Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	friend_n	yield_v	young_a	13	3	5.7305	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35254	A view of the English acquisitions in Guinea and the East Indies with an account of the religion, government, wars, strange customs, beasts, serpents, monsters, and other observables in those countries : together with a description of the Isle of St. Helena and the Bay of Sculdania where the English usually refresh in their voyages to the Indies : intermixt with pleasant relations and enlivened with picture / by R.B.	R. B., 1632?-1725?	1686 (1686)	Wing C7356; ESTC R27846	109,445	213

was the Daughter of the Reverend and famous Lawyer Otho Perez de Sallaveda Governour of Barcellona and Corrigidor of Biscay I being the youngest of seventeen Children they had was put to School and designed by them to the Church But Heaven purposing to use my Service in matters of far another Nature and quality inspired me with spending some time in the Wars It was at the time that Don Ferrands the Noble and thrice renowned Duke D' Alva was sent into the Low Countreys in 1568. I then following the current of my desire leaving the University of Salamanca whither my Parents had sent me without giving notice to any of my dearest Friends got through France to Antwerp where in June 1569 I arrived but in a mean condition for having sold my Books Bedding and other things which yielded me about 30 Duckets and borrowed twenty more of my Fathers Friends I bought a little Nag wherewith I travelled more thriftily than usually young Gentlemen do till arriving within a League of Antwerp some of the cursed Geses set upon me and bereaved me of my Horse Money and all whereupon I was forc ' through want and necessity to enter into the Service of Marshal Cossey a French Nobleman whom I served truly in a very honourable imploy though mine Enemies to my disgrace affirm I was his Horse-keepers Boy But fot that matter I refer my self to Count Mansfield Monsieur Tavier and other Persons of Quality and condition who have often testified to many worthy men now living the very truth of the business which indeed was this Monsieur Cossey being about this time sent Ambassador to the Duke D' Alva Governour of the Low Countreys he understanding the Nobility of my Birth and my late misfortune judging it would be no small honour to him to have a Spaniard of that Quality about him furnished me with a Horse Armour and whatever I wanted using my Service in nothing so much after I had learned French as writing his Letters because my Hand was then very fair In time of War if upon necessity I sometime dressed my own Horse I ought not to be reproacht therewith since I count it the part of a Gentleman to submit to the vilest Office for the Service of his Prince The first expedition I was in was when the Marshal my Friend met the Prince of Orange making a Road into France and forced him to fly even to the Walls of Cambray It was my good Fortune to defeat a Trooper by killing his Horse with my Pistol who falling upon his Leg could not stir but yielded to my mercy I knowing my own weakness of Body and seeing him a lusty tall Fellow thought it the surest way to dispatch him which having done I plundered him of a Chain Money and other things to the value of 200 Ducats This Money was no sooner in my Pockets but I began to resume the remembrance of my Nobility and taking my audience of leave from Monsieur Cossey I instantly repaired to the Duke D' Alva's Court where divers of my Kindred seeing my Pocket full of good Crowns were ready enough to acknowledge me By their means I was received into pay and in time obtained a good degree of favour with the Duke who would sometimes jest a little more severely at my Personage than I could well bear for though I must acknowledge my Stature is so little as I think no man living is less yet since it is the work of Heaven and not my own he ought not to have upbraided a Gentleman therewith And those glorious things that have happened to me may evince that great and wonderful matters may be performed by very unlikely Bodies if the mind be good and Fortune second our endeavours Though the Dukes joques a little disgusted ●●e yet I endeavoured to conceal my resentments and accommodating my self to some other of his humors I was so far interested in his favour that at his going into Spain in 1573. whither I attended him by his kindness and some other accidents wherein by my Industry I was seldom wanting to my self I was able to carry home 3000 Crowns in my Pocket At my return my Parents who were extreamly disturbed at my departure received me with great joy which was increased because they found I had brought wherewith to maintain my self without being chargable to them so that they need not lessen the Portions of my Brothers and Sisters to provide for me But doubting I would spend it as lightly as I got it they continually sollicited me to marry the Daughter of John Figueres a considerable Merchant of Lisbon to which I complied and putting my Marriage Money and good part of my own into the hands of my Father or such as he advised me to I lived in good fashion and much like a Gentleman for many years very happily At length some quarrels arising between me and one Pedro Delgades a Gentleman and Kinsman of mine the causes whereof are needless to relate this difference grew to such a height that when no mediation of Friends could prevail we two went alone with our Swords into the Field where it was my chance to kill him though a stout proper man but what I wanted in strength I supplied in courage and my agility countervailed for his Stature This being acted in Carmona I fled with all speed to Lisbon thinking to conceal my self with some Friends of my Father in Law till the business might be accommodated and I acquitted by consent of the Prosecutors This happened in 1596 at which time a famous Spanish Count coming from the West-Indies published Triumphant Declarations in Print of a great Victory he had obtained against the English near the Isle of Pines whereas in reality he got nothing at all in that Voyage but blows and a considerable loss It had been well if vanity and lying had been his only crimes His covetousness had like to have been my utter ruin though since it hath proved the occasion of Eternizing my name I verily believe to all Posterity and to the unspeakable benefit of all Mortals for ever hereafter at least if it please Heaven that I return home safe to my Countrey and give perfect Instructions how those almost incredible and impossible Acquirements may be imparted to the World You shall then see men flying in the Air from one place to another you shall then be able to send Messages many hundred miles in an instant and receive answers thereto immediately without the help of any Creature upon Earth You shall then presently impart your mind to your Friend though in the most remote and obscure place of a populous City and a multitude of other notable Experiments But what exceeds all you shall then have the discovery of a New World and abundance of rare and incredible secrets of Nature which the Philosophers of former Ages never so much as dreamt of But I must be cautious in publishing these wonderful mysteries till our Statesmen have

