The account of the first voyage begins with him in London and describes his difficulty in finding enough money to buy bedding to take on board the Assistance.
Teonge relates that he "gott a good summ of monys" from that voyage (a total of about £75), but he was back at sea again after an interval of two years.
[5] The diary provides lively reports of two voyages to the Mediterranean and the Levant, including a raid on a fleet of Barbary corsairs at Tripoli in 1675, under the command of Sir John Narborough.
"[6] The account of the first voyage (1 June 1675 – 16 November 1676) includes extended descriptions of the defences at Malta, of Cyprus, and of a trip he took on horseback from İskenderun (Skandaroon in the diary) to Aleppo.
Instead, after a short trip ferrying soldiers to Ostend, she was ordered to the West Mediterranean, where the "Algerine" Barbary corsairs of Algiers were being as troublesome as the Tripolines of two years before.
There was an exchange of commands in Port Mahon, Minorca, when Teonge followed Langston onto the 64-gun Royal Oak (1107 tons, built in 1674, wartime complement 390).
But by then, deaths aboard the Royal Oak were becoming frequent, and on 19 March 1678 Captain Langston himself died in Alicante Roads.
By the time the Royal Oak reached England at the end of May 1679, the lives of over 60 crew had been lost, and on 30 May, "we sent to shore [at Dover] thirty-two sick men – pitiful creatures.
[12] The diary passed after Teonge's death to a certain John Holyoake, probably the man of that name who was Mayor of Warwick in 1699–1700 and whose uncle had property in Spernall.