After all this, in An. 1562 I passed againe over the Caspian sea another way, and landed in Armenia, at a citie called Derbent, built by Alexander the Great, and from thence travelled through Media, Parthia, Hircania, into Persia to the court of the great Sophie, called Shaw Tomasso, unto whom I delivered letters from the Queenes Majestie, and remained in his court 8 months, and returning homeward, passed through divers other countries. Finally, I made two voyages more after that out of England into Russia, the one in the yeere 1566, and the other in the yeere 1571. And thus being weary and growing old, I am content to take my seat in mine owne house, chiefly comforting myselfe, in that my service hath bene honourably accepted and rewarded of her majestie and the rest by whom I have beene employed.”
And now it was that stories of danger from frost and from storm; of cruelties endured at the hands of savages, and pirates; of captivity among Moors; of tortures inflicted by the accursed Inquisition; of hairbreadth escapes; of wanderings over lands never before seen; of great treasures lying ready for the bold adventurer,—ran up and down the City. The ’prentice told what he had heard to fellow ’prentice; the sailors told the boys upon the wharves; the ship after her successful voyage came up to the Pool with cloth of gold for sails and dressed with flying streamers. Above all, the imagination of the youth was fired more by the splendid stones of danger and of battle and of escape from captivity than by the prospect of great riches. Do you know how John Fox escaped from Alexandria? For my own part I do not know any story better told or more certain to inspire the lads who heard it with a burning desire to be with such a company and to be doing such things. It is from Hakluyt (ii. 133), and I venture to relate it here and in his own words, to show the kind of story which quickened the pulse and fired the blood of the London youth.
“Nowe these eight being armed with such weapons as they thought well of, thinking themselves sufficient champions to encounter a stronger enemie, and comming unto the prison, Fox opened the gates and doores thereof, and called forth all the prisoners, whom he set, some to ramming up the gate, some to the dressing up of a certaine gallie, which was the best in all the roade, and was called the captaine of Alexandria, whereinto some carried mastes, sailes, oares, and other such furniture as doth belong unto a gallie.