As may easily be supposed, the condition of the prisoners was frightful. The swearing of the common felons was mixed with the prayers of the Huguenots. The guards walked about all night to keep watch and ward over them. They fell upon any who assembled and knelt together, separating them and swearing at them, and mercilessly ill-treating them, men and women alike. "But all their strictness and rage," says De Péchels, "could not prevent one from seeing always, in different parts of the dungeon, little groups upon their knees, imploring the mercy of God and singing His praises, whilst others kept near the guards so as to hinder them from interfering with the little bands of worshippers." At length the time arrived for the embarkation of the Huguenots for America. On the 18th of September, 1687, De Péchels, with fifty-eight men and twenty-one women, was put on board a _flûte_ called the _Mary_--the French _flûte_ consisting of a heavy narrow-sterned vessel, called in England a "pink." De Péchels was carefully separated from all with whom he had formed habits of intimacy, and whose presence near him would doubtless have helped him to bear the bitterness of his fate. On the same day, ninety prisoners of both sexes were embarked in another ship, named the _Concord_, bound for the same destination. The two vessels set sail in the first place for Toulon, in order to obtain an escort of two ships-of-war. The voyage was very disastrous. Three hours after the squadron had left Toulon, the _Mary_ was nearly dashed against a rock, owing to the roughness of the weather. Three days after, a frightful storm arose, and dashed the prisoners against each other. All were sick; indeed, De Péchels' malady lasted during the entire voyage. The squadron first cast anchor amongst the Formentera Islands, off the coast of Spain, where they took in water. On the next day they anchored in the Straits of Gibraltar for the same purpose. They next sailed for Cadiz, but a strong west wind having set in, the ship was forced back to the road of Gibraltar. After waiting there for three days they again started, under the shelter of a Dutch fleet of eighteen sail, "which," says De Péchels, "providentially saved us from falling into the hands of the Algerine corsairs, some of whom had appeared in sight, and from whose hands God, in His great mercy, delivered us." As if the Algerine corsairs would have treated the Huguenots worse than their own king was now treating them. The Algerine corsairs would have sold them into slavery; whilst the French king was transporting them to America for the same purpose.