he might carry it him. The contents were,
that if the captain would embrace the Roman catholic religion, he should
be indemnified for all his losses since the commencement of the war; his
wife and children should be immediately released, and himself honourably
promoted in the duke of Savoy's army; but if he refused to accede to the
proposals made him, his wife and children should be to put to death; and
so large a reward should be given to take him, dead or alive, that even
some of his own confidential friends should be tempted to betray him,
from the greatness of the sum.

To this epistle, the brave Gianavel sent the following answer.

My Lord Marquis,

There is no torment so great or death so cruel, but
what I would prefer to the abjuration of my
religion: so that promises lose their effects, and
menaces only strengthen me in my faith.

With respect to my wife and children, my lord,
nothing can be more afflicting to me than the
thoughts of their confinement, or more dreadful to
my imagination, than their suffering a violent and
cruel death. I keenly feel all the tender
sensations of husband and parent; my heart is
replete with every sentiment of humanity; I would
suffer any torment to rescue them from danger; I
would die to preserve them.

But having said thus much, my lord, I assure you
that the purchase of their lives must not be the
price of my salvation. You have them in your power
it is true; but my consolation is, that your power
is only a temporary authority over their bodies:
you may destroy the mortal part, but their immortal
souls are out of your reach, and will live
hereafter to bear testimony against you for your
cruelties. I therefore recommend them and myself to
God, and pray for a reformation in your heart.

JOSHUA GIANAVEL.

This brave protestant officer, after writing the above letter, retired
to the Alps, with his followers; and being joined by a great number of
other fugitive protestants, he harassed the enemy by continual
skirmishes.

Meeting one day with a body of papist troops near Bibiana, he, though
inferior in numbers, attacked them with great fury, and put them to the
rout without the loss of a man, though himself was shot through the leg
in the engagement, by a soldier who had hid himself behind a tree; but
Gianavel perceiving from whence the