A[NTHONY] M[UNDAY].
Captivity of JOHN Fox of Woodbridge, Gunner of the Three Half Moons, by the Turks; and of his wonderful escape from Alexandria.
[HAKLUYT, Voyages, 1589.]
The worthy enterprise of JOHN Fox an Englishman, in delivering 266 Christians out of the captivity of the Turks at Alexandria, the 3rd of January, 1577.
Among our merchants here in England, it is a common voyage to traffic into Spain. Whereunto a ship, being called the Three Half Moons, manned with eight and thirty men, and well fenced with munitions the better to encounter their enemies withal; having wind and tide, set forth from Portsmouth in the year 1503, and bent her journey towards Seville, a city in Spain: intending there to traffic with them.
And falling near the Straits of Gibraltar; they perceived themselves to be beset round about with eight galleys of the Turks, in such wise that there was no way for them to fly or escape away: but that either they must yield or else be sunk. Which the Owner perceiving, manfully encouraged his company; exhorting them "valiantly to show their manhood, showing them that GOD was their GOD and not their enemy's, requesting them also not to faint in seeing such a heap of their enemies ready to devour them:" putting them in mind also "that if it were GOD's
