days in the woods from the fury of his tyrannical master, at last he was taken, and
     brought back to the dominion of this wicked Pharaoh. No sooner had he got him into
     his hands than he commanded him to be tied to a tree. Here he gave him so many la-
     shes upon his naked back as made his body run an entire stream of gore blood, em-
     bruing therewith the ground about the tree. Afterwards, to make the smart of his
     wounds greater, he anointed them with juice of lemon mingled with salt and pepper,
     being ground small together. In this miserable posture he left him tied to the tree
     for the space of four and thwenty hours. These being past, he commenced his punish-
     ment again, lashing him as before, with so much cruelty that the miserable wretch,
     under this torture, gave up the ghost, with these dying words in his mouth: I be-
     seech the Almighty God, Creator of heaven and earth, that he permit the wicked Spi-
     rit to make thee feel as many torments, before thy death, as thou hast caused me to
     feel before mine. A strange thing and worthy of all astonishment and admiration!
     Scarce three or four days were past after this horrible fact, when the Almighty Ju-
     dge, who had heard the clamours of that tormened wretch, gave permission to the Au-
     thor of Wickedness suddenly to possess the body of that barbarous and inhuman Amir-
     ricide, who tormented him to death. Insomuch that those tyrannical hands, wherewith
     he had punished to death his innocent servant, were the tormentors of his own body.
     For with them, after a miserable manner, he beat himself and lacerated his own flesh,
     till he lost the very shape of man which nature had given him; not ceasing to howl
     and cry, without any rest either day or night. Thus he continued to do until he
     died, in that condition of raving madness wherein he surrendered his ghost to the
     same Spirit of Darkness who had tormented his body. Many other examples of this kind
     I could rehearse, but these, not belonging to our present discourse, I shall there-
     fore omit.
     The planters that inhabit the Caribbee Islands are rather worse and more cruel to
     their servants than the preceding. In the Isle of Saint Christopher dwells one.
     whose name is Bettesa, very well known among the Dutch merchants, who has killed
     above a hundred of his servants with blows and stripes. The English do the same
     with their servants. And the mildest cruelty they exercise towards them is that,
     when they have served six years of their time (the years they are bound for among
     the English being seven complete), they use them with such cruel hardship as for-
     ces them to beg of their masters to sell them to others, although it be to begin
     another servitude of seven years, or at least three or four. I have known many who
     after this manner served fifteen and twenty years before they could obtain their
     freedom. Another thing very rigorous among that nation is a law in those islands,
     whereby if any man owes to another above five and twenty shillings, English money,
     in case he cannot pay, he is liable to be sold for the space of six or eight months.