sinews, hams and knees; yea, and my depending weight on fleshcutting cords, yet they stroke me on the face with cudgels to abate and cease the thundering noise of my wrestling voice.

At last, being loosed from these pinnacles of pain, I was handfast set on the floor, with this their incessant imploration: confess, confess, confess in time, for thine inevitable torments ensue; when finding nothing from me but still innocent, O I am innocent, O Jesus! the Lamb of God have mercy upon me, and me with patience to undergo this barbarous murder.

strengthen

Then by command of the justice was my trembling body laid above and along upon the face of the rack, with my head downward, inclosed within a circled hole; my belly upmost, and my heels upward towards the top of the rack, my legs and arms being drawn asunder, were fastened with pins and cords to both sides of the outward planks, for now was I to receive my main torments.

Now what a pottaro, or rack is (for it stood by the wall of timber,) the upmost end whereof is larger thon a full stride, the lower end being narrow, and the three planks joining together are made conformable to man's shoulders; in the downmost end of the middle plank there was a hole wherein my head was laid; in length it is longer than a man, being interlaced with small cords from plank to plank which divided my supported thighs from the middle plank, through the sides of which extensive planks there were three distant holes in every one of them, the use whereof you shall presently hear.

Now the alcade giving commission, the executioner laid first a cord over the calf of my leg, then another on the middle of my thigh, and the third cord over the great of my arm, which was severally done on both sides of my body, receiving the ends of the cords from these six several places through the holes made in the outward planks, which were fastened to pins, and the pins made fast with a device, for he was to charge on the outside of the planks with as many pins as there were holes and cords, the cords being first laid next to my skin, and on every one of these six parts of my body I was to receive seven several tortures, each torture consisting of three winding throes of every pin, which amounted to twenty-one throes in every one of these five parts.

Then the tormentor having charged the first passage above my body (making fast by a device each torture as they were multiplied) he went to an earthen jar standing full of water a little beneath my head, from whence carrying a pot full of water, in the bottom whereof there was an incised hole, which being stopped by his thumb, till it came to my mouth, he did outpour it in my belly, the measure being a Spanish sombre, which is an English pottle; the first and second services I gladly received, such was the scorching drought of my tormenting pain, and likewise I had drunk none for three days before.

But afterward, at the third charge, perceiving these measures of water to be inflicted upon me as tortures, oh, strangling tortures! I closed my lips again-standing that eager credulity.

Whereat the alcade, enraged, set my teeth asunder with a pair of iron cages, detaining me there, at every several turn, both mainly and manually, whereupon my hunger-charged belly waxing great, grew drum-like imbolstered, for it being a suffocating pain, in regard of my head hanging downward, and the water re-ingorging itself, in my throat, with a struggling force, it strangled and swallowed up my breath from yowling and groaning.

And now to prevent my renewing grief, (for presently my heart faileth and forsaketh me,) I will only briefly avouch, that between each one of these seven circular charges I was aye re-examined, each examination continuing half an hour, each half hour a hell of infernal pain; and between each torment, a long distance of life-quelling time.

Thus lay I five hours upon the rack, between four o'clock afternoon, and ten o'clock at night, having had inflicted upon me sixty several torments; nevertheless, they continued me a large half hour (after all my torments) at the full bending, where my body being all begored with blood, and cut through in every part, to the crushed and bruised bones, I pitifully remained, still roaring, howling, foaming, bellowing, and gnashing my teeth, with insupportable cries, before the pins were undone and my body loosed.

True it is, it passeth the capacity of man, either sensibly to conceive, or I patiently to express, the intolerable anxiety of mind and affliction of body, in that dreadful time I sustained.

At last

my head being by their arms advanced, and my body

taken from the rack, the water regushed abundantly from my mouth; and they re-clothing my broken, bloody, and cold trembling body, being all this time stark naked, I fell twice in a sounding trance, which they again refreshed with a little wine and two warm eggs, not for charity done, but that I should be reserved to further punishment, and if it were not too truly known those sufferings to be of truth, it would almost seem incredible to many, that a man being brought so low with starving hunger, and extreme cruelties, could have subsisted any longer reserving life.

And now at last they charged my broken legs, with my former eye-frighting irons, and done, I was lamentably carried on their arms to the coach, being after midnight, and secretly transported to my former dungeon without any knowledge to the town, save only these my lawless and merciless tormentors; where, when come, I was laid with my head and my heels alike high on my former stones.

