Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899 edition. Excerpt: ... would be a much greater charity, as they have no expectation but what is derived from the clemency of Great Britain, of which they have great reason to despair. With all due respect I beg leave to subscribe myself, Your most obedient servant, JAMES LEANDER CATHCART. The above was written before I was quite 22 years of age, from a prison where the plague had raged twice and where I had been six years, remaining nearly five years longer, when I left Algiers to save the peace, in my own vessel, navigated by myself and manned with Moors, with dispatches from Algiers to Alicant, Lisbon, and Philadelphia. COPY OF A LETTER TO CAPT. O'BRIEN DURING THE PLAGUE. Death's Door, Algiers, March 2, 1793. My Dear Sir: --I am sorry to be under the necessity of troubling you at this melancholy crisis of mortality, but the friendship that has subsisted between us during the trying time of our captivity, I hope will make you pardon my intrusion. I am sorry to inform you that Matthew Carrol went to the hospital yesterday with the plague, and that Peter Tessanaer is struck with it, just now has come from the Marine, and is in the hospital. I have had communication with both of them, and at this inst. I cannot possibly say but I may be on the verge of eternity. In case I should soon take my departure, I beg of you to try all means to convey the intelligence at some future period to some of my friends. This possibly may be the last favor I ever will demand of you, and I hope you will not deny me. I forgive Stephens from my heart, but if I die of this distemper, he certainly will have his conduct to answer for, relative to me, before a just God who makes no difference between the captain and the sailors, as he has been the means of hindering me from being..