Prisoner of the Indies

by Geoffrey Household

  It was fortunate for me that the jennets of New Spain are well schooled and of even pace, for the only horses I had ever ridden were Devon cart-horses going to and from the fields. Don Gil saw that some day I should disgrace him by falling off so he sent me down to his estancia with an old soldier, who not only taught me to ride like a Spaniard, but to know a good horse from a bad. And that was of great benefit to me, as you shall see.

  In 1572 my master feared that he would have to close his silver mine for lack of Indian labourers. They were not slaves, so they could not be forced to work in the mines if they preferred the fields, as most of them did. Don Gil proposed that we should visit the mine together and that I should stay there to take charge of it.

  ‘But, Don Gil, I know nothing of mining,’ I said.

  ‘As to that, nor do I. But the Indians do, and my Negro foreman as well,’ he answered. ‘All I want of you is to make all shipshape as you call it. See that the carts and oxen are there when they are needed. See that the Indians do not lack quicksilver and brine and lead for the fining of the ore. They will stay idle for a week because a horse has lost a shoe. Make sure that they have what they need when they need it, and I’ll warrant you will get more silver with fifty men than they get now with a hundred.’

  When he saw that I hesitated, though always wishful to please so gay and kind a master, he told me that I might make myself rich without depriving him of his due. If the Indians and Negroes liked me, he said, and if I treated them as friends and comrades, they would work for me on Saturday after their wages had been paid and their week was over. All the silver they won I could keep for myself. That was the custom, and the mine-owners did not frown upon it, since it was proof that their Indians were content. They would not work on a Saturday for an overseer they disliked.

  It was a lonely life I had, for there were not a hundred Spaniards in all Zacatecas and none of them near. There I first began to learn Nahuatl, which is the Indian language of New Spain and understood by most of the tribes even if they do not speak it in the same form as the Aztecs. My Negro overseer, Señor Sambo, so called because he came of the people of the Samboses many of whom we had caught ourselves in Guinea, tried to teach me his language as well, but I could make nothing of it. On my part I taught him to read and write and to ride, and he became so pleasant a companion to me that I wholly forgot he had been a wild man and a cannibal in his youth.

  Together we hunted the Beasts of Cibola, which are like our oxen, but have short horns and long hair and a hump on their shoulders which is higher than the rest of their bodies. The Indians told me that they lived in great plains far to the north and seldom wandered so far as Zacatecas.

  All this while I had no thought of escape, for if I continued to prosper I could buy a passage to Spain, thereafter making my way to England. If I were refused a licence to embark – which was very likely, since I was still a prisoner, though in name only – I might buy a pinnace and, as I dreamed, secretly collect some seamen from among my old companions.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  We who remained in the country were all men of humble birth. Of the others, thirty left for Spain in 1569 when the Plate Fleet which had fought us at San Juan sailed with its cargo of treasure. Among them were Anthony Goddard and the ten hostages. The next year more were sent back, including Master Barrett and Job Hartop.

  Now, though King Philip scrupled to kill and torture his prisoners, he was ready enough to look the other way while the Holy Office of the Inquisition did it for him. We heard of the evil fate of our countrymen. Being all Protestants, they were handed over to the Inquisitors at Seville. Most of them were condemned to years of rowing in the galleys and Master Barrett was burnt at the stake. He was very strong for the reformed religion; it is said that when he was asked to interpret a sermon to the English, he preached a sermon of his own instead, calling the Pope a rascally knave and his doctrines false.

  In New Spain we had no reason to be afraid, so long as we attended Mass and confessed our sins. For my part, though I was never a firm Catholic, I thought it better to serve God in their way than not at all. Nor could I forget what good Christians were the friars, always protecting the helpless whether they were Indians or English prisoners.

  So I never suspected what danger I was in when a man wearing dusty black garments and accompanied by two armed attendants rode up to me while I was weighing silver in the yard of the mine. He too was armed with a long sword though he seemed by his dress to be a churchman, having a white cross upon his doublet and another on his cloak.

