Page:A New Survey of the West Indies or The English American his Travel by Sea and Land.djvu/34

 of leud lives, weary of their retired Cloister lives, who have been punished often by their Superiours for their wilful backsliding from that obedience which they formerly Vowed; or for the breach of their Poverty in closely retaining money by them to Card and Dice, of which fore I could here namely insert a long and tedious Catalogue; or lastly such, who have been Imprisoned for violating their Vow of Chastity with leud and lascivious women, either by secret flight from their Cloister, or by publick Apostatizing from their Order, and clothing themselves in Lay-mens Apparel, to run about the fafer with their wicked Concubines. Of which sort it was my chance to be acquainted with one Frier John Nevarro a Franciscan in the City of Guatemala, who after he had in Secular Apparel enjoyed the leud company of one Amaryllis a famous woman Plaier in Spain for the space of a year, fearing at last he might be discovered, Listed himself in a Mission to Guatemala, the year 1632. there hoping to enjoy with more liberty and less fear of punishment any Lustful or Carnal Object. Liberty, in a word, under the Cloak of Piety and Conversion of souls, it is, that draws so many Friers (and commonly the younger sort) to those remote American parts; where after they have learned some Indian Language, they are Licenced with a Parish Charge to live alone out of the sight of a watching Prior or Superiour, out of the bounds and compass of Cloister walls, and authorized to keep house by themselves, and to finger as many Spanish Patacones, as their wits device shall teach them to squeeze out of the newly Converted Indians Wealth. This liberty they could never enjoy in Spain and this liberty is the Midwife of so many foul falls of wicked Friers in those parts. For the present I shall return again to my Frier John Navarro, who at his coming to Guatemala, being made for his wit and learning, Matter and Reader of Divinity, and much esteemed of for his acute Preaching among many others got the estimation and love of a chief Gentlewoman, (Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem testa diu) who continued in Navarro his heart the former sent of the unchast love of Amaryllis, so far that the Frier being blinded