The nexte is a faire, greate, and longe iland, called Cuba. This iland hath a forte and haven in it called the Havana, which is the key of all India. It is called the key of India, for that the [pg 214] Spaniardes cannot well returne into Spaine but that they muste touche there for victualls, water, woodde, and other necessaries. It lieth at the mouthe and entraunce into the Gulfe of Bahama. This ilande hath great plentie of victualls, but it is not greately inhabited.
There be divers other ilandes, riche for victualls, as Aeriaba, Corsal, Marigalante,[74] &c., havinge not in them some xx. some x. Spaniardes a pece.
Thus you see that in all those infinite ilandes in the Gulfe of Mexico, whereof Cuba and Hispaniola are thoughte to be very nere as bigge as England and Ireland, wee reade not of past twoo or three places well fortified, as Sancto Domingo in Hispaniola, and Havana in Cuba. I may therefore conclude this matter with comparinge the Spaniardes unto a drone, or an emptie vessell, which when it is smitten upon yeldeth a greate and terrible sound, and that afarr of; but come nere and looke into them, there ys nothinge in them; or rather like unto the asse which wrapte himselfe in a lyons skynne, and marched farr of to strike terror in the hartes of the other beastes, but when the foxe drewe nere he perceaved his longe eares, and made him a jeste unto all the beastes of the forrest. In like manner wee (upon perill of my life) shall make the Spaniarde ridiculous to all Europe, if with pierceinge eyes wee see into his contemptible weakenes in the West Indies, and with true stile painte hym oute ad vivum unto the worlde in his fainte colours.
And if any man woulde objecte, that if by his weakenes he had loste the treasure of the West Indies, yet the riches of the Easte Indies woulde holde upp his heade; I answer, that those contries beinge so farr of, and suche naturall malice beinge betweene the Portingale and the Spaniarde, as greater cannot be, that it is not possible for him to holde those partes no more than the other, wantinge the treasure of the West Indies to supporte his garrisons both there and in Christendome againste his manifolde and mightie enemyes.
Chap. XI. That the Spaniardes have exercised moste outragious and more then Turkishe cruelties in all the West Indies, whereby they are every where there become moste odious unto them, whoe woulde joyne with us or any other moste willinglye to shake of their moste intolerable yoke, and have begonne to doe yt already in divers places where they were lordes heretofore.
So many and so monstrous have bene the Spanishe cruelties, suche straunge slaughters and murders of those peaceable, lowly, milde, and gentle people, together with the spoiles of townes, provinces, and kingdomes, which have bene moste ungodly perpetrated in the West Indies, as also divers others no lesse terrible matters, that to describe the leaste parte of them woulde require more than one chapiter, especiall where there are whole bookes extant, in printe, not onely of straungers, but also even of their owne contreymen (as of Bartholmewe de las Casas, a bisshoppe in Nova Spania); yea such and so passinge straunge and excedinge all humanitie and moderation have they bene, that the very rehersall of them drave divers of the cruel Spanishe, which had not bene in the West Indies, into a kinde of extasye and maze, so that the sayenge of the poet mighte therein well be verified:—
Quis talia fando,
Myrmidonum Dolopumue aut duri miles Vlissis,
Temperet a lachrimis?
Nevertheless I will repeate oute of that mightie masse and huge heape of massacres some fewe, that of them you may make an estymate of the rest, and consider what small remainder of those moste afflicted Indians have to revolte from the obedience of the Spaniardes, and to shake of from their shoulders the moste intollerable and insupportable yoke of Spaine, which in many places they have already begonne to do of themselves, withoute the helpe of any Christian prynce.