  ‘You are the Englishman, Miles Philips?’ he asked.

  He had none of the courtesy with which we in New Spain treated one another, but I replied to him that I was indeed Miles Philips and that my house and I were at his service.

  ‘You are required in the City of Mexico by the Reverend Doctor Moya de Contreras.’

  ‘And who is he?’ I asked, for by now I knew the names of the chief clergy of Mexico. Many of them had dined at Don Gil’s house, giving me little presents as page, greater ones as chamberlain and their blessings with both.

  ‘He has been sent to us by the Holy Office for the spiritual health of the inhabitants of New Spain.’

  I answered that it was a great honour that so learned and pious a churchman should require me, and that I would despatch a rider to Don Gil Alvarado to ask if I might go.

  ‘Don Gil has nothing to say to it,’ he replied. ‘You will come now.’

  He showed me the written order of the Chief Inquisitor. When I offered him silver, his two attendants looked black and laid their hands upon the hilts of their swords. So I only stopped to give my dear Señor Sambo some orders, and to choose the worst horse we had in case Doctor Moya or his messenger should not see fit to return it to Don Gil.

  He spoke little to me on the journey, treating me as if I were already dead and damned, but I learned from his attendants that he was a lay brother of the Order of St Dominic. These villainous fellows, known as the Familiars of the Inquisition, serve as spies and informers upon the innocent, and as armed guards when their holy masters pass through the streets.

  I was taken straight to the City of Mexico and shut up in a dark cell. I did not pass before any magistrate or justice, and I was not allowed to stop on the way to see any of my friends nor Don Gil Alvarado. I am sure that all of them asked what had happened to me, but, when told in whose hands I was, they could not help me. Not even the Viceroy himself had power against the Holy Office.

  I was all alone in the darkness for more weeks than I could count, with not a soul to speak to except the gaoler who brought my food. He told me that I was not the only heretic to be taken up and that all the English prisoners throughout New Spain were there in prison with me. When I begged that I might share a cell with one of them, he said that the Constable of the Prison would not allow it.

  Now, the reason for such cruelty was this: that we should be so overjoyed to talk with others and to see the light of day when we were brought before our judges that we would answer without thinking all the questions they put to us.

  So it was with me. I was led into a great room with so many windows that the light hurt my eyes. Before me there were writers at a table, and a little above them four men in black and white robes. Behind them was a tall crucifix, before which I bowed and crossed myself in the manner of the Spaniards. A little to one side was Robert Sweeting, ready to act as interpreter if one were needed. When our eyes met, he made no sign. Though a devout Catholic and married in the country, he may have thought himself in danger also.

  These four Inquisitors had nothing cruel in their countenances and at first seemed to me calm and kind. And so they may have been by their own lights, caring only to save our souls even if they had to break our bodies. That they did with a right good will, for they bore a hellish hatred towards Protestants and especially the English.

  First they asked me if I knew my prayers, so I said over to them in Latin the Lord’s Prayer, the Ave Maria an
d the Creed.

  ‘And how were you instructed in England?’ Doctor Moya de Contreras asked me.

  I answered that I had been taught with other boys by a good old chantry priest in Plymouth.

  ‘Was he a Catholic or a heretic?’

  ‘He was a Lutheran under King Henry, a Catholic under Queen Mary and a Lutheran again under Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.’

  ‘Did you not feel that he was unworthy to be a priest?’ asked another, who was Juan de Bonilla.

  ‘Why, no, most reverend doctor,’ I answered, ‘for who was he that he should disobey the government and the bishops?’

  I could see from their faces that they were much shocked by this, and the secretaries at the table were scratching away with their turkey quill pens as if their lives depended on it.

  ‘So you do not believe that His Holiness the Pope is above them all?’

  To this I could only reply that I was very willing it should be so in New Spain, but that in England it was a matter for Her Majesty and not for me.

