[Footnote 69: Roscoe's Life of Cervantes, pp. 31, 308, 309. I refer to Roscoe as the popular authority. His work appears to be little more than a compilation from Navarrete and Sismondi.]
[Footnote 70: Ibid. p. 33. See also Haedo, _Historia de Argel_, p. 185.]
Endeavors for freedom are animating; nor can any honest nature hear of them without a throb of sympathy. As we dwell on the painful narrative of the unequal contest between tyrannical power and the crushed captive or slave, we resolutely enter the lists on the side of freedom; and as we behold the contest waged by a few individuals, or, perhaps, by one alone, our sympathy is given to his weakness as well as to his cause. To him we send the unfaltering succor of our good wishes. For him we invoke vigor of arm to defend, and fleetness of foot to escape. The enactments of human laws are vain to restrain the warm tides of the heart. We pause with rapture on those historic scenes, in which freedom has been attempted or preserved through the magnanimous self-sacrifice of friendship or Christian aid. With palpitating bosom we follow the midnight flight of Mary of Scotland from the custody of her stern jailers; we accompany the escape of Grotius from prison in Holland, so adroitly promoted by his wife; we join with the flight of Lavalette in France, aided also by his wife; and we offer our admiration and gratitude to Huger and Bollman, who, unawed by the arbitrary ordinances of Austria, strove heroically, though vainly, to rescue Lafayette from the dungeons of Olmutz. The laws of Algiers--which sanctioned a cruel slavery, and doomed to condign penalties all endeavors for freedom, and all countenance of such endeavors--can no longer prevent our homage to Cervantes, not less gallant than renowned, who strove so constantly and earnestly to escape his chains; nor our homage to those Christians also who did not fear to aid him, and to the good ecclesiastic who suffered in his cause.
The story of the efforts to escape from slavery in the Barbary States, so far as they can be traced, are full of interest. The following is in the exact words of an early writer:--
"One John Fox, an expert mariner, and a good, approved, and sufficient gunner, was (in the raigne of Queene Elizabeth) taken by the Turkes, and kept eighteen yeeres in most miserable bondage and slavery; at the end of which time, he espied his opportunity (and God assisting him withall) that hee slew his keeper, and fled to the sea's side, where he found a gally with one hundred and fifty captive Christians, which hee speedily waying their anchor, set saile, and fell to work like men, and safely arrived in Spaone; by which meanes he freed himselfe and a number of poor soules from long and intolerable servitude; after which, the said John Fox came into England, _and the Queene (being rightly informed of his brave exploit) did graciously entertaine him for her servant, and allowed him a yeerly pension_."[71]