THE PORTUGUESE SHIP. i 88

make any signal to them. But after I had crowded to the utmost
and begun to despair, they, it seems, saw me by the help of their
perspective-glasses, and that it was some Huropean boat, which, as
they supposed, must belong to some ship that was lost; so they
shortened sail to let me come up. I was encouraged with this;

 

““] WAS SOON CONVINCED THEY WERE BOUND SOME OTHER WAY.”

and as I had my patron’s ancient 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. Then they bade me come on
board, and very kindly took me in and all my goods.

It was an inexpressible joy to me, that 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