THE ENTERPRISE OF JOHN FOX ad 



1563- 



The woorthy enterprise of John Foxe an English- 

 man in delivering 266. Christians out of the 

 captivitie of the Turkes at Alexandria, the 3. 

 of Januarie 1577. 



Mong our merchants here in England, 

 it is a common voiage to traffike into 

 Spaine : whereunto a ship, being called 

 The three halfe Moones, manned with 

 38. men, and well fensed with munitions, 

 the better to encounter their enemies 

 withall, and having wind & tide, set from 

 Portsmouth, 1563. and bended her journey toward 

 Sivill a citie in Spaine, intending there to trafique with John Foxe 

 them. And falling neere the Streights, they perceived ^^^^^ ^563- 

 themselves to be beset round with eight gallies of the 

 Turkes, in such wise, that there was no way for them 

 to flie or escape away, but that either they must yeeld 

 or els be sunke. Which the owner perceiving, manfully 

 encouraged his company, exhorting them valiantly to 

 shew their manhood, shewing them that God was their 

 God, and not their enemies, requesting them also not 

 to faint in seeing such a heape of their enemies ready 

 to devour them ; putting them in mind also, that if it 

 were Gods pleasure to give them into their enemies 

 hands, it was not they y^ ought to shew one displeasant 

 looke or countenance thereagainst ; but to take it 

 patiently, & not to prescribe a day and time for their 

 deliverance, as the citizens of Bethulia did, but to put 

 themselves under his mercy. And againe, if it were his 

 mind and good will to shew his mighty power by them, 

 if their enemies were ten times so many, they were not 

 able to stand in their hands ; putting them likewise in 

 mind of the old and ancient woorthinesse of their 

 countreymen, who in the hardest extremities have alwayes 

 most prevailed and gone away conquerors, yea, and where 

 it hath bene almost impossible. Such (quoth he) hath 



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