His First Letter From His Father Reached Him Some Days After
He Had Been Compelled By His Patroon’S Barbarity To Abjure His Faith.
One
sentence appears particularly to have afflicted him:
It was this, “to
have a care and keep close to God, and to be sure never, by any methods
of cruelty that could be used towards me, be prevailed to deny my
blessed Saviour, and that he (the father) would rather hear of my death
than of my being a Mahometan.” Indeed, throughout the work, it appears
that his repentance was sincere.
“God be merciful to me a
Sinner!”
is the deprecation that precedes the account of his “turning Turk,” and the
book concludes with,
“To him, therefore, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Three
[p.360] Persons and one God, be all Honour, Glory, and Praise, world
without end. Amen.”
Having received from his patroon, whom he acknowledges to have been a
second parent to him, a letter of freedom at Meccah and having entered
into pay, still living with his master, Pitts began to think of escape.
The Grand Turk had sent to Algier for ships, and the renegade was
allowed to embark on board one of them provided with a diplomatic
letter[FN#2] from Mr. Baker, Consul of Algier, to Mr. Raye, Consul at
Smyrna. The devil, we are told, was very busy with him in the Levant,
tempting him to lay aside all thoughts of escaping, to return to
Algier, and to continue a Mussulman, and the loss of eight months’ pay
and certain other monies seems to have weighed heavily upon his soul.
Still he prepared for the desperate enterprise, in which failure would
have exposed him to be dragged about the streets on the stones till
half dead, and then be burned to ashes in the Jews’ burial-place. A
generous friend, Mr. Eliot, a Cornish merchant who had served some part
of his apprenticeship in Exon and had settled at Smyrna, paid £4 for his
passage in a French ship to Leghorn. Therefrom, in the evening before
sailing, he went on board “apparel’d as an Englishman with his beard
shaven, a campaign periwig, and a cane in his hand, accompanied with
three or four of his friends. At Leghorn he prostrated himself, and
kissed the earth, blessing Almighty God, for his mercy and goodness to
him, that he once more set footing on the
[p.361] European Christian[FN#3] part of the world.” He travelled through
Italy, Germany, and Holland, where he received many and great
kindnesses. But his patriotism was damped as he entered “England, his own
native country, and the civilised land must have made him for a time
regret having left Algier. The very first night he lay ashore, he was
“imprest into the kings service” (we having at that time war with France);
despite arguments and tears he spent some days in Colchester jail, and
finally he was put on board a smack to be carried to the Dreadnought
man-of-war.
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