Ambassador of France at the court of the Antique Byzantium (_l'antique Byzance_)? Where is my Wife? Where is my Wife's Cousin? They are drinking the wine of Ramponneau; they are dancing at the Barriers. Oh, my Cocotte! where is my Cocotte?" "Hang your Cocotte!" I used to cry out in a rage. "'Tis bad enough to be mewed up here like a Bear in a pit, without being worried by a counfounded Barber's Clerk!" I had been Tugging at the Oar full Six Months, when a change came over my lamentable Lot. The Dey of Algiers was at this time one Mahomet Bassa, a very Bold, Fierce, Fighting Man, but of the meanest Extraction, and one, indeed, that had been no more than a common Soldier, from which he had sprung to be, by turns, Oda-Bashee or Lieutenant, Bullock-Bashee or Captain, Tiah-Bashee or Colonel, and Aga or General. For among these strange people every valiant and aspiring Soldier,--I wish 'twas so in England,--though taken yesterday from the Plough, may be considered as Heir-Apparent to the Throne. Nor are they ashamed of the obscurity of their birth. This Mahomet Bassa, in a dispute he once had with the Spanish Consul, said: "My mother sold Sheep's Trotters, and my father Neat's Tongues; but they would have been ashamed to expose for sale on their stalls a Tongue so worthless as thine." Mahomet Bassa was, like most of the Turks, a man of Pleasure, and his Harem was furnished with an extraordinary number of choice Beauties. His Highness (as he is called), happening to single me out from the rest of the Slaves on board of the Galleasse, and being told that I was English--for equally in hopes of Bettering my Condition, and for the purpose of keeping Secret my Employment with his Eminence, I had avowed myself to be of that Nation--ordered me to be released from my Chains, and brought before him at the Divan. Through his Interpreter, a cunning Rogue from Corfu, who spoke most Languages indifferently well, he asked me who I was, and how I came to be aboard the Speronare. I answered, conveniently mixing fact with fiction, that I had been a Captain by Sea and Land in the Service of the King of England; that I had earned a good deal of Prize-Money; had retired from Active Duties, being now nigh upon Fifty years of Age, and was taking my pleasure by voyaging in a part of Europe with which I had hitherto been little acquainted. This Answer seemed to satisfy him pretty well; although he was very curious to know whether I had any Kindred in the Island of Malta, or any foregathering among the Knights. Fortunately for me the Interpreter, to whom I had given a hint of ultimate Reward, deposed that I could not speak twenty words of Maltese (which is a kind of Bastard Italian); and he told me that if it had been discovered that I was in any way Connected with the Order, I should surely have been Impaled; the Dey being then in a towering rage with the Knights, one of whose commanders had just captured one of his finest Brigantines, and Dressed Ship, as he