esperate
engagement, wherein many were killed and wounded on both sides; but
finding ourselves overpowered with numbers, our ship disabled and
ourselves too impotent to have the least hopes of success, we were
forced to surrender; and accordingly were all carried prisoners into the
port of Salee. Our men were sent to the Emperor's court to be sold
there, but the pirate captain taking notice of me, kept me to be his
own slave.

In this condition, I thought myself the most miserable creature on
earth, and the prophecy of my father came afresh into my thoughts.
However, my condition was better than I thought it to be, as will soon
appear. Some hopes indeed I had that my new patron would go to sea
again, where he might be taken by a Spanish or Portuguese man of war,
and then I should be set at liberty. But in this I was mistaken; for he
never took me with him, but left me to look after his little garden, and
do the drudgery of his house, and when he returned from sea, would make,
me lie in the cabin, and look after the ship. I had no one that I could
communicate my thoughts to, which were continually meditating my escape;
no Englishman, Irishman, or Scotchman here but myself; and for two years
I could see nothing practicable, but only pleased myself with the
imagination.

After some length of time, my patron, as I found, grew; so poor that he
could not fit out his ship as usual; and then he used constantly, once
or twice a week, if the weather was fair, to go out a fishing, taking me
and a young Moresco Boy to row the boat; and to much pleased was he with
me for my dexterity in catching the fish, that he would often send me
with a Moor, who was one of his kinsemen, and the Moresco youth, to
catch a dish of fish for him.

One morning, as we were at the sport, there arose such a thick fog that
we lost sight of the shore; and rowing we knew not which way, we
laboured all the night, and in the morning found ourselves in the ocean,
two leagues from land. However, we attained there at length, and made
the greater haste, because our stomachs were exceedingly sharp and
hungry. In order to prevent such disasters for the future, my patron
ordered a carpenter to build a little state room or cabin in the middle
of the long-boat, with a place behind it to steer and hale home the
main-sheet, with other conveniences to keep him from the weather, as
also lockers to put in all manner of provisions, with a handsome
shoulder of mutton sai