But, to run no hazard, the pilots will force themselves on board of you; which is commendable enough, if it was not on design to impose upon you, and make one pay what they please, and no help for it, nor no justice done, if you complain. The consul and merchant strangers, residing at St. Sebastians, have brought them to some better reason, and to composition, but, for all that, it is still as they please. Every fisherman looks upon himself as good as Signior Alcaijde himself: so that a man must sit down under all affronts and hardships, and be quiet.

Their way of living at St. Sebastians.

People that are of the better sort, and distinguishable, after having enjoyed the musick of serenading a little before day, they get up and drink chocolate, without which they will not stir abroad if their house was on fire; then they take, both men and women, a great deal of pains with their hair, dress themselves, and go to church; they and their priests understand what they pray to God for much alike, for not one in twenty of their clergy understands Latin.

After mass the men go to the Peer, where they tarry till eleven of the clock; then they go to the middle of the town, called the Four Corners, where they stay till twelve; after it has struck, if it was to save the town, they would not stay a minute longer, and oftentimes break off in the middle of a story or sentence, to go home to their Olio. The first thing presented at their tables is a chocolate cup of soop, or the gravy of meat boiled, and bread crumbled into it, served upon earthen platters; then comes the roast meat, then the boiled, and at last the desert.

They give this reason for bringing the roast meat before the boiled (which seems plausible enough). The best of the boiled meat, say they, is in the broth, and there is more substance and nourishment in the roast than the boiled; for that reason, this would pass, if they did not spoil their roast meat and fowl, by over-doing of them, and roasting them dry as they do their boiled meat, by boiling it to pieces.

But most people think it is rather in opposition to the rest of the world, for they shew it almost in every little thing else. Cyder they have cheap, and abundance of sweet apples, very large, all round the country. The corn of the country is Indian corn, and no other. With wheat they are supplied from the Sound, and sometimes from Barbary, and often from England. They have been so hard put to it this last year, that they have been forced to make bread of chesnuts, which is the reason they are prohibited to be exported. They have extraordinary good rabbits of Navarre, and wild-fowl plenty; their pigeons are much esteemed, and their red partridges of Arragon are excellent and large.

Fish they have plenty, and of good sorts, if they will be at the pains to catch it; and if the sea (which with a north-west blowing wind flies high on the Bar, and even up almost to the top of the island St. Claire, about six hundred feet) will permit. The sea often

times in the harbour flies to the top of the walls forty feet high and

more.

When the fishermen come from sea with their boats, their wives are sitting on the Peer with their husbands clokes and long spada's, or long rapiers. The husband walks in state into the town, and his wife carries the basket of fish on her head to the market-place and sells them. Billingsgate language and noise is nothing to what the fishermen and apple-women make at St. Sebastians; they are always quarrelling, and will cuff heartily, and will not be friends under a week. Their common language is Basque, which is as much different from Spanish as Welch from English.

Their houses are lofty and stately, only covered with pan-tiles; and because of great unexpected squalls of wind, which happen here often, they lay great stones on the pan-tiles to keep them fast. Sometimes both stones and pan-tiles are fetched down by storms of wind, and, their streets being narrow, it is dangerous then to walk in them. Their rooms are large, and there is only one chimney in a house of five rooms of a floor, and four or five stories high, and that at the top of the house. They live all winter in the upper stories, to enjoy the benefit of the sun, and in the lower rooms in summer. It is very hot here; the reflexion of the sun from the castle-hill on one hand, and from the sand in the vale on the other, is the cause that it is hotter here than in many places of a more southern latitude. Their beds are finely carved and gilt, but very hard to lie on; their curtains are of linnen laced at every half-yard broad, but not wide enough to draw round the bed; they have few or no glass windows, only lattices, their beds stand all in alcoves.

Merchant strangers, unless married with a Spanish woman, have not the liberty to hire houses, but must get one of the town to hire them, and live in it with him, and they generally go snacks with the merchants in their profits.

