scarce on the Battery, when the Mine was sprung, which took
him away with the rest of the Company; while Major _Harding_ now a
Justice in _Westminster_ coming that very Moment off Duty, exchang'd
Fates.

If Predestination, in the Eyes of many, is an unaccountable Doctrine,
what better Account can the wisest give of this Fatality? Or to what
else shall we impute the Issue of this whole Transaction? That Men shall
be solicited to their Safety; suffered to survey the Danger they were
threatened with; among many other Tokens of its approaching Certainty,
see such a Concourse of People crowding to be Spectators of their
impending Catastrophe; and after all this, so infatuated to stay on the
fatal Spot the fetching up of the other two Bottles; whatever it may to
such as never think, to such as plead an use of Reason, it must
administer Matter worthy of the sedatest Consideration.

Being now pretty well recover'd of my Wounds, I was by Order of the
Governor of _Valencia_, removed to _Sainte Clemente de la Mancha_, a
Town somewhat more Inland, and consequently esteem'd more secure than a
Semi-Seaport. Here I remain'd under a sort of Pilgrimage upwards of
three Years. To me as a Stranger divested of Acquaintance or Friend (for
at that instant I was sole Prisoner there) at first it appear'd such,
tho' in a very small compass of Time, I luckily found it made quite
otherwise by an agreeable Conversation.

_SAINTE Clemente de la Mancha_, is rendered famous by the renown'd _Don
Michael Cerviantes_, who in his facetious but satyrical Romance, has
fix'd it the Seat and Birth Place of his Hero _Don Quixot_.

The Gentlemen of this Place are the least Priest-ridden or Sons of
Bigotry, of any that I met with in all _Spain_; of which in my
Conversation with them I had daily Instances. Among many others, an
Expression that fell from _Don Felix Pacheco_, a Gentleman of the best
Figure thereabout, and of a very plentiful Fortune, shall now suffice. I
was become very intimate with him; and we us'd often to converse
together with a Freedom too dangerous to be common in a Country so
enslav'd by the Inquisition. Asking me one Day in a sort of a jocose
manner, who, in my Opinion, had done the greatest Miracles that ever
were heard of? I answer'd, Jesus Christ.

"It is very true," says he, "Jesus Christ did great Miracles, and a
great one it was to feed five Thousand People with two or three small
Fishes, and a like number of Loaves: But _Saint