Avontuurlijke reys-togten van Johan Smith, in verscheyde gedeelten des werelds, begonnen in het jaar 1593 ...

Comes to 4 French swindlers.

deploring and detesting to have seen that Christians poured out so much blood among themselves. Chance brought me into the company of 4 French knights, as they seemed, well-dressed. Thinking one of them to be a great lord and the others his noblemen, and that they were all of a mind with me to travel the same way, they proposed to me whether I wished to go with them to France, to the Duchess of Mercury, from whom they would not only obtain means but also write on their behalf to her husband the Duke, then General for Emperor Rudolphus in Hungary; to which I let myself be persuaded.

Goes aboard ship with them.

Having gone aboard ship, in such bad weather as the winter season could produce, we arrived in a dark night, by estimation as it appeared the next morning, in sight of St. Valery original: "St. Vallerie" in Picardy.

Treacherous taking by the French.

The pretended French lord, knowing that I had good travel gear and was better provided with money than they themselves, made a conspiracy with the skipper to have them brought to land with their trunks and mine by boat, leaving me on board until the boat should return, which did not happen until the following day toward evening. He said that the sea was so high that he could not return earlier, and that the lord and his company had gone to Amiens, where they would await his arrival. This treacherous villainy, having been heard by several soldiers and other passengers, would have led them to kill the skipper and sail away with the ship if it had been in their power.

Sells his travel coat out of poverty.

Coming to land, I had no more than a carralve a small coin of negligible value; so that I was compelled to sell my travel coat to pay my passage. One of the soldiers,