However, this was a help to me, and served to more than pay my ransom to the captain. And my correspondent in London, hearing of my being alive and at Bordeaux, immediately sent me a letter of credit upon an English merchant at Bordeaux for whatever I might have occasion for. As soon as I received this I went to the merchant, who honoured the letter of credit, and told me I should have what money I pleased. But as I, who was before a mere stranger in the place and knew not what course to take, had now, as it were, a friend to communicate my affairs to and consult with, as soon as I told him my case, “Hold,” says he; “if that be your case, I may perhaps find a way to get you off without a ransom.” There was, it seems, a ship bound home to France from Martinico, taken off Cape Finisterre by an English man-of-war, and a merchant of Rochelle, being a passenger, was taken on board, and brought into Plymouth. This man had made great solicitation by his friends to be exchanged, pleading poverty, and that he was unable to pay any ransom. My friend told me something of it, but not much, only bade me not be too forward to pay any money to the captain, but pretend I could not hear from England. This I did till the captain appeared impatient. After some time the captain told me I had used him ill; that I had made him expect a ransom, and he had treated me courteously and been at expense to subsist me, and that I held him in suspense, but that, in short, if I did not procure the money, he would send me to Dinan in ten days, to lie there as the king’s prisoner till I should be exchanged. My merchant gave me my cue, and by his direction I answered I was very sensible of his civility, and sorry he should lose what expenses he had been at, but that I found my friends forgot me, and what to do I did not know, and that, rather than impose upon him, I must submit to go to Dinan, or where he thought fit to send me; but that if ever I obtained my liberty, and came into England, I would not fail to reimburse him what expense he had been at for my subsistence; and so, in short, made my case very bad in all my discourse. He shook his head and said little, but the next day entered me in the list of English prisoners to be at the king’s charge, as appointed by the intendant of the place, and to be sent away into Brittany. I was then out of the captain’s power, and immediately the merchant, with two others who were friends to the merchant prisoner at Plymouth, went to the intendant and gained an order for the exchange, and my friend giving security for my being forthcoming, in case the other was not delivered, I had my liberty immediately, and went home with him to his house.