&c. let any rational man determine upon mature consideration and prospect of the circumstances.
"Besides, as our intelligence argues, and assures us, those of Malta are so insatiably covetous, that if they could sell even the very Maltese themselves, they would not stick to make money of them; and that it is familiar with these holy corsairs to spoil all the oriental christians without distinction who come in their way, neither regarding their faith nor their profession; so as whenever they surprize any miserable slaves, who for the dread of torment have been forced to turn renegadoes, but would now most chearfully revert to their faith again, the Maltese would not hearken to them, but sell them a second time to the Turks to satisfy their prodigious avarice. How much more then, as our informer concluded, had it been to their advantage to have sold this pretended royal boy, being a natural Turk, than to have
