Philidore is captured by pirates and with eleven others set on shore on a desert strand.  Three of the little company reach civilization.  After recuperating their strength, they set out for Persia overland, but a tiger deprives Philidore of his two companions.  A little later he rescues an unknown youth from three assailants, but not before the stranger has been seriously wounded.  A passing traveller carries them to the castle of a Persian nobleman.  There Philidore waits with the utmost impatience for the wounded man to recover strength enough to relate his story, but this, as also the misfortunes, perplexities, and dangers to which the despairing passion of the enamoured Placentia occasioned her to reduce herself, and the catastrophe of Philidore’s surprising fate, must be told in a Second Part.

Part II.  The youthful stranger, concealing his name and family, relates the sad effects of his love for the favorite wife of the Bashaw of Liperto, and how by her aid he was enabled to escape from slavery, only to be pursued and about to be retaken by janizaries when rescued by Philidore.

Our hero is kindly received by his uncle in Persia, who soon dies and leaves him sole heir of an enormous fortune.  He is now Placentia’s equal in wealth as well as rank, and immediately embarks for England.  Driven into Baravat by contrary winds, he is moved to ransom a female captive on hearing of her grief at her hard fate, but what is his surprise when the fair slave proves to be Placentia.  “Kisses, embraces, and all the fond endearments of rewarded passion made up for their want of speech—­ in their expressive looks, and eager graspings, the violence of their mutual flame was more plainly demonstrated, than it could have been by the greatest elegance of language—­those of the Persians that stood by, who understood not English, easily perceived, not only that they were lovers, but also that they were so to the most unbounded height of tender passion.”

Placentia relates how she had eluded her brother and set sail to rejoin her lover, how she had been saved from the arms of the brutal ship’s captain by a timely attack of pirates, and how, sold to a Moslem merchant and still annoyed by the attentions of the captain, she had abandoned all thoughts of life till redeemed by Philidore’s generosity.

With Placentia, her maid, and young Tradewell, the maid’s lover, ransomed, Philidore sails blissfully to England.  But upon landing Placentia becomes suddenly cold to him.  He forces his way into her house, and finds that her brother is the young stranger whose life he had saved in Persia.  Meanwhile Placentia, whose fortune is now no match for Philidore’s, flees to parts unknown, leaving a letter conjuring him to forget her.  After a long search the brother and lover find her place of concealment, and the former removes her scruples by settling a large estate upon her.  “Nothing could be more splendid than the celebration of their nuptials; and of their future bliss, the reader may better judge by their almost unexampled love, their constancy, their generosity and nobleness of soul, than by any description I am able to give of it.”