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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 darkness; and my ears were seldom saluted by any thing but the rattling of adamantine chains, or the oaths and blasphemies of the despairing
