The most desperate attempts were sometimes made to effect an escape from these ruthless monsters, which occasionally succeeded.

In 1644 William Oakley and four companions escaped from Algiers, in a most miraculous manner, in a canvas boat.  There was at this time an English clergyman, Mr. Sprat, in captivity, and the wretched slaves had the privilege of meeting in a cellar, where he would pray with them.  Oakley had got into the good graces of his master, and was allowed his time by giving his master two dollars a month.  He traded in tobacco and a few trifling articles, so that a strict watch was not kept on his movements.  He conceived the project of making a canvas boat.  He says I now first opened my design to my comrades, informing them, that I had contrived the model of a boat, which, being formed in pieces, and afterwards put together, might be the means of our deliverance.  They greedily grasped at the prospect; but cooler reflection pointed out difficulties innumerable:  some of them started objections which they thought insuperable, and these I endeavored to overrule.

We began our work in the cellar which had served for our devotions, though it was not the sanctity of the place, but its privacy, that induced us to this selection.  We first provided a piece of wood, twelve feet long, and, that it might escape observation, it was cut in two, being jointed in the middle.  Next we procured the timbers of ribs, which, to avoid the same hazard, were in three pieces each, and jointed in two places.  The flat side of one of the two pieces was laid over the other, and two holes bored in every joint to receive nails; so that when united, each joint would make an obtuse angle, and approach towards a semicircular figure, as we required.  We had, in the formation of an external covering, to avoid hammering and nailing, which would have made such a noise in the cellar as to attract the notice of the Algerines, who are insufferably suspicious about their wives and slaves.  Therefore, we provided as much canvas as would cover the boat twice over, and as much pitch, tar and tallow, as would make it a kind of tarpaulin; as also earthen pots in which to melt our materials.  The two carpenters and myself were appointed to this service in the cellar.  We stopped up all chinks and crevices, that the fumes of these substances might not betray us.  But we had not been long at work, when the smell of the melting materials overcame me, and obligated me to go into the streets gasping for breath, where meeting with the cool air, I swooned away, and broke my face in the fall.  My companions, finding me in this plight, carried me back, extremely sick and unserviceable.  Before long, I heard one of them complain of sickness, and thus he could proceed no further; therefore, I saw if we abandoned our project this night, it might not be resumed, which made me resolve to set the cellar door wide open, while I stood sentinel to give notice of approaching danger.  In this way we finished the whole, and then carried it to my shop, which was about a furlong distant.