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 traitors, robbers, thieves, and other malefactors along with whom I was now obliged to take my abode The number of my ſequeſtered companions, I cannot poſſibly determine for this place was a receptacle for the criminals of all the ſouthern provinces of New Spain ſo that its ill fated inhabitants were very numerous.

Before I had been here three weeks, I was thrice taken out of my irkſome den, and conducted by a ſtrong guard of ſoldiers to the abode of the Preſident, by whom I was more punctiliouſly examined than I had been by any of my former judges I now related my unfortunate adventures in the moſt affecting ſtyle I was maſter of, indulging a feeble hope of obtaining my liberty: but alas! at the cloſe of my third examination, the magiſterial Preſident told me, that all I had ſaid in my defence availed very little: I had no lawful buſineſs upon their coaſts ; and therefore muſt be recommitted to the dungeon and there remain till he ſhould write to the court of Old Spain, and received anſwer, to direct his further proceedings concerning me.

I was now in the moſt lamentable ſituation I had ever been in ſince the commencement of my misfortunes Mine eyes ſcarcely ever beheld any thing but one common ſcene of awful darknefs; and my ears were ſeldom ſaluted by any thing but the rattling of adamantine chains, or the oaths and blaſphemies of the deſpairing wretch-