  Then a third Inquisitor, who was Juan Sanchez, leaned over to his fellows and I heard him say that I was more a pagan than a Catholic or Protestant, and that if Montezuma had ordered me to worship in the great temple of Tlatelolco I would have done so because he was the king.

  They went on to ask me many questions about the doctrines of the Church, which I could have answered very well. But I pretended I knew nothing of them, having now my wits about me, and swore that if I had offended I was penitent. So I was taken back to my cell and left in the darkness again.

  I could bear it no more. I had endured my solitary suffering with manliness because I was sure that I would be set free by the Inquisitors as soon as I could speak with them, thinking them like other Spaniards who are so stern one day and so merciful the next. But now that I was thrown back into my silent cell again, I could see no end. I beat my fists against the stone until they were all bloodied and shouted to the gaoler to let me out or I would kill myself.

  He came to my call, knocked me down and threw my pan of drinking water in my face, swearing that he would put me in chains if I did not cease my bawling.

  Crouching at his feet, I begged him that for God’s sake he would give me a word of comfort.

  ‘With much pleasure,’ said he, ‘and it is this: do not cry before you are hurt!’

  ‘They cannot hurt me worse,’ I muttered.

  ‘You think so, young fellow? Wait until their reverences have done with you!’

  I did not understand what he meant, thinking only that he threatened me with some vile dungeon beneath the level of the lake. But I was soon to learn.

  A week later two gaolers carried a man into my cell and dropped him on the stone floor, where he lay groaning. We could only see each other as shadows. I spoke to him first in Spanish and then, when he made no answer, in English. He was Morgan Tillert, a seaman of the Judith who had been taken prisoner on the harbour island.

  ‘They have stretched me on the rack, Miles,’ he said, ‘and there is not a whole bone in my body.’

  I could do nothing for him but hold his great hand and bathe his forehead, for a man who has been racked suffers afterwards as much pain as he did during the torture, and only time will cure it.

  Next day he spoke to me between his groans and told me that the Inquisitors were laying traps for us which we, being simple, honest men, never perceived. Morgan had sworn his oath before them that he was and had always been a good Catholic, and expected to be believed. So he might have been, if he had not been too ready to chatter with Doctors of the Church as though they shared a tavern bench.

  Morgan was taken back to another cell and put together with George Rively, the carpenter with whom I had gone to find the leak which let the fishes into the Jesus of Lubeck. This Rively was an ardent Protestant, who had refused to answer questions or to say that he was penitent. Perhaps he had too slow a mind. Perhaps he wished to be a martyr. He was a strange fellow, tall and fat with a face as large as if he had an egg in each cheek and without hair on head or chin.

  A fine time Tillert and Rively had of it together in the cell, abusing the Pope and Purgatory and I know not what, while all the while Don Pedro de los Rios, the fourth Inquisitor and their secretary, was listening at the door! So Morgan Tillert was taken to the torture chamber and racked till he confessed that he had been a Catholic and was now a heretic. They asked him when he had been converted and by whom, stretching him until he screamed and answered that it was on the voyage and by Francis Drake himself.

  Now that they had put the rack into my mind they left me so long alone with my fears that I began to think I was forgotten. Whenever I heard the gaoler’s key in the door, I dreaded that my time for torture had come. Yet I would say to myself that pain was no great price to pay if only I could see the light and hear human voices.

  But I was never racked, for it pleased these fiendish Inquisitors to torture my soul instead of my body. When my spirits were so low that I refused my food, they would give me a companion; as soon as I gave way to my joy, they would take him away again.

  Once they put me together with Paul Horsewell, and you may be sure that we never mentioned religion, having so many memories of Devon which we doubted if we should ever see again. He had grown somewhat fat with sitting still in gaol and had shifted himself too little while he was at liberty, being employed upon writing and accounts. He desired me to speak loudly that he was indeed the nephew of Haquines, for the Inquisitors doubted it because his name was not the same. So we pretended to be practising our Spanish and spoke of his uncles, William and John.

