Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
The tour of the French traveller M. de La Boullaye Le Gouz in Ireland, A.D. 1644 (Author: François de La Boullaye de la Gouz)

Chapter/Section 8

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8

The seventeenth of July I went to the roads of Wachefort to embark on board a pinnace,95 which I was refused. I went on my knees to the skipper or master, to induce him to receive me on promise of remuneration; after much altercation he told me, that ‘if he met with any Frenchmen he should take me to France, if with Biscayans to Spain.’ I answered him that which way I went was indifferent to me provided I could get out of Ireland. We sailed immediately, but the wind having changed against us, we were obliged to make the mole, and to anchor in the same spot from which we had taken our departure. From thence he sent me ashore again, saying that he would not risk for the passage of an individual, the loss of his cargo; that if he were taken by the French, and that I did not keep his secret, they would declare that his vessel was a lawful prize, having smuggled goods on board. I entreated of him not to leave me in this island, which I had no

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means of quitting, since the natives were in such fear of the Parliamentarians that they dared not put to sea. He remained inexorable, and I was astonished at the ungraciousness of this Irishman, as his countrymen are in general so attentive to strangers. He obliged me to remain in this island, where civil warfare was raging on all sides, and from which the escape appeared to me very difficult, because there was no vessel at Doublin, at Limmerik, and at Waterfort. Scotland was out of the question, for there was no security there.

On the same day I went to complain to my intimate friend, Mr. François Chariot, an inhabitant of Wachefort, who was astonished at the conduct of the skipper, and begged me to have patience until he had seen Mr. Telin (Teeling), the owner of the cargo, who, upon Chariot telling him that I came from Avignon, a country by no means inimical to the Spaniards, promised him to allow me a passage, and gave him an order, which he carried to the roads, and made me re-embark.

The next morning we sailed to the south, and the fourth day we arrived at Souling Isle, called by us Sourlingue where three Salee vessels chased us, and obliged us to run for the coast near St. Yues in the south of Cornual. We met there a Parliamentary frigate of twenty-four guns, which was to windward of us, and came within cannon shot of our pinnace, in which we had but six men. We should have preferred falling into

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the hands of the Turks than of the Parliamentarians, because with the first we should have been assured of life, and with the others were certain of being killed, on account of the massacre which the Irish had made in their country of the English colonists.96 We did on this occasion all that human power could effect, and doubled the Blac hed97 fortunately without accident, thinking that we had escaped, as we kept creeping to windward of the Parliamentary frigate; but the tide being against us, we were brought pretty close together, and she neared us within musket shot. Perceiving the English royal colours, we were in doubt whether this was a Parliamentary frigate, and to ascertain it we hoisted at the stem the English flag.

The first cannon shot which they fired at us, went through the middle of our flag. We recommended ourselves to God, and expected assistance only from heaven. We would willingly have run our vessel ashore, but the coast did not allow it. The wind fell, so that we fired several times a small piece of ordnance which we had on the stern; this made us

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advance with the least possible wind, and the Parliamentarians firing from their prow retarded them. They chased us ten leagues, firing incessantly, and left us only under the fort of Falmoutz, which fired upon them two vollies of cannon, where Lord Jermein Jermain and the greater part of the English court, who were waiting for a passage to France with her most Serene Majesty the Queen, witnessed this unequal engagement, from which we escaped by the providence of God, to whom be the glory, and to me the remembrance of his gracious mercy.

Two miles from Falmoutz, there is a little town called Perrine, where I went to see some friends with whom I had become acquainted in England. I there met Captain Smitz98 (Smith), who had learned his profession under the late Captain Giron, and who gave me a passage to France in his vessel, promising to treat me with all due respect; which offer I accepted, on account of the friendship he bore me.