'Personal Narrative of a pilgrimmage to Al-Madinah and Meccah. Vol. II' [‎360] (395/568)

360
Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah.
Persons and one God, be all Honour, Glory, and Praise
world without end. Amen"
Having received from his patroon, whom he acknow
ledges to have been a second parent to him, a letter of free
dom 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 1 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 A geographical area corresponding to the region around the eastern Mediterranean Sea. , 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 £/[ 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
1 Some years afterwards, Mr. Consul Baker, when waited upon
by Pitts, in London, gave him a copy of the letter, with the following
memorandum upon the back of it—"Copy of my letter to Consul
Raye at Smyrna, to favour the escape of Joseph Pitts, an Eng
lish renegade, from a squadron of Algier men-of-war. Had my kind
ness to him been discovered by the government of Algiers, my legs
and arms had first been broken, and my carcass burnt—a danger
hitherto not courted by any."