as being weaker and therefore had more occasion for the wind but the Negroes thought they had been gone to Bowre and dispatch a Canoe to give the King of Boulom the Alarum which was persued by the Enemy who fired into their Boat and at length took them they were two young Slaves belonging to the Portugals who lived with the English Factor but would confess nothing of their Message The English in the House observing what passed fired at them with their Cannon and three of their Bullets fell within ten paces of the Boat The Hollanders put themselves out of the reach of their Guns for the present and came to an Anchor to wait the Tyde About an hour after two Moores belonging to one of the Neighbour Islands made up directly to them in a Canoe and came within Pistol-shot but would not be persuaded aboard the Dutch firing on them they fled and stooping for fear of their fire seemed no higher than Catts the English in the interim played upon them though they saw they were out of their reach to shew the Natives they had undertaken their Defence and desired their Friendship The Tyde coming in the Dutch retreated to their Ship wherein they found several Moores and Portugals and among them the King of Bouloms Son called Bembo about 35 years old well proportioned and abating his Blackness a very handsom Man he was a very great Friend of Abrahams the English Factor and when he understood he was a Prisoner he instantly interceded for his Ransom and on Monday noon came on board again with an hundred Elephants Teeth weighing nine hundred pound weight and two Civet Catts alive upon the delivery whereof Abraham was dismist the Hollanders giving him a little Barrel of Strong-Waters a Roll of Tobacco a Cheese and a Salvo of three Guns In the River of Madre-Bomba the English have likewise a House or Factory not inferiour to that of Siorra-Leone The Kingdom of Boulom wherein it seated is principally inclined to the English and Portugals of which last there are several that inhabit there Let us now consider the Religion of the Negro's if we may so call it which is generally Paganism they greet the New Moon with horrible roarings and strange gestures of Adoration they offer their Sacrifices in the Woods before great hollow Trees wherein their Idols are placed yet this they do rather out of Custom than Zeal using neither Form nor Method in their Devotions every one making a God after his own fancy some seeming to incline to Mahumatism others to Judaism and many of them are Roman Catholicks yet divers affirm that God who giveth all things and can do what he pleaseth and causes Thunders Lightning Rain and Wind is Omnipotent and needs neither praying to nor to be set forth in so mysterious a way as that of the Trinity They believe that when People die they go into another World and will have occasion for many of the same things they use here and therefore put part of their Housholdstuff into the Grave with the dead Corps and if they lose any thing imagine their Friends in the other World had need of it and have taken it away They have no Letters nor Books yet keep Tuesday for a Sabbath forbearing then their Fishing and Husbandry and the Palm Wine which is gotten that day must not be sold but is offered to the King who bestows it on his Courtiers to drink at night On this Day in the midst of the Market-place they place a Table on four Pillars about three yards high whose flat cover is made of Straw and Reeds woven together upon which they place many Straw Rings called Fetisso's or Gods and within them set Wheat Water Oil for their God whom they imagine devours it Their Priest they call Fetissero who every Festival-day placeth a Seat upon that Table and sitting thereon preacheth to the People but what his Doctrine is the Europeans cannot understand After this the Women offer him their Infants whom he sprinkles with Water wherein a live Snake swims wherewith he likewise besprinkles the Table and then uttering certain words very loud and stroking the Children with some kind of Colours as if giving them his Blessing he himself drinks of that Water the People clapping their hands and crying I ou I ou and so he dismisseth this devout Assembly Many wear such Rings next their Bodies to preserve them from the mischiefs their angry God might inflict upon them in honour of whom they daub themselves with a kind of Chalky Earth which is their Morning Mattens At their eating the first bit and the first draught is consecrated to their Fetisso wherewith they besprinkle it If Fishermen have not a good Draught they present a piece of Gold to the Priest to reconcile them to their frowning Saint who with his Wives makes a kind of Procession through the Streets smiting his Breast and clapping his Hands with a mighty noise till he come to the Shore where they cut down boughs from certain Trees and hang them on their Necks playing on a Timbrel Then the Priest turns to his Wives and expostulates with them and throws Wheat and other things into the Sea as an Offering to appease the Fetisso's displeasure against the Fishermen When the King Sacrifices to his Fetisso he commands the Priest or Fitessero to inquire of a Tree whereunto he ascribeth Divinity what he will demand The Priest comes to the Tree and in a heap of Ashes there provided sticks the Branch of a Tree and drinking water out of a Bason spouts it upon the Branch and then daubeth his Face with the Ashes after which the Devil out of the Tree gives answer to the Kings questions The Nobility likewise adore certain Trees esteeming them Oracles and they report the Devil sometimes appears to them like a black Dog and otherwhile answers them without any visible apparition Some worship a Bird called Pittoie spotted and painted as it were with Stars and resembleth the voice of a Bull To hear this Bird low in their Journey is reckoned a good Omen they saying their Fetisso promises them good Fortune and therefore they set a Vessel of Water and Wheat in the place where they hear it And as the Earth and Air yield them Deities so the Sea is not illiberal to them but yields certain Fishes whom they Canonize upon this account they never take the Tunny Fish the Swordfish they take and eat but dry the Sword on his back which is held in great Veneration Yea the Mountains are not without honour and if they did not pacifie their Anger by setting daily Presents of Meat and Drink thereon they believe they would bend their sullen Brows and as their High Tops threaten to scale Heaven would overwhelm the Earth and destroy them all Monstrous Serpents in Africa In the mean time the dearest of his Wives fills all the House with Mourning the Neighbours and Friends assisting with Songs and Dances At length they