These are the words of a slave in the play;[63] but they express the natural inborn sentiments of all who have intelligence sufficient to appreciate the great boon of freedom. "Thanks be to God," says the captive in Don Quixote, "for the great mercies bestowed upon me; for, in my opinion, there is no happiness on earth equal to that of liberty regained."[64] And plain Thomas Phelps--once a slave at Machiness, in Morocco, whence, in 1685, he fortunately escaped--in the narrative of his adventures and sufferings, breaks forth in a similar strain. "Since my escape," he says, "from captivity, and worse than Egyptian bondage, I have, methinks, enjoyed a happiness with which my former life was never acquainted; now that, after a storm and terrible tempest, I have, by miracle, put into a safe and quiet harbor,--after a most miserable slavery to the most unreasonable and barbarous of men, now that I enjoy the immunities and freedom of my native country and the privileges of a subject of England, although my circumstances otherwise are but indifferent, yet I find I am affected with extraordinary emotions and singular transports of joy; now I know what liberty is, and can put a value and make a just estimate of that happiness which before I never well understood. Health can be but slightly esteemed by him who never was acquainted with pain or sickness; and liberty and freedom are the happiness only valuable by a reflection on captivity and slavery."[65] [Footnote 63: Oronooko, act iii. sc. i. It is not strange that the anti-slavery character of this play rendered it an unpopular performance at Liverpool, while the prosperous merchants there were concerned in the slave trade.] [Footnote 64: Don Quixote, part i. book iv. chap. 12.] [Footnote 65: Osborne's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 500.]