Imagining that my readers will be desirous to learn the particulars of the life of this extraordinary man, I will give a short sketch of what I could learn.
He was born at *a*. If the virtues of parents were as inheritable as their rank and fortune, he would not have been a disgrace to a family as noble as it was respectable. Already in his juvenile age he exhibited marks of a penetrating understanding, of an extraordinary docility and acuteness, but nature had thrown away her gifts upon a villain. The great rigour with which his father watched his conduct, had no other effect but that of making him a hypocrite, for he would commit any crime if he could do it unobserved, although he was generally believed to be a pattern of every virtue. In his ninth year he killed a girl by a stone thrown from a sling, and was capable not only of fathering the crime upon one of his play-fellows, but, at the same time of rendering his accusation more plausible by his solemn protestations, and the tears he shed over the corpse. Progress of time changed his conduct not in the least, he rather improved in wickedness, and in the art of concealing his crimes.
Inheriting from his father an immense fortune, he determined to indemnify himself for his former constraint, by the most licentious manner of life, and abandoned himself to all sorts of debauchery, with a fury that ruined both his health and his fortune. The grief at this conduct broke the heart of his mother, at which he was not very sorry, expecting to improve his fortune by a new inheritance. He was, however, disappointed, for his mother, thinking it sinful to support him in his debaucheries, left her wealth to a cloister. Glowing with thirst for revenge, he set it on fire and ran away.
The vengeance of Heaven pursued him, and want soon completed the measure of his wretchedness. Whithersoever he went he was haunted by the unrelenting punishments of the Omnipresent Judge on high, and the greatest distress. At length he obtained leave of a captain, who was just going to sea, to embark on board of his vessel.
Thus he did, indeed, get out of the reach of public justice, but not of the vengeance of Heaven. The ship was captured by Algerine pirates, and he was dragged to captivity.
He abjured his religion and turned Mahometan, in order to ease the yoke of slavery that lay heavy on his shoulders. His great capacities enabled him soon to improve his situation, and during some successful cruizes against his own countrymen, he acquired a considerable fortune, which he increased rapidly through his speculations on land and sea, which he carried on for more than twenty years with astonishing success.
Meanwhile he took every opportunity of injuring the Christians, and Portugal lost through his infernal intrigues her most valuable possessions in Africa.
Yet his good fortune became at last the source of new misfortunes, puffing him up with pride in such a manner, that he aspired to a dignity in the state which a renegado rarely or never obtains. The Dey of Algiers died, and he spared neither expences nor artifices to be constituted his successor; his ambitious views were however frustrated.
His pride was wounded, and he endeavoured to gain his aim by additional bribes, but in vain! Enraged with new disappointment, he conspired against the new Dey; a Dervise, whom he wanted to implicate in his plot, betrayed him, and he had scarcely time to save himself by a sudden flight, leaving all his ill-gotten wealth behind.