The ship in which he sailed from England had been taken by the Spaniards, and he had been carried a slave to the West Indies, where he worked in a silver mine, improved his position under a kind master, and finally married a Spanish girl, hopeless of ever returning to England though still unforgetful of his old love.

He accumulates money, and, like Crabbe's brother, incurs the envy of his Roman Catholic neighbours.

He is denounced as a heretic, who would doubtless bring up his children in the accursed English faith.

On his refusal to become a Catholic he is expelled the country, as the condition of his life being spared: "His wife, his children, weeping in his sight, All urging him to flee, he fled, and cursed his flight." After many adventures he falls in with a ship bound for England, but again his return is delayed.

He is impressed (it was war-time), and fights for his country; loses a limb, is again left upon a foreign shore where his education finds him occupation as a clerk; and finally, broken with age and toil, finds his way back to England, where the faithful friend of his youth takes care of him and nurses him to the end.