So I decided to show myself a settled, common man and to learn a trade which would get me employment wherever I found myself. I took the name of Miguel Perez and bound myself to a mestizo silk weaver for three years paying him one hundred and fifty pesos to teach me his craft. It was a good business, for in the City of Mexico are woven taffetas, satins and velvets as fine as those of Spain, which are readily sold to the many rich and shipped to the Main and to Peru as well. Our blacks were better than the Spanish, though the other colours were not so bright.
But still the Inquisitors could not forget me, and several times their Familiars accused me of planning to return to England and to become a heretic again. To that I would answer that I could not understand why they should suspect me, since escape was impossible even if I wished it, which I did not. The truth was that they feared this Miguel Perez who could speak Spanish well enough to pass as a Spaniard, and Nahuatl so easily that the Indians would help him to travel among forests and volcanoes wherever he pleased.
One day I was much disquieted to be called before Doctor Bonilla. He asked me severely why I did not marry, to which I replied that I was learning a trade and could not afford wife and house until I had set myself up in business. But this did not content him. He forbade me to leave the City of Mexico, threatening to have me burned if I went near San Juan de Ulua or any other port.
With the other English he was not so hard, for most of them had taken wives, showing that they meant to remain good Catholics and settle in New Spain. Paul Horsewell married a rich mestiza, a daughter of one of the Conquerors, and got with her a fine house. Richard Williams married a Basque widow, who, I doubt not, took the place of the mother upon whom he used to call, and had a fortune of four thousand pesos as well. William Lowe obtained permission to sail for Spain, where, it is said, he also married. And several of the others were given Negroes or mestizas for wives.
So I who remained a bachelor was out of favour. Whatever excuses I offered, the Holy Office suspected that I had not yet lost hope of a wife and children in my own country. And indeed I had not, and marry I would not, though there were maidens in plenty who were ready enough.
It was now the year 1579 and Master Francis Drake was upon the coast of New Spain. No English captain had ever appeared before in the South Sea, which some call the Pacific. The inhabitants of the ports were peaceful as if they lived in paradise, with never a thought that war could come near them. They had no defence against a ship so heavily armed as The Golden Hind, beyond such men and horses as could be raised from the settlers inland. So Master Drake had an easier time of it than at San Juan de Ulua.
The Spaniards were marvellously afraid that he would march up from Acapulco and take the City of Mexico, never thinking that he had not the men for so mad a venture and that he could not arm the Indians even if they dared to revolt. Carts began to roll out of the city, carrying the wives, children and money of the rich. Men polished their rusty armour and looked through the attics for their fathers’ swords. The Viceroy took a roll of all the able-bodied Spaniards and mestizos in New Spain, who amounted to thirty thousand; but he could only raise a force of eight hundred, sending two hundred of them to San Juan and the rest to the South Sea.
He sent for Paul Horsewell and myself and asked us what we knew of Francis Drake who was a brother to Admiral Haquines. Fearing that we might be denounced as renegades, we both swore that we had never heard of the man, hoping that the Viceroy could not call for the records of the Holy Office which proved that we knew Drake very well. As for being a brother of our old commander, we said that John had only one brother, William, who was sixty years old or thereabouts and Governor of Plymouth for the Queen.
Then Paul Horsewell was returned to his home, praying that the Viceroy, the Inquisitors, Francis Drake and the devil himself would leave him in peace with his pretty wife and his secretaryships. I was ordered to go down to Acapulco as interpreter for Don Robles Alcalde de Corte who commanded the force there. The Holy Office gave me leave, for it was very necessary to be able to bargain with the English if they took a town and held it for ransom.
Since New Spain was so peaceful, the only war Don Robles had ever seen was against wild Indians in the Sierra Madre, where he had been struck by an arrow and claimed to have won a great victory in spite of his wound. The Indians, I concluded had retreated to their fastnesses after an exchange of shots, as they always do.
