MILES PHILIPS AD. 



1580-82. 

 a very ill passage home, the weather was so contrary. 

 We kept our course in maner Northeast, and brought 

 our selves to the height of 42. degrees of latitude, to be 

 sure not to meete with Don Antonio his fleete, and were 

 upon our voyage from the 4. of June, untill the 10. of 

 September, and never saw land till we fell with the Arenas 

 Gordas hard by S. Lucar. And there was an order taken 

 that none should goe on shoare untill he had licence : as 

 for me, I was knowen by one in the ship, who told the 

 Master that I was an Englishman, which (as God would) 

 it was my good hap to heare : for if I had not heard it, 

 it had cost me my life. Notwithstanding, I would not 

 take any knowledge of it, and seemed to be mery & 

 pleasant, that we were all come so wel in safety. 

 Presently after, licence came that we should go on shoare, 

 and I pressed to be gone with the first : howbeit, the 

 Master came unto me, & said, Sirra, you must goe with 

 me to Sivil by water : I knew his meaning well inough, 

 & that he meant there to offer me up as a sacrifice to 

 the Holy house. For the ignorant zeale of a number of 

 these superstitious Spaniards is such, that they thinke that 

 they have done God good service, when they have brought 

 a Lutheran heretike to the fire to be burnt : for so do 

 they account of us. Wel, I perceiving all this, tooke 

 upon me not to suspect any thing, but was still jocund 

 & mery : howbeit, I knew it stood me upon to shift ' 



for my selfe. And so wayting my time when the Master 

 was in his cabbin asleepe, I conveyed my selfe secretly 

 downe by the shrowds into the ship boate, and made no 

 stay but cut the rope wherewithal she was moared, and 

 so by the cable haled on shore, where I leapt on land, 

 & let the boate goe whither it would. Thus by the 

 helpe of God I escaped that day, & then never stayed at 

 S. Lucar, but went all night by the way which I had 

 scene other take toward Sivil : so that the next morning 

 I came to Sivil, and sought me out a workemaster, that 

 I might fall to my science, which was weaving of taffataes ; 

 and being intertained I set my selfe close to my worke, 



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