victuals, to buy for him two
knives which had files in their backs, which files were so well made
that they would serve and suffice any prisoner to file off his irons,
and of those knives or files he brought one to me, and told me that he
had caused it to be made for me, and let me have it at the very price
it cost him, which was two pezoes, the value of eight shillings of our
money, which knife when I had it I was a joyful man, and conveyed the
same into the foot of my boot upon the inside of my left leg, and so
within three or four days after that I had thus received my knife I was
suddenly called for, and brought before the head justice, which caused
those my irons with the round bolt to be stricken off, and sent to a
smith in the town, where was a new pair of bolts made ready for me of
another fashion, which had a broad iron bar coming between the
shackles, and caused my hands to be made fast with a pair of manacles,
and so was I presently laid into a waggon all alone, which was there
ready to depart, with sundry other waggons to the number of sixty,
towards Mexico, and they were all laden with sundry merchandise which
came in the fleet out of Spain.

The waggon that I was in was foremost of all the company, and as we
travelled, I being alone in the waggon, began to try if I could pluck
my hands out of the manacles, and as God would, although it were
somewhat painful for me, yet my hands were so slender that I could pull
them out and put them in again, and ever as we went when the waggons
made most noise and the men busiest, I would be working to file off my
bolts, and travelling thus for the space of eight leagues from Vera
Cruz we came to an high hill, at the entering up of which (as God
would), one of the wheels of the waggon wherein I was brake, so that by
that means the other waggons went afore, and the waggon man that had
charge of me set an Indian carpenter at work to mend the wheel; and
here at this place they baited at an ostrie that a negro woman keeps,
and at this place for that the going up of the hill is very steep for
the space of two leagues and better, they do always accustom to take
the mules of three or four waggons and to place them all together for
the drawing up of one waggon, and so to come down again and fetch up
others in that order. All which came very well to pass, for as it drew
towards night, when most of the waggoners were gone to draw up their
waggons in this sort, I being alone, had