ABSTRACT
Mother, Our Lady Saint Mary, and to all the Heavenly Court, for the favour and grace He has shown me and for my escape from many perils I have been in. Such as thirty-two battles on sea and on land in which I have been, as well as in many prisons and torments inflicted on my person in wars in which I have taken part, and many persecutions I have suffered, as well in my fortune as in other ways, as you will understand from the events of my time. And assuredly, I would willingly refrain from recounting these things. But it is meet that I should recount them, and, especially, in order that all should understand that no one could escape from so many perils without the aid and grace of God and of His blessed Mother, Our Lady Saint Mary. I wish you to know that when I left the village of Peralada I was not yet eleven years old, and that when I began this book by God’s mercy, my age was sixty years, which said book I began on the fifteenth day of May of the year of the Incarnation of Our Lord God Jesus Christ one thousand three hundred and twenty five.
