Reasons, you would ascribe it to a better motive

: Humanity.

Our father, anxious to
assist his family, devoted the produce of a life of industry to the

purchase of a vessel, for the purpose of trading to the coast of Barbary,

but was unfortunately taken by a pirate, carried to Tripoli, and sold as a

slave. In a letter we have received from him, he informs that he has

luckily fallen into the hands of a master who treats him with great

humanity; but the sum demanded for the ransom is so
xorbitant, that it

will be impossible for him ever to raise it. He adds, that we must

therefore relinquish all hope of ever seeing him again. With the hopes of

restoring to his family a beloved father, we are striving by every honest

means in our power to collect the sum necessary for his ransom, and we are

not ashamed to employ ourselves for such a purpose in the occupation of

watermen." M. de Montesquieu was struck with this account, and on his

departure made them a handsome present. Some months afterwards, the young

men being at work in their shop, were greatly surprised at the sudden

arrival of their father, who threw himself into their arms; exclaiming at

the same time, that he feared they had taken some unjust method to raise

the money for his ransom, for it was too great for them to have gained by

their ordinary occupation. They professed their ignorance of the whole

affair; and could only suspect they owed their father's release to that

stranger to whose generosity they had before been so much obliged. Such,

indeed, was the case; but it was not till after Montesquieu's death that

the fact was known, when an account of the affair, with the sum remitted to

Tripoli for the old man's ransom, was found among his papers.



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