Don Robles and two hundred men put to sea in a little ship of sixty tons and two pinnaces. We were rocked no more than babes in a cradle, but they were all most vilely sick. Francis Drake could have sent us to the bottom with no loss to himself, and all I asked was that I should not be killed by a cannon shot before I could swim to The Golden Hind, say who I was and be free at last of the danger in which I lived.
When Don Robles had recovered and could look around him he was in great humour to find himself an admiral with a handsome cabin, wherein he could give play to his generous nature. He had brought enough stores on board for a voyage to the moon and he entertained us all right nobly.
At first he was somewhat haughty with me, but when I had admired his wound, his armour and his moustachios, he began to make a pet of his tame Englishman and would have me teach him Nahuatl to pass the time. He was a man of fine stature, always ready to laugh at his own jests or those of others. Though no soldier, he would have fought to the death as gallantly as he played upon the guitar.
Our sailing master, whose name was Segarra, was a good fellow as all Spanish seamen are, and told me much of the South Sea and the Philippine Islands where he hoped to settle. He had often sailed to Peru, a voyage which may take as long as from Havana to Spain, and once he had gone to China and Japan, returning with silks, spices and an earthenware as thin as glass which they call porcelain.
He and Don Robles would dispute together jovially and at the tops of their voices, the Admiral demanding that his soldiers be put aboard Master Drake as soon as he was sighted, Segarra assuring him that our fleet of three poorly armed ships would be sunk or disabled by the English guns and that his soldiers would have to swim before they could fight.
‘That cannot be!’ Don Robles would protest. ‘There are no braver men in the world than those I command!’
‘It is true we are Spaniards,’ Segarra answered, ‘but even a Spaniard must be trained. Why, any fellow with a sword and a feather in his cap can enlist as a ship’s soldier, and no questions asked!’
‘Then are we to submit to English pirates as if we were snivelling friars?’ the Admiral roared.
‘Not if you will tell your friend the Viceroy to listen to the ship masters of the coast,’ said Segarra.
He explained that a ship which could cross the Ocean and come through Magellan Straits into the South Sea must be sturdy and slow. But on the coast of New Spain, where there is seldom stormy weather, ships could be built for speed, with finer lines.
‘Give me a vessel such as that,’ he cried, ‘and I would tear and torment the English like a dog baiting a bull!’
What he said was very well reasoned. If the Viceroy should indeed listen, I fear there may be no more such venturing between Peru and New Spain as that of The Golden Hind.
When we were south of Guatemala we met with ships coming up from Panama who told us that Drake had left the coast. We much wondered where he could be, never dreaming that he had sailed to the north beyond the conquests of the Spaniards and that he would return to Plymouth round the Cape of Good Hope, having compassed the whole world. Then our little fleet returned to Acapulco, with the interpreter much downcast. I had been so glad to sail the sea again after eleven years that I was too sure of obtaining freedom, either through battle or being wrecked upon some desolate shore.
The Viceroy ordered me to remain at the weaving shop and to be ready to leave at an hour’s notice, since he expected that Drake would be forced by hunger to return to the coast. I know not why he thought me so necessary, unless it was that I could endure the hardships of sea
and land better than those other English who lived at their ease and took their orders from their wives.
But it is the habit of Spaniards to be very fierce and imperious, and a month later to think the matter not so pressing. So when Don Robles Alcalde de Corte asked for my services as his sailing master, he readily obtained permission.
Don Robles had taken a liking for the seafaring life, but preferred to enjoy it upon the Lake of Mexico. He bought a little brigantine of shallow draught, and fitted her out gaily, like the most comfortable tavern that I ever saw. He gave out that he meant to spend his evenings searching for the treasure which, it was said, King Guatemoc had thrown into the lake when the City was captured.
‘But why, Don Robles, do you need me more than another?’ I asked.
‘Because there are very few rascals who both speak Nahuatl and can keep their mouths shut,’ he replied, giving me a great dig in the ribs.
