its circumstances.

A certain planter of these countries exercised such cruelty towards one
of his servants, as caused him to run away. Having absconded, for some
days, in the woods, at last he was taken, and brought back to the wicked
Pharaoh. No sooner had he got him, but he commanded him to be tied to a
tree; here he gave him so many lashes on his naked back, as made his
body run with an entire stream of blood; then, to make the smart of his
wounds the greater, he anointed him with lemon-juice, mixed with salt
and pepper. In this miserable posture he left him tied to the tree for
twenty-four hours, which being past, he began his punishment again,
lashing him, as before, so cruelly, that the miserable wretch gave up
the ghost, with these dying words: "I beseech the Almighty God, creator
of heaven and earth, that he permit the wicked spirit 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 astonishment and admiration!
Scarce three or four days were past, after this horrible fact, when the
Almighty Judge, who had heard the cries of the tormented wretch,
suffered the evil one suddenly to possess this barbarous and inhuman
homicide, so that those cruel hands which had punished to death his
innocent servant, were the tormentors of his own body: for he beat
himself and tore his flesh, after a miserable manner, till he lost the
very shape of a man; not ceasing to howl and cry, without any rest by
day or night. Thus he continued raving mad, till he died. Many other
examples of this kind I could rehearse; but these not belonging to our
present discourse, I omit them.

The planters of the Caribbee islands are rather worse, and more cruel to
their servants, than the former. In the isle of St. Christopher dwells
one named Bettesa, well known to 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
(they being bound among the English for seven) they use them so cruelly,
as to force them to beg of their masters to sell them to others, though
it be to begin another servitude of seven years, or at least three or
four. And I have known many, who have thus served fifteen or twenty
years, before they could obtain their freedom. Another law, very
rigorous in that nation, is