e wrists. They then placed him with his back against a
thick board, at each extremity whereof was a pulley, through which there
ran a rope that caught the end of the chain at his wrists. The
executioner then, stretching the end of this rope by means of a roller,
placed at a distance behind him, pressed or bruised his stomach in
proportion as the ends of the chains were drawn tighter. They tortured
him in this manner to such a degree, that his wrists, as well as his
shoulders, were quite dislocated. They were, however, soon set by the
surgeons; but the barbarians, not yet satisfied with this species of
cruelty, made him immediately undergo the like torture a second time,
which he sustained (though, if possible, attended with keener pains,)
with equal constancy and resolution. After this, he was again remanded
to his dungeon, attended by the surgeon to dress his bruises and adjust
the part dislocated, and here he continued till their Auto de Fe, or
jail delivery, when he was discharged, crippled and diseased for life.

_An account of the cruel Handling and Burning of Nicholas Burton, an
English Merchant, in Spain._

The fifth day of November, about the year of our Lord 1560, Mr. Nicholas
Burton, citizen sometime of London, and merchant, dwelling in the parish
of Little St. Bartholomew, peaceably and quietly following his traffic in
the trade of merchandize, and being in the city of Cadiz, in the party
of Andalusia, in Spain, there came into his lodging a Judas, or, as they
term them, a familiar of the fathers of the inquisition; who asking for
the said Nicholas Burton, feigned that he had a letter to deliver into
his own hands; by which means he spake with him immediately. And having
no letter to deliver to him, then the said promoter, or familiar, at the
motion of the devil his master, whose messenger he was, invented another
lie, and said, that he would take lading for London in such ships as the
said Nicholas Burton had freighted to lade, if he would let any; which
was partly to know where he loaded his goods, that they might attach
them, and chiefly to protract the time until the sergeant of the
inquisition might come and apprehend the body of the said Nicholas
Burton; which they did incontinently.

He then well perceiving that they were not able to burden or charge him
that he had written, spoke, or done any thing there in that country
against the ecclesiastical or temporal laws of the same realm, boldly
asked th