The latter end of this woful night, poor mourning Hazier, the Turk, was set to keep me, and on the morrow the governor entered my room, threatening me still with more tortures to confess; and so caused he every morning long before day his coach to be rumbled at his gate, and about me where I lay a great noise of tongues and opening of doors; and all this they did of purpose to affright and distract me, and to make me believe I was going to be racked again to make me confess an untruth; and still thus they continued every day of five days till Christmas.

Upon Christmas day Mariana, the ladies' gentlewoman, got permission to visit me, and with her license she brought abundance of tears, presenting me also with a dish of honey and sugar, some confections and raisins in a great plenty to my no small comfort, besides using many sweet speeches for consolation's sake.

She gone, and the next morning of Saint John's day come, long ere day the town was in arms, the bells ringing backward, the people shouting, the drums beat, whereon my soul was overjoyed, thinking that the Moors had seized upon all; and in the afternoon the Turk coming to me with bread and water, being by chance the second day, I asked him what the fray was? who replied, Be of good courage, I hope in God and Mahomet that you and I ere long shall be set at liberty, for your countrymen the English ar

mada, and mine the Moors, are joined together, and coming to sack Malaga. And this morning post came from Allagant (Alicant) to premonish the governor thereof; whereupon he and the town have instantly pulled down all the coppet shops and dwelling houses that were builded without the shore side adjoining to the town's wall; but yet, said he, it is no matter, the town may easily be surprised, and I hope we shall be merry in Algiers, for there is above a hundred sail seen coming hither; and therewith, kissing my cheek, he kindly left me.

Indeed, as for such news from Allagant, the detriment of twenty-eight houses, the shore-planted cannon, the suspicion they had of the English, and the town four days in arms, were all true, save only the confederacy of the English with the Moors, that was false.

Witness Sir Richard Halkins, and the captains of his squader, who a little after Christmas, coming to the road, went to the governor to clear himself and the fleet of that absurd imputation laid to their charge. The twelfth day of Christmas expired, they began to threaten me on still with more tortures, even till Candlemas: in all which comfortless time I was miserably afflicted with the beastly plague of gnawing vermin, which lay crawling in lumps, within, without, and about my body: yea, hanging in clusters about my beard, my lips, my nostrils, and my eyebrows, almost inclosing my sight.

And for a greater satisfaction to their merciless minds, the governor caused Areta, his silver-plate keeper, to gather and sweep the vermin upon me twice in eight days, which tormented me to the death, being a perpetual punishment; for mine arms being broke, my bands lucken, and sticking fast to the palms of both hands by reason of the shrunk sinews, I was unable to lift mine arms to stir my fingers: much less to avoid the filthy vermin: neither could my legs and feet perform it, being impotent in all. Yet I acknowledge the poor infidel, some few times, and when opportunity served, would steal the keys from Areta, and about midnight would enter my room, with sticks and burning oil, and sweeping them together in heaps, would burn the greatest part, to my great release; or doubtless I had been miserable, eat up, and devoured by them.

And now, some eight days before Candlemas, the slave informed me, that an English seminary priest, born in London, and belonging to the Bishop's College of Malaga, and a Scottish couper, [dealer] named Alexander Ley, born in Dunbar, and there married, were in translating all my books and observations out of English, in the Spanish tongue, bringing every other day's numbers of wrote papers to the governor, and for their pains had thirty ducats allowed, and that they were saying, I was an arch heretic to the pope and the Virgin Mary.

Having redounded him concealed thanks, I was assured of their bloody inquisition, preparing myself in God with faith and patience, to receive and gainstand it; for my spiritual resolution was surely founded; being sightless of company, and humane faces, I had entirely the light of my soul celebrate to God Almighty.

And hereupon, the second day after Candlemas, the governor, the inquisitor, a canonical priest, entered my dungeon accompanied with two Jesuits, one of which was predicator and Superior of the Theatinean College of Malaga: where being chair set, candle lighted, and door locked, the inquisitor, after divers frivolous questions, demanded me if I was a Roman Catholic, and acknowledged the pope's supremacy. To whom I answered, I was neither the one, nor did the other. And what power (said I) have you to challenge me of my religion, since it is a chief article of the former concluded peace, that none of our king's subjects should be troubled by your inquisition? but, as you have murdered me for alleged treason, so you mean to martyr me for religion.

And you, governor, as you have tortured and hunger-starved this helpless body, consumed with cold and vermin to the last of my life, the Almighty God who revealeth the secrets of all things (though I be never relieved) will certainly discover it to my country and to the world. And is this the best of your good deeds to repay to our merciful king, who then being only king of Scotland, in the time of your just overthrow of eighty-eight, gave secourse to thousands of your shipwrecked people for many months, and in the end caused transport them safely to their desired ports. Leaving to the world's memory an eternal stamp of