Secondly, Sleyne was fearful that he would be deported to "some Islands which he knows not", probably alluding to transportation into slavery in the Caribbean plantations, a fate suffered by many catholic clergy during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland only 50 years earlier. Even as recently as 1691, Sleyne's predecessor as Bishop of Cork, Peter Creagh wrote that "twenty-five curates of my diocese ... were put in the stocks ... and it is believed ... will be sent to the Barbadoes and other islands of the West Indies to plant tobacco like the other slaves there". Sleyne had been using diplomatic channels to influence his eventual outcome, which up to the death of the death of William of Orange (William III of Great Britain) in 1702, relied on the offices of Apostolic Internuncio to Belgium, Giulio Cardinal Piazza. After William III's death, Sleyne now sought the intercession of Count Wratislaw, the Austrian ambassador to the court of William III's successor, Queen Anne, to ensure that, if he were exiled, it would be to a Catholic country on the continent of Europe. In his letter, Sleyne portrayed himself to be somewhat older (80) than he actually was (64) and emphasised the hardship he was suffering through "frequent pains of gout and the gravel". (Such painful and related diseases of the joints and kidneys are caused by inadequate excretion of urate in the blood, through a high-protein diet based on red meat.)