Cervantes was in his thirty-third year when he was ransomed at Algiers on September 19, 1580, and, when he reached Portugal in 1581, he may have intended to enlist once more. It has, in fact, been generally thought that he shared in at least one of the expeditions against the Azores under the famous Marqués de Santa Cruz in 1581-83. This belief is based on the _Información_ presented by Cervantes at Madrid on June 6, 1590;[29] but in this petition to the King the claims of Rodrigo de Cervantes and Miguel de Cervantes are set forth in so confusing a fashion that it is difficult to distinguish the services of the elder brother from those of the junior. It is certain that Rodrigo served at the Azores in 1583, and we learn from Mosquera de Figueroa that he was promoted from the ranks for his distinguished gallantry in the action before Porto das Moas.[30] But it is by no means clear that Miguel de Cervantes took any part in either campaign. Such evidence as we have tells rather against the current supposition. It is ascertained that Cervantes was at Tomar on May 21, 1581, and that he was at Cartagena towards the end of June 1581, while we have documentary evidence to prove that he pawned five pieces of yellow and red taffeta to Napoléon Lomelin at Madrid in the autumn of 1583.[31] If these dates are correct (as they seem to be), it is scarcely possible that Cervantes can have sailed with Santa Cruz for the Azores.[32] The likelihood is that he had to be content with some civil employment and, if so, it was natural enough that he should turn to literature with a view to increasing his small income. A modest, clear-sighted man, he probably did not imagine that he was about to write masterpieces, or to make a fortune by his pen. He perhaps hoped to keep the wolf from the door, or, at the most, to find a rich patron, as his friend Gálvez de Montalvo had done.[33] If these were his ideas, and if, as seems likely, he thought of marrying at about this time, it is not surprising that he should write what he believed would sell. So far as we can judge, he would much rather have wielded a sword than a goose-quill, and he was far too great a humorist to vapour about "art" or an "irresistible vocation." His juvenile verses had found favour with Juan López de Hoyos, and perhaps Rufino de Chamberí had appreciated the two sonnets written in Algiers; but the spirited tercets to Mateo Vázquez had failed of their effect, and Cervantes was shrewd enough to know that versifying was not lucrative. Eighty years before it was uttered, he realized the truth of the divine Gombauld's dying exclamation: _On paie si mal des vers immortels!_ Fortunately, he had many strings to his bow. Like Lope de Vega, he was prepared to attempt anything and everything: prose or verse, the drama, picaresque tales, novels of adventure, and the rest. But, to begin with, he divided his efforts between the theatre and fiction.