But Digby was a good lover.  All the absurd rhodomontade of his strange Memoirs notwithstanding, there are gleams of rare beauty in the story of his passion, which raise him to the level of the great lovers.  His Memoirs were designed to tell “the beginning, progress, and consummation of that excellent love, which only makes me believe that our pilgrimage in this world is not indifferently laid upon all persons for a curse.”  And here is a very memorable thing.  “Understanding and love are the natural operation of a reasonable creature; and this last, which is a gift that of his own nature must always be bestowed, being the only thing that is really in his power to bestow, it is the worthiest and noblest that can be given.”

But, as he naively says, “the relations that follow marriage are ... a clog to an active mind”; and his kinsman Bristol was ever urging him to show his worth “by some generous action.”  The result of this urging was Scanderoon.  His object, plainly stated, was to ruin Venetian trade in the Levant, to the advantage of English commerce.  The aid and rescue of Algerian slaves were afterthoughts.  King James promised him a commission; but Buckingham’s secretary, on behalf of his master absent in the Ile de Re, thought his privileges were being infringed, and the King drew back.  Digby acted throughout as if he had a “publike charge,” but he was really little other than a pirate.  He sailed from Deal in December, 1627, his ships the “Eagle” and the “George and Elizabeth.”  It was six months before the decisive fight took place; but on the way he had captured some French and Spanish ships near Gibraltar; and what with skirmishes and sickness, his voyage did not want for risk and episode at any time.  Digby the landsman maintained discipline, reconciled quarrels, doctored his men, ducked them for disorderliness, and directed the naval and military operations like any old veteran.  At Scanderoon [now Alexandretta in the Levant] the French and Venetians, annoyed by his presence, fired on his ships.  He answered with such pluck and decision that, after a three hours’ fight, the enemy was completely at his mercy, and the Venetians “quitted to him the signiority of the roade.”  In his Journal of the Voyage you may read a sober account, considering who was the teller of the tale, of a brilliant exploit.  He does not disguise the fact that he was acting in defiance of his own countrymen in the Levant.  The Vice-Consul at Scanderoon kept telling him that “our nation” at Aleppo “fared much the worse for his abode there.”  He was setting the merchants in the Levant by the ears, and when he turned his face homewards, the English were the most relieved of all.  His exploit “in that drowsy and inactive time ... was looked upon with general estimation,” says Clarendon.  The King gave him a good welcome, but could not follow it up with any special favour; for there were many complaints over the business, and Scanderoon had to be repudiated.