In the end of the seventeenth century there sprang from Topsham a man of great resoluteness, pluck, and the spirit to fight against tremendous odds in cold blood. Robert Lyde, mate of the _Friend's Adventure_, himself wrote an account of his fortunes on board that vessel. Lyde's great bitterness against the French is explained by the fact that he had already suffered intensely at their hands. Two years before he had been captured at sea by a French privateer, and imprisoned at St Malo, 'where we were used with such inhumanity and cruelty that if we had been taken by the Turks we could not have been used worse.' The prisoners were almost starved, and their condition was wretched in every respect. 'These and their other barbarities made so great an impression on me that I did resolve never to go a prisoner there again, and this resolution I did ever since continue in.' But when he was for the second time made prisoner--this time on board the _Friend's Adventure_--there seemed no escape from this evil fate. The crew were all removed from the ship, excepting Lyde and one boy, who, under a prize-master and six men, were to help in sailing her to St Malo. The idea of returning to the identical prison where he had endured such misery made Lyde desperate, and, finding no easier expedient, he determined to pit himself against the seven as soon as he could persuade the boy to join him. The boy, not unnaturally, hung back from such a venture, and before he could screw his courage to the sticking-place they had arrived off a small harbour near Brest, and the French had fired a 'patteroe' for a pilot. 'Whereupon, considering the inhuman usage I formerly had in France, and how near I was to it again, struck me with such terror that I went down between decks and prayed God for a southerly wind, to prevent her from going into that harbour, which God was most graciously pleased to grant me, for which I returned my unfeigned thanks.'