Laurence Aldersey, who set out from London in 1581, was the first Protestant who encountered the perils of a voyage to Syria. In the Levant a Turkish galley hove in sight, and caused great alarm. The master, "being a wise fellow, began to devise how to escape the danger; but, while both he and all of us were in our dumps, God sent us a merrie gale of wind." As they approached Candia a violent storm came on, and the mariners began to reproach the Englishman as the cause, "and saide I was no good Christian, and wished I were in the middest of the sea, saying that they and the shippe were the worse for me." He replied, "I think myself the worst creature in the worlde, and do you consider yourselves also." These remonstrances were followed by a long sermon, the tenor of which was, "that they were not all good Christians, else it were not possible for them to have such weather." A gentleman on board informed Aldersey, that the suspicions respecting him originated in his refusal to join in the prayers to the Virgin Mary,--a charge which he parried by remarking that "they who praied to so many goe a wrong way to worke." The friars, resolving to bring the matter to an issue, sent round the image of Our Lady to kiss. On its approach the good Protestant endeavoured to avoid it by going another way; but the bearer "fetched his course about," and presented it. The proffered salutation being then positively rejected, the affair might have become serious, had not two of the more respectable monks interceded in his behalf, and enforced a more charitable procedure.