Now, every idle Spaniard had been diving after that treasure for the last fifty years and had never found more than rotten vegetables, so I asked him if he really believed that he could discover it.
‘We shall look for it with discretion, Miguel,’ he said, ‘and for the rest of the time we shall amuse ourselves, for upon the high seas the captain and his sailing master may do what they will under God.’
Through Xolotl I engaged a crew of four and a cook, none of whom could speak a word of Spanish, and Don Robles and I set off on our evening voyages around the lake. Sometimes we would search for treasure in full sight of the City, but when night fell we would sail off to the opposite shore and take on board a party of his friends and their lasses.
Till then I had diverted myself only among the humbler sort of men and women. So at first I was astonished to observe how these grave gentlemen with their vast estates and half a score of private chaplains could abandon themselves to gaiety. They admitted me to their friendship and, I fear, to much of their naughtiness, but at least I learned to walk with men of breeding, as poor Master Barrett told me that I should.
After we had made a dozen such voyages in as many weeks, I came down from the shop one evening to take command of my brigantine and found a brass cannon mounted in the bows, Don Robles sitting by it with a goblet in his hand and his eyes all alight with some knavery.
‘Now you will be gunner as well,’ he said. ‘Tonight we are going to look for the English!’
‘Aye, aye, Admiral!’ I answered, and went to examine the gun, which was an old fowler such as we had on the poop of the Jesus of Lubeck.
When we had cast off and my Indian mate had taken the tiller, I went below to find out what in heaven’s name was afoot.
‘You would not believe, being young, what wickedness there is in this world, Miguel,’ Don Robles said. ‘Foul slanderers dare to repeat that you and I and our good friends are a disgrace to the City and that we never look for treasure at all. Now, since we have been unable to find any gold to give to the churchmen, the next best gift would be some duck.’
This was very well contrived, for the lake was full of wild fowl. So I cleaned the gun and measured out the charges and the canisters of small shot.
During the winter we made it our custom to drift down upon the flights at evening and dawn and loose off the fowler. And now if the justices or the clergy were too curious as to how we spent the rest of the night, no one was more indignant than Don Robles. He claimed that not only was he supplying the monasteries with fat duck, but teaching his friends to load and fire a cannon so that there would be no shortage of gunners to defend the City if Drake came up from the coast.
Meanwhile I plied my trade of weaver, and took my sleep at the hours of the siesta whenever I was required as sailing master. My master did not frown upon me if I was not steady at my work, for Don Robles and many of his friends brought their custom to our shop.
Once I was summoned by a finicking canon of the Cathedral who questioned me with such delicacy that I could pretend not to understand his meaning. I pleaded that I was a poor man, very willing to sail Don Robles’ brigantine and fire its gun after my day’s weaving was over, but of what passed below deck I knew nothing and could only say that the gentlemen made music and were very merry.
My good Admiral laughed at this and said he believed the canon wished to sail with us. But there was worse to come. Doctor Bonilla called me before him. He asked no questions – perhaps not desiring to know too much since Don Robles was so intimate with the Viceroy – but told me sternly that if I were not sent to row in the galleys as a suspected heretic, he could condemn me none the less as an offender against public order.
This alarmed Don Robles who laid up his brigantine, retired to his estates and advised me to make myself scarce for a while. He obtained from the Viceroy leave for me to go to Amecameca on my master-weaver’s business.
We were a whole party of merchants, collecting hides and goods from the estancias for shipment to Spain by the fleet of 1580. My master traded in cochineal, a brilliant red dye made from crushed beetles, which may be sold at a high price in any city of Europe. He had a good stock of the highest quality, and desired me to see it safely packed and sealed.
Since my companions were all wealthy men, he saw that my clothes were of the best and mounted me on a horse which he borrowed from his cousin. Now, as I have said, my old soldier taught me to know the breeding of a horse and its value. This one was of Barbary stock, not so swift as some of the Spanish but of very great endurance.
