the French had fired a 'patteroe' for a pilot.
'Whereupon, considering the inhuman usage I formerly had in France, and
how near I was to it again, struck me with such terror that I went down
between decks and prayed God for a southerly wind, to prevent her from
going into that harbour, which God was most graciously pleased to grant
me, for which I returned my unfeigned thanks.'

Lyde's anxiety to attack the French was now redoubled, and when they
invited him to their breakfast, he was so 'ready to faint with eagerness
to encounter them' that he could not stay in the same cabin. He went up
'betwixt decks' to the boy, 'and did earnestly entreat him to go up
presently to the cabin and stand behind me, and knock down but one man,
in case two laid on me, and I would kill and command all the rest
presently.' The boy, however, was timid, and when Lyde, to spur him into
resistance, told all the horrible details of his former captivity, he
calmly replied: 'If I do find it as hard as you say when I am in France,
I will go along with them in a privateer.' 'These words,' writes Lyde,
'struck me to the heart, which made me say: "You dog! What! will you go
with them against your King and Country, and Father and Mother? Sirrah!
I was a prisoner in France four months, and my tongue cannot express
what I endured there, yet I would not turn Pap