things, sent him into the army then in
Flanders, under the command of the Duke of Marlborough; and there he
assisted at the several sieges which were undertaken by the Confederate
army after his arrival, viz., Mons, Douai, Bouchain, and several others.
Yet though he was bold there, even to temerity, he never received so
much as one wound through the whole course of the war, in which, after
the siege of Lille, he commanded as a lieutenant, and that with great
reputation.

On his return into England he at first wholly addicted himself to a
religious sober life, the several accidents of the war having disposed
him to a more serious temper by making him plainly perceive the hand of
Providence in protecting and destroying, according as its wisdom seeth
fit. But after a short stay in London, he unhappily fell into the
acquaintance of a lewd woman, who so besotted him that he really
intended to marry her, if the regiment's going to Ireland had not
prevented it. But there the case was not much mended, since Captain
Massey gave too much way to the debaucheries generally practised in that
nation.

On his coming back from thence, by the recommendation of the Duke of
Chandois, he was made by the Royal African Company a lieutenant colonel
in their service, and an engineer for erecting a fort on the Coast of
Africa. He promised himself great advantage and a very honourable
support from this employment, but he and the soldiers under his command
being very ill used by the person who commanded the ship in which he
went over (being denied their proportion of provisions and in all other
respects treated with much indignity) it made a great impression on
Captain Massey's mind, who could not bear to see numbers of those poor
creatures perish, not only without temporal necessities, but wanting
also the assistance of a divine in their last moments. For the chaplain
of the ship remained behind in the Maderas, on a foresight perhaps, of
the miseries he should have suffered in the voyage.

In this miserable condition were things when the Captain and his
soldiers came into the River Gambia, where the designed fort was to be
built. Here the water was so bad that the poor wretches, already in the
most dreadful condition, were many of them deprived of life a few days
after they were on shore. The Captain was excessively troubled at the
sight of their misfortunes and too easily in hopes of relieving them
gave way to the persuasion of a captain[29