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head. In three months, of 600 men, there died, owing to the captors' cruelty, more than 400. Well might these sufferings determine Lyde, when he was clear of the French gaol, never to enter one again, although he might have to take his own life to escape imprisonment.

Eventually, probably through exchange, Lyde was released, and on September 30, 1691, he sailed as mate of the Friends Adventure, bound from Topsham to Oporto, and thence to London. Oporto was reached in safety, after a three months' voyage, and in February 1692 they sailed from Oporto to London. On the 29th, when twenty-five leagues from Cape Finisterre, a French privateer of thirty-six guns and some 250 men overtook and captured them.

When Lyde saw that escape from the Frenchman, which was a very rapid sailer, was impossible, he fastened two parts of the topsail halliards together, so that the men could not lower the topsail, being wishful to get as much time as possible to hide necessaries, so that when the chance came, if left on board the Friends' Adventure, he might attack the prize crew. He urged the master to join him, but the master said he did not think it was possible for Lyde to retake the ship, and that even if he did it would be out of the question for him to take her home.

Lyde went into the forecastle and hid a blunderbuss and ammunition between the pipes of wine which the vessel carried, and seeing that it would not be long before the enemy was on board, he took from his own share of the wine-for he had a venture in the voyage-a five-gallon cask and beat in the head with a hammer. Having sweetened it with several pounds of sugar he drank to the master, observing that he was going to have his fill of it while he could, and that if it pleased God that he should remain on board, he hoped he would not be long dispossessed of the rest.

When the privateer's boat, full of men, came on board, Lyde stepped over the side, hat under arm, 'handing the French gentlemen in,' till one of them took hold of his coat, and helped it off, the mate not daring to resist. Lyde thereupon ran aft into the cabin, and, as he puts it, saved himself from further damage.

The French gentlemen' helped themselves freely to anything there was on board, taking nearly all the crew's clothes; then Lyde and the boy Wright were ordered to remain on board. This was after the wish of the mate's own heart, although he would have liked a man instead of the boy to be his companion.

The master and four men and a boy were put on board the privateer, but before they left Lyde asked him what he had done with a certain bag of money. The master told him that he had given it to the French lieutenant who had boarded them; but being curious, he wanted to know why the mate put such a question. Lyde answered that he had no doubt he would have secured the money by retaking the ship; whereupon the master told him that such an achievement was impossible. With God, in whom he put his trust, Lyde answered, nothing was impossible; soon after which the privateersmen went, leaving seven men on board the Friends' Adventure to navigate her to St. Malo.

No sooner was the Frenchman out of sight, which happened in three hours, than Lyde set to work to overcome the prize crew. At first he tried stratagem, and politely asked the commander if he should fetch a barrel of wine, in the hope of making them drunk, so that he could all the more easily overcome them. The master readily agreed, and Lyde produced a five-gallon barrel of sweet strong wine, which he liberally kept tapped in the steerage. He set a good example by drinking copiously himself, and the Frenchmen zealously followed his lead. But although they drank not only then, but also all the time he was their prisoner, never a man went under. To every appearance they were hardened topers, and the sweet strong wine was to them as milk to babes.

Finding that this attempt was useless, Lyde took the boy into his confidence, and tried hard to persuade him to assist in the effort to retake the ship. Judging from Lyde's account Wright was not of the spirited nature needful for so dangerous an enterprise, and, as a matter of fact, he was spoken to many times in vain. He was perfectly justified in supposing that the attempt was rash to madness, and that there could be no hope of victory for one man and one boy over seven privateersmen who were incessantly on the watch.

Lyde was not easily dismayed, and he did his best to gain the favour and support of the youth. Not long after his first attempt to win him over they were off the coast of France, and Lyde grew desperate at the prospect of fresh incarceration in the country of the enemy. Filled with his grim determination to escape a renewal of his former miseries he called the boy between decks, and read two or three chapters from the Bible to him, after which he used all his eloquence to get him to assist him to retake the ship. But the boy was proof against the chapters and the arguments,

and could not be prevailed upon to share the peril. In his frenzy Lyde took a brick and whetted his knife upon it, but assured the boy that he would not on any account use it until he was carried into France, 'except it were to cut the throats of the Frenchmen.' Well might the boy, upon this, start as if his own throat had been cutting,' and leave his countryman and go on deck.

On the afternoon of that day, March 4, the Friends' Adventur was within half a mile of Brest harbour, and Lyde's heart was heavy within him. He went on deck, but the memory of his former sufferings came upon him so strongly, and filled him with such terror, that he could not bear to stay there. He returned to the 'tween decks and prayed to God for a southerly wind, to prevent her from going into harbour, which God was graciously pleased immediately to grant to me, for which I returned my unfeigned thanks.'

