This passage was published in Exeter in 1704 and described the plight of Joseph Pitts, an English boy, who had been taken captive in 1678 by the pirates of Algiers. Similar passages in the writings of other English slaves recur, attesting to the Muslim sense of superiority at the first encounter with the fair-skinned northern peoples, the antipathy toward the infidel and finally the acceptance of the Christian as a fellow human. Joseph Pitts remained in captivity for nearly fifteen years, converted to Islam, lived and dressed like a Muslim, and became fully integrated into his masters' world. Still, he yearned for freedom and for his native England, and in about 1693, he succeeded in escaping home with the help of the English consul at Istanbul.

While the English Christian was being examined and defined by the Muslims of the Mediterranean basin – animal or human, male or female – Britons were themselves defining the native Americans, as indeed continental Europeans had done since the end of the fifteenth century.