“The people of the inn came up and found I had been struck by four balls and several slugs, but none of the wounds in any vital part.  Calling for a confessor, I received all the sacraments as became a Catholic Christian; but I gradually recovered, though it was two months before I was able to continue my journey.  I then proceeded to Genoa, but found no other means of passage than two feluccas, which were hired by myself and two Spanish gentlemen.  One of them we employed to go before and pilot the way, and in the other we ourselves embarked.  In this way we pursued our voyage, closely hugging the shore; but when we came to a spot on the coast of France, called the Three Marias, two Turkish galleys suddenly came out upon us from a creek, and one keeping to seaward of us, the other more in shore, they cut off our escape to the land and captured us.  The corsairs stripped us to the skin, plundered the feluccas, and having completely emptied them, let them drift ashore, instead of sinking them, saying that they might serve to bring them more pickings another time.

“You may well believe how bitterly I felt my captivity, and above all, the loss of the certificates from Rome, which I carried in a tin case, with the bill for the sixteen hundred ducats; but, by good fortune, they fell into the hands of a Christian slave, a Spaniard, who kept them, for if the Turks had got hold of them, they would have required for my ransom at least the amount of the bill.  They carried us to Algiers, where I found that the fathers of the Most Holy Trinity were redeeming Christian slaves.  I spoke to them, told them who I was, and they, moved by charity, ransomed me, though I was a foreigner.  The price set upon me was three hundred ducats; they paid down one hundred on the spot, and engaged to pay the remaining two hundred as soon as the ship should return with the contributions for the release of the Redemptorist father who remained in Algiers in pledge for four thousand ducats, which he had spent over and above the amount he had brought in hand; for so extreme is the charity of these compassionate fathers, that they give their liberty for another’s, and remain in captivity that others may go free.  In addition to the happiness of obtaining my liberty, I recovered the case with the certificates and the bill.  I showed its contents to the good father, and promised him five hundred ducats, in addition to the amount of my ransom, as a contribution towards the payment of the sum for which he was a hostage.

“It was nearly a year before the ship returned with the redemption money.  What befel me in that year would, of itself, furnish matter for another history too long to relate at present.  I will only say, that I was recognised by one of the twenty Turks whom I liberated with the Christians on the occasion already mentioned; but he was so grateful and so honest, that he would not betray me, for had the Turks known me to be the person who had sunk two