LETTERS FROM JOHN NEWBERY 



A.D. 



1583. 



Master Newberie his letter from Ormus, to M. 

 John Eldred and William Shals at Balsara. 



Ight welbeloved and my assured good 

 friends, I heartily commend me unto 

 you, hoping of your good healths, &:c. 

 To certifie you of my voiage, after 1 

 departed from you, time wil not permit : 

 but the 4 of this present we arrived 

 here, & the 10 day I with the rest were 

 committed to prison, and about the middle of the next 

 moneth, the Captaine wil send us all in his ship for Goa. 

 The cause why we are taken, as they say, is, for that 

 I brought letters from Don Antonio. But the trueth 

 is, Michael Stropene was the onely cause, upon letters 

 that his brother wrote him from Aleppo. God knoweth 

 how we shall be delt withall in Goa, and therfore if you 

 can procure our masters to send the king of Spaine his 

 letters for our releasement, you should doe us great 

 good : for they cannot with justice put us to death. It 

 may be that they will cut our throtes, or keepe us 

 long in prison : Gods will be done. All those com- U-^- ^« 24^-] 

 modities that I brought hither, had beene very well sold, 

 if this trouble had not chanced. You shall do well to 

 send with all speed a messenger by land from Balsara 

 to Aleppo, for to certifie of this mischance, although it 

 cost thirtie or forty crownes, for that we may be the 

 sooner released, and I shalbe the better able to recover 

 this againe which is now like to be lost : I pray you 

 make my hearty commendations, &c. From out of the 

 prison in Ormuz, this 21 of September, 1583, 



[His second 



457 



