Thus stripped, he roamed about Normandy in a forlorn condition, occasionally entertained by honorable persons who had heard of his misfortunes, and seeking always means of continuing his travels, wandering from port to port on the chance of embarking on a man-of-war.  Once he was found in a forest near dead with grief and cold, and rescued by a rich farmer; shortly afterwards, in a grove in Brittany, he chanced upon one of the gallants who had robbed him, and the two out swords and fell to cutting.  Smith had the satisfaction of wounding the rascal, and the inhabitants of a ruined tower near by, who witnessed the combat, were quite satisfied with the event.

Our hero then sought out the Earl of Ployer, who had been brought up in England during the French wars, by whom he was refurnished better than ever.  After this streak of luck, he roamed about France, viewing the castles and strongholds, and at length embarked at Marseilles on a ship for Italy.  Rough weather coming on, the vessel anchored under the lee of the little isle St. Mary, off Nice, in Savoy.

The passengers on board, among whom were many pilgrims bound for Rome, regarded Smith as a Jonah, cursed him for a Huguenot, swore that his nation were all pirates, railed against Queen Elizabeth, and declared that they never should have fair weather so long as he was on board.  To end the dispute, they threw him into the sea.  But God got him ashore on the little island, whose only inhabitants were goats and a few kine.  The next day a couple of trading vessels anchored near, and he was taken off and so kindly used that he decided to cast in his fortune with them.  Smith’s discourse of his adventures so entertained the master of one of the vessels, who is described as “this noble Britaine, his neighbor, Captaine la Roche, of Saint Malo,” that the much-tossed wanderer was accepted as a friend.  They sailed to the Gulf of Turin, to Alessandria, where they discharged freight, then up to Scanderoon, and coasting for some time among the Grecian islands, evidently in search of more freight, they at length came round to Cephalonia, and lay to for some days betwixt the isle of Corfu and the Cape of Otranto.  Here it presently appeared what sort of freight the noble Britaine, Captain la Roche, was looking for.

An argosy of Venice hove in sight, and Captaine la Roche desired to speak to her.  The reply was so “untoward” that a man was slain, whereupon the Britaine gave the argosy a broadside, and then his stem, and then other broadsides.  A lively fight ensued, in which the Britaine lost fifteen men, and the argosy twenty, and then surrendered to save herself from sinking.  The noble Britaine and John Smith then proceeded to rifle her.  He says that “the Silkes, Velvets, Cloth of Gold, and Tissue, Pyasters, Chiqueenes, and Suitanies, which is gold and silver, they unloaded in four-and-twenty hours was wonderful, whereof having sufficient, and tired with toils, they cast her off with her company,