a.d. THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



c. 1565. 



five times every night, and giving warning so lowd, that 

 the Loutea resting in a chamber not neere thereunto, 

 may heare them. In these prisons of condemned persons 

 remaine some 15, other 20. yeres imprisoned, not exe- 

 cuted, for the love of their honorable friends that seeke 

 to prolong their lives. Many of these prisoners be 

 shoomakers, and have from the king a certaine allowance 

 of rise : some of them worke for the keeper, who suffreth 

 them to go at libertie without fetters and boords, the 

 better to worke. Howbeit when the Loutea calleth his 

 checke roll, & with the keeper vieweth them, they all 

 weare their liveries, that is, boords at their necks, yronned 

 hand and foot. When any of these prisoners dieth, he 

 is to be seene of the Loutea and Notaries, brought out 

 of a gate so narrow, that there can but one be drawen 

 out there at once. The prisoner being brought 

 forth, one of the aforesaid Parthions striketh him 

 thrise on the head with an yron sledge, that done he 

 is delivered unto his friends, if he have any, otherwise 

 the king hireth men to cary him to his buriall in the 

 fields. 



Thus adulterers and theeves are used. Such as be 

 imprisoned for debt once knowen, lie there until it be 

 paied. The Taissu or Loutea calleth them many times 

 before him by the vertue of his office, who understanding 

 the cause wherefore they do not pay their debts, ap- 

 pointeth them a certaine time to do it, within the com- 

 passe whereof if they discharge not their debts being 

 debters in deed, then they be whipped and condemned 

 to perpetuall imprisonment : if the creditors be many, 

 and one is to be paied before another, they do, contrary 

 to our maner, pay him first of whom they last borrowed, 

 and so ordinarily the rest, in such sort that the first 

 lender be the last receiver. The same order is kept in 

 Of like the paying legacies : the last named receiveth his portion 

 bthmo* st * They accompt it nothing to shew favour to such 

 wealthie. a one as can do the like againe : but to do good to them 

 that have litle or nothing, that is worth thanks, therefore 



312 