When I had ridden to Amecameca and tried out the horse in visits to the estancias, I knew that my chance of escape had come. First I thought of riding north to Florida where I should not be known; but as soon as I heard that the fleet was ready to sail from San Juan de Ulua I remembered the words of Segarra: that any man might enlist for the voyage who presented himself with arms and the bearing of a soldier. Once on board I should be out of reach of the Holy Office before they could find out what had happened to me. I had enough money to buy arms, for I had sewn a goodly number of gold pieces into the quilts of my doublet.
San Juan was three days’ journey to the east. When the moon rose I saddled up my Barbary and rode him hard all that night and all the next day down through the forests of pine and cedar, arriving on the second night at the town of Vera Cruz, which was fifteen miles from San Juan. Even if one of the company of merchants guessed what I had done – and why should he trouble himself? – I should be safe at sea before search was made for me on the coast.
I meant to rest in Vera Cruz only long enough to buy sword and helmet. But I had just stabled my horse and gone to a tavern to refresh myself when I was arrested and brought before the mayor and justices. There was neither rhyme nor reason in this, for no letter concerning me could have reached the town or even been written.
‘You are Enrique Villalta y Carvacal, son of Pedro Villalta of the City of Mexico, and I have orders to detain you,’ the mayor said to me.
I had heard of Pedro Villalta. He was enormously rich and had a son who was always in trouble with the authorities. It appeared that this young man was secretly trying to buy his passage on the fleet to Spain, disobeying the orders of his father and the High Court.
I denied that I was Enrique, claiming in a lordly way that I was on business to the fleet and that if they interfered with me they would soon know who I was. Not a word of it would they believe. Whether I much resembled this Enrique I am ignorant. So, I think, were they. It was enough for them that my clothes were costly, that I had ridden hard and fast and that I had changed a piece of gold in the tavern.
As always in Vera Cruz, the night was hot. The mayor and his fellows were holding court in the open air, while the crowd of people walking in the square gathered round to listen. As I was being led away to prison, the devil put it into the head of a poor man to speak up for me. He was selling hens and had two baskets of them slung from his shoulders, cackling like himself.
‘Your worships are committing a wrong,’ he said. ‘I have often seen this man in the
City of Mexico. He is not a Spaniard at all, but an Englishman.’
The justices abused him, saying that I had paid him to lie, that he was in the plot to help me to escape from my father and that he had better take care or he would be sent to prison with me.
Then the wretched chicken-seller had to tell all he knew: that I was one of Haquines’ men and that I had worn the San Benito for three years in the monastery of the Jesuits.
The justices told him to stand aside, and asked me if what he said was true. Try as I might, I could not deny it against the word of the chicken-seller who had only wished to help me and had placed me in the worst fix I ever was in. It was plain to the justices that they had caught a bigger fish than young Enrique Villalta and that the Holy Office would be grateful. As for me, I saw that I should go to Spain after all, but in the fleet of the next year and sentenced to the galleys unless they burned me first.
I was put in gaol with a ball and chain on my legs, and there I remained for three weeks. Now, an ordinary Spanish prison is much like ours. The company is merry, but if a man has no money to buy food he must depend on charity or starve. I thought it wise not to unsew my doublet in such society, and lived on the few pesos in my pocket. I also found friends, as it was likely I would. Being myself so long in disgrace, I was acquainted with many poor men who found it hard to live honestly in New Spain.
There was a thief who had been among those who broke out of gaol with a horseshoe, carrying Paul Horsewell with them. He had been recaptured on the shores of the Sea of Cortés, condemned to the galleys and was now waiting to be put aboard the fleet. There was also a light-fingered rogue named Panchito whom I had known in Zacatecas. Señor Sambo had caught him loading his horse with our silver and was about to cut his throat; but I, thinking he might entertain us with his company, as indeed he did, gave him a seat at our table and sent him on his way with no silver but with a flask of pulque to lighten the journey.
Prisoner of the Indies Page 8