  Afterwards one William Collins was brought to me: a hard seaman from Gravesend, forty years old, who had shared a cell with little Richard Williams. He was no longer little, but he still called upon his mother. And when William Collins would rage around the cell, swearing and cursing as was his custom, Richard would weep and tell him they would both be burned at the stake for his blasphemies. Then Collins refused to share the bed with him, saying that he had lice on him. No doubt they both had, for I never knew Collins not to be lousy unless his clothes were stiff with sea salt.

  But for me he was very serviceable. He would have it that if a man knew how to go about the business he might learn as much news of his fellows in prison as if he were in irons on shipboard. He taught me how to win the favour of the gaolers, saying that they were all the same rogues and bullies, whether in London or Mexico. Also he showed me how to listen at the walls, and my ears became so sharp that I could hear what was said on the other side, although when I was first confined I should have thought the murmurs were but the rustling of a rat. I found little pleasure in his talk, but when he was taken away I no longer felt so alone, for I knew who were in the neighbouring cells, how they fared and whether they had been tortured.

  Meanwhile the four Inquisitors busied themselves in taking our confessions, denying that we had told the truth and questioning us all over again until no man remembered what he had said or what his companions had said and was ready to give any answer they put in his mouth, especially when stretched upon the rack.

  They neither tried us nor made clear accusations, so that we could not stick stoutly to the truth as even a poor, ignorant man may do in a court of law. Most of us swore that we were no heretics and stood by it. But then Doctor Moya de Contreras would read aloud the confession of some bewildered seaman and ask the miserable wretch before him whether he was of the same opinion. Whatever he answered, it was sure to be heresy.

  I remember him reasoning with me as gently as any father.

  ‘Now, young man, you had a shipmate little older than yourself, one Thomas Hull, who tells us that he confesses to God without the intervention of the saints. What have you to say to that?’

  It was plain enough to me that Thomas had meant to testify that he had not been taught to confess to a priest; but what with saints, sacraments and confessions, he was all at sea. If I replied that I agreed, I should prove myself an obs
tinate heretic; if I said I did not, I should show too much knowledge. So I pretended to be childish as an Indian and answered that, as there were no more images in the English churches, I supposed the saints had left us.

  Then, hoping to get from me some accusation against my comrades, Doctor Moya asked me what prayers we had on shipboard. I told him that when night fell and the new watch came on deck and the hourglass was turned, we would all gather round the mainmast bare-headed and recite a psalm, the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed.

  ‘And you all willingly attended this service?’ he asked.

  ‘If we did not, the bosun with his rope’s end would soon make sure of it.’

  ‘And the Admiral Haquines himself, was he a Catholic or a Protestant?’

  I answered that he had great faith in God and Our Saviour and that he would always pray with the dying, writing down their will, setting their hearts at rest and taking such care of their souls as he could; but whether he was a Protestant or not neither I nor any man could tell. He forced nothing upon us but vigilance for our persons and the ship.

  I was a year and a half in the darkness of the prison, never knowing what the end would be. I had not committed any offence against man, but only, they said, against God. And to that I had no answer. I could not call angels to give witness for me nor put the devil on his oath to swear that I was not his servant. So there was no law, as it seemed to me, to hinder them from keeping me in gaol without any sentence till all the pleasures of youth were finished and done.

  I was now nineteen years old, and grown in my cell from a youth to a man. I no longer wept and beat upon the walls, but for many hours together lay on my straw in misery, at last comforting myself with dreams of what I would do if God were to move these ruthless men to have mercy on me.

  Sometimes I would linger upon the splendours of Don Gil’s house and the thousands of silver pesos which I could gain at the mines, telling myself that the Indies offered a finer life to a man of courage and good will than any I could make for myself at home. But what mostly I saw among the shadows of my cell were the brown tide coming up under the oaks, the red cattle knee-deep in buttercups and the pale blue mist of summer evenings when men and women, singing together, rowed up the rivers of Plymouth after the day’s work was done; and I never doubted that I would rather be fisherman or farmer in Gloriana’s England than a gentleman in New Spain.