Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

A gentleman just arrived from Bourdeaux, relates, that on the 14th of August, in his passage from Martinico to that place, the body of a man was seen floating about fifty yards from the vessel. The Captain immediately ordered out the boat and four hands, who soon brought the seeming dead carcase on board; but what was their surprize, on finding the unhappy person breathe, and manifest every symptom of returning sense and life! The surgeon bled him, and chafed his temples with volatile spirits, and in less than half an hour he opened his eyes, and exclaimed in the English tongue, "O Lord! where am I?"

On taking off his clothes, in order to put him to bed, a cork jacket, with a sort of trousers of the same, were discovered, the miserable man told them, that he sailed from the port of Salem, in New-England, in a brig bound for Madeira, and that about three days before, they were attacked by a Saletine rover, who boarded and took them; that, pretending to be lame, he was neglected by the Moors, and about eleven at night, took an opportunity of slipping on his cork apparatus, and let himself down as easy as possible from the fore chains, totally unobserved; that he floated to some distance, and then pushed himself on with his hands, willing to perish in the water, rather than be carried into slavery, In this condition, sometimes on his back. and sometimes on his belly, he drove about the ocean, and at last sunk into a kind of trance, in which state he was, when discovered by the French ship.

On their arrival at Bourdeaux, the Chamber of Commerce presented the brave American with a purse of three hundred crowns, and he is now waiting an opportunity of returning in the packet which sails from Port L'Orient to New-York every month.