rspective glasses, and
that it was some European boat, which, they supposed, must belong to
some ship that was lost; so they shortened sail, to let me come up. I
was encouraged with this, and as I had my patron's ensign on board, I
made a waft of it to them, for a signal of distress, and fired a gun,
both which they saw; for they told me they saw the smoke, though they
did not hear the gun. Upon these signals, they very kindly brought to,
and lay by for me; and in about three hours' time I came up with them.

They asked me what I was, in Portuguese, and in Spanish, and in French,
but I understood none of them; but, at last, a Scotch sailor, who was on
board, called to me, and I answered him, and told him I was an
Englishman, that I had made my escape out of slavery from the Moors, at
Sallee: they then bade me come on board, and very kindly took me in, and
all my goods.

It was an inexpressible joy to me, which any one will believe, that I
was thus delivered, as I esteemed it, from such a miserable, and almost
hopeless, condition as I was in; and I immediately offered all I had to
the captain of the ship, as a return for my deliverance; but he
generously told me, he would take nothing from me, but that all I had
should be delivered safe to me, when I came to the Brazils. "For," says
he, "I have saved your life on no other terms than I would be glad to be
saved myself; and it may, one time or other, be my lot to be taken up in
the same condition. Besides," continued he, "when I carry you to the
Brazils, so great a way from your own country, if I should take from you
what you have, you will be starved there, and then I only take away that
life I have given. No, no, Seignior Inglese," (Mr. Englishman,) says he;
"I will carry you thither in charity, and these things will help to buy
your subsistence there, and your passage home again."

As he was charitable, in this proposal, so he was just in the
performance, to a tittle; for he ordered the seamen, that none should
offer to touch any thing I had: then he took every thing into his own
possession, and gave me back an exact inventory of them, that I might
have them, even so much as my three earthen jars.

As to my boat, it was a very good one; and that he saw, and told me he
would buy it of me for the ship's use; and asked me what I would have
for it? I told him, he had been so generous to me in every thing, that I
could not offer to make any price of the boat, but left it