for ’twas more Orts than Bread, so we gave some of it to the Hogs, and made Pillows of the rest to lay our Heads on, for they allowed us fresh Straw but once every five weeks, so that we bred such swarms of lice in our Rags that one Man had a great Hole eaten through his Throat by them, which was not perceived till after his Death, and I myself was so weak that it was 14 weeks after my releasement before I recovered any tolerable strength in me. “They plundered us of our Clothes when we were taken, and some of us that had Money purchased Rugs to cover our Rags by day, and keep us warm by night; but upon our return home from France, the Deputy Governor of Dinan was so cruel as to order our said Rugs to be taken from us, and staid himself and saw it performed; and when some of our fellow Prisoners lay a dying they inhumanly stript off some of their Cloaths, three or four days before they were quite dead. These and other Barbarities made so great an Impression upon me, as that I did then resolve never to go a Prisoner there again, and this Resolution I did ever after continue in and by the Assistance of God always will.” Lyde returned to his home at Topsham, an exchange of prisoners having been effected, but not till four hundred out of the six hundred English prisoners crowded into the dungeons at Dinan had perished of disease and starvation. In his Preface, Lyde says: “I here present you with a Token of God Almighty’s Goodness in relieving me from the Barbarity, Inhumanity and most cruel Slavery of the Most Christian Turk of France, whose Delight it was to make his own Subjects Slaves, and his chief Study to put Prisoners of War to the most tedious and cruel lingering Death of Hunger and Cold, as I have been experimentally (to my own Damage both felt and seen), by a five Months’ Confinement in this Country.”