I 



AD. THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



1575-80. 



Chap. 6. 



Wherein is shewed how we were used in the religious 

 houses, and that when the time was expired, that we 

 were adjudged to serve in them, there came newes 

 to Mexico of M. Francis Drakes being in the South 

 Sea, and what preparation was made to take him, 

 and how I seeking to escape, was againe taken and 

 put in prison at Vera Cruz, and how againe I made 

 mine escape from thence. 



Miles Philips and William Lowe were appointed to 

 the blacke Friers, where I was appointed to be an 

 overseer of Indian workmen, who wrought there in 

 building of a new church : amongst which Indians I 

 learned their language or Mexican tongue very per- 

 fectly, and had great familiaritie with many of them, 

 whom I found to be a courteous and loving kind of 

 people, ingenious, and of great understanding, and they 

 hate and abhorre the Spaniardes with all their hearts, 

 they have used such horrible cruelties against them, and 

 doe still keepe them in such subjection and servitude, 

 that they and the Negros also doe daily lie in waite to 

 practise their deliverance out of that thraldome and bond- 

 age, that the Spaniardes doe keepe them in. William 

 [III. 482.] Lowe he was appointed to serve the Cooke in the 

 kitchin, Richard Williams and David Alexander were 

 appointed to the gray Friers, John Story and Robert 

 Cooke to the white Friers : Paul Horsewel the Secre- 

 tary tooke to be his servant : Thomas Hull was sent to 

 a Monastery of priests, where afterward he died. Thus 

 we served out the yeeres that we were condemned for, 

 with the use of our fooles coates, and we must needs 

 confesse that the Friers did use us very courteously : for 

 every one of us had his chamber with bedding & diet, 

 and all things cleane and neat : yea many of the Spani- 

 ards and Friers themselves do utterly abhorre and mislike 

 of that cruell Inquisition, and would as they durst be- 

 waile our miseries, and comfort us the best they could, 



430 



