The Vice-Consul at Scanderoon kept telling him that "our
nation" at Aleppo "fared much the worse for his abode there." He was
setting the merchants in the Levant by the ears, and when he turned his
face homewards, the English were the most relieved of all. His exploit "in
that drowsy and inactive time ... was looked upon with general estimation,"
says Clarendon. The King gave him a good welcome, but could not follow it
up with any special favour; for there were many complaints over the
business, and Scanderoon had to be repudiated.
But Digby could not be merely privateer, and in the Scanderoon expedition
we are privileged to look on the Pirate as a Man of Taste. His stay in
Florence had given him an interest in the fine arts; and at Milo and
Delphos he contrived to make some healthy exercise for his men serve the
avidity of the collector. Modern excavators will read with horror of his
methods. "I went with most of my shippes to Delphos, a desert island, where
staying till the rest were readie, because idlenesse should not fixe their
mindes upon any untoward fansies (as is usuall among seamen), and together
to avayle myselfe of the convenience of carrying away some antiquities
there, I busied them in rolling of stones doune to the see side, which they
did with such eagernesse as though it had been the earnestest business that
they had come out for, and they mastered prodigious massie weightes; but
one stone, the greatest and fairest of all, containing four statues, they
gave over after they had been, 300 men, a whole day about it.
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