Page:An English Garner Ingatherings from Our History and Literature (Volume 1 1877).pdf/633

 THREE TO ONE.

BEING AN ENGLISH-SPANISH COMBAT.

Loving Countrymen! Not to weary you with long preambles, unnecessary for you to read and troublesome for me to set down; I will come roundly to the matter: entreating you, not to cast a malicious eye upon my actions nor rashly to condemn them, nor to stagger in your opinions of my performance; since I am ready with my life to justify what I set down, the truth of this relation being warranted by noble proofs and testimonies not to be questioned.

I am a Western man; Devonshire my country, and Tavistock my place of habitation.

I know not what the Court of a King means, nor what the fine phrases of silken Courtiers are. A good ship I know, and a poor cabin; and the language of a cannon: and therefore as my breeding has been rough, scorning delicacy; and my present being consisteth altogether upon the soldier (blunt, plain and unpolished) so must my writings be, proceeding from fingers fitter for the pike than the pen. And so, kind Countrymen! I pray you to receive them.

Neither ought you to expect better from me, because I am but the chronicler of my own story.

After I had seen the beginning and end of the Algiers' voyage; I came home somewhat more acquainted with the world, but little amended in estate: my body more wasted and weather-beaten; but my purse, never the fuller, nor my pockets thicker lined.

Then the drum beating up for a new expedition, in which