Very soon after this Lyde had another signal deliverance at the hands of Providence, a favourable wind again being sent in response to his supplications. By this time they were nearing St. Malo, and the Frenchmen were in a very surly mood. One midnight, on the Saturday, they called Lyde to the pumps, but he refused to lend a hand, as he had refused before, scorning, as an Englishman, to do anything for a Frenchman. He was asked repeatedly to go to the pumps, and finally he said that he had nothing on board to lose, and that if they would not pump themselves the ship could sink. After this he lay down again, determined to resist to the death any attempt to haul him out by force, being fully resolved to kill or wound as many as he could before he himself died. Throughout that night he tried to get the boy to join him, but again his arguments were without effect, and he fell into a troubled sleep. Even then he dreamed that he was attacking the Frenchmen-an operation upon which, sleeping or waking, his mind ran constantly.

On the Sunday morning he prayed heartily for another wind which should keep the ship off the shore, and his prayer was answered. Then he renewed his solicitation that the boy should join him, but still the lad refused, and at last Lyde thought of trying to take the vessel single-handed, and so that he might be as fit as possible for battle he went and drank a pint of wine and half a pint of oil. He had need be a lusty young fellow to swallow and retain a mixture like that; but if his subsequent performances are any guide the wine and oil were thoroughly

effective, the one in bracing up his spirits and the other in imparting a singular flexibility to his joints.

At eight o'clock that morning the Frenchmen were seated round the cabin table at breakfast, and they invited Lyde to join them. He accepted the invitation, but the sight of the Frenchmen, says he, 'did immediately take away my stomach, and make me sweat as if I had been in a stove, and was ready to faint with eagerness to encounter them.' It was only by feigning sickness that he was able to get clear of the cabin without exciting suspicion. Once more he took his countryman in hand, and earnestly implored him to accompany him to the cabin, the opportunity being so exceptionally favourable, and knock down only one man in case two laid hold of Lyde. Ultimately an impression was being made upon Wright, and he asked how Lyde intended to attack the Frenchmen. The mate informed him that he would take a crowbar and hold it by the middle with both hands; that he would enter the cabin and knock down the man at the end of the table on his right hand with the end, and stick the point into the man on the left. Lyde was proceeding to say that as for the other five he would deal with them in a certain way, when presumably the boy shook his head, and refused to have anything at all to do with such a crazy undertaking. Again Lyde thought he would sweep the company away unhelped, but he desisted at that time, remembering that the cabin was so low that he could not stand upright in it by a foot, and would not therefore have a fair field for the wielding of the crowbar.

Before he could do anything the Frenchmen were on deck, and Lyde bitterly reproached the boy with having let a brave opportunity go by, telling him that if he had but helped him the ship would now have been in their hands. The boy to all appearance did not see things in this light, and he said, 'Nay, I rather believe that, by this time, you and I should have both been killed.'

Now came the great crisis. Lyde saw that the crew became separated from each other. The master went to lie down in his cabin, two men reclined in the great cabin, one in a cabin between decks, and another sat down upon a low stool by the helm to attend to the sandglass which measured each half-hour, and by which the men were called to the pumps. The ship leaked badly, and had to be pumped half-hourly. The other two men. walked about the decks. Once more hoping that he would prevail

with the boy to stand by him he tried to persuade him to take part in the attack, but failing success he determined to attack alone. Having done this he applied himself to prayer, asking pardon for his sins, and desiring God to receive his and the boy's souls to mercy, for he believed that no quarter would be given to either of them, although the boy had done no wrong. He prayed also for his enemies who should happen to die by his hands, because they might not have time to implore mercy for themselves, and ended by praying that he should be strengthened in his design, and that his heart should not fail him in the fight. It was after the prayer, and while the two men were working at the pumps, to which they had been called at the expiration of the half-hour, that Lyde made his last appeal to Wright. He harrowed the lad's feelings by telling him of the hardships and miseries he and his fellow-prisoners had formerly endured in France, not forgetting to tell him that the food they had was so bad that dogs would not eat it, and that so crowded and filthy were they in their prison that they bred such swarms of vermin in their rags that one man had a great hole eaten through his throat by them, which was not seen till after death. At last the boy was touched, but not as Lyde expected. He said that if things were as bad as this he would, when he got to France, take to privateering. Then the wrathful seaman rounded upon the unfortunate youth, calling him dog, and asking him if he would join his enemies against his king and country, and his father and mother; expressing the hope that if the boy turned Papist he would fare as English renegades before him had fared, and assuring him that if he turned privateer in France and ever fell into the hands of the English he would certainly be hanged in England by the law.

The boy was now reconciled, and asked what Lyde would have him do. Lyde was brief and clear. He told the lad to knock down the man at the helm, and make a certainty of the business, while he himself would at once kill and command all the rest, and that he intended to kill three of them. Why three and no more?' asked the boy, and Lyde answered that he would kill that number for three of their men who died in prison when he was captive. The boy cautiously said, 'Four alive would be too many for me,' to which Lyde answered, 'I would kill but three, but I would break the legs and arms of the rest, if they won't take quarter and be quiet without it.'

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