From dinner they go to sleep till two or three, and then go out of town between the Horn-work and the Town-wall. There they tarry all the afternoon, either playing, or looking on those that play at tennis and ninepins: their tennis-court is in the open air, and rough paved, yet they are very expert in tossing the ball.

In the winter they pass their time till eight of the clock at night in private houses, or at an assembly, where every one, that comes in, pays sixpence. He may either pick up a party to play at cards, or sit and see others play and talk, and call for three or four glasses of wine. If they stay beyond eight, the mayor sends his algosins, and makes money of the company, as well as of him that entertains them after such an hour. Sometimes the clock strikes eight, when it is but seven, if the mayor wants a little money.

The men are very tight in their Spanish garb, their long spada's, their silk stockings and slashed shoes. The women, modestly and odly attired, all of them go vailed, their vails being very large, gathered at the bottom in such a manner, that, as they walk, their vails sit as full blown about them, as the sails of a sh p, before the wind. Their petticoats are proportionable, and the ladies, who

generally all sit on the ground or floor, have such an address, when they sit down to fling their petticoats out in a round, that, modestly speaking, they take up more room than any milstone in England does in circumference, and the wind gathered under their coats, by the turn they make, is so long getting out, that, by degrees, as their coats fall, they find a cool breese that is very refreshing to them, in so hot a climate. They seldom stir abroad, the better sort, but to church, and even not then without a great deal of jealousy of an ill-natured husband; they have pretty faces, black eyes, and would look about them, as women do, in other countries, if they durst.

The priests are the only happy men that enjoy the ladies company, who are about eighty in all. Their revenue is but small; they live merry lives; eat and drink of the best, in private houses, where they are always welcome; few or none of them, but have three or four children, and no reflexion on them.

When a priest would lie with a woman, he absolves her from the great scruple, women make of whoredom's being a great sin. He tells her, he will take that sin to himself. As for the other scruple, that women have of losing their reputation and spoiling their fortunes, there is no such thing amongst them; for, if a man gets a woman with child, that does not pass for a prostitute, he is only to keep the child, and give the wench a portion (if she has nothing of her own), who marries and is not a bit the worse looked upon.

Women have another advantage in this country; for, after they are contracted and all matters settled, and the day of marriage agreed on, she has the liberty to desire her bridegroom to come and shew himself a man: and if she does not find him to her satisfaction, the contract is void, and she is a good maid still.

They bring up some of their young women to play on the Spanish harp; for which they let their nails grow so long, that it looks strangely.

They do not allow of any bawdy-houses; but every street, in a dark night, serves their turn, and he must look to himself that disturbs them, or spoils sport.

Every Sunday and holiday, the ordinary sort of them have a dance on the market-place, thus:

There are three drums and pipes; the drum-major who has the biggest drum, which is about the bigness of a child's drum, is the common hangman. There they whistle with one hand, and beat their drums with the other, till there is a ring made, when one of the nimblest of the fellows goes into the middle of the ring, shews his activity, takes out of the ring a wench, she her mate, and so it goes round; the first fellow leads the brandle, and all dance and shew their parts for an hour. The coopers, who are numerous here, on St. Andrew's-Day, their patron, go a maskquerading all day, and play twenty tricks ridiculous enough, and would not work that day for any reward, but they make it up at other times, for they are at work before day.

The country all round abounds with oak, proper for the staves,

and chesnut trees, of which they make the hoops for casks; there is also a great number of casks made in the country, and at Passage, and brought to St. Sebastians empty on mules.

There is, near to the town, the convent of St. Austin, a nunnery of women, where there is to be seen the corpse of a woman dead hundreds of years ago. Her arms, legs, and face appear as full, as if she had been buried but yesterday; she looks tawny, and I believe has been served mummy-like. When they were digging the foundation of this monastery, they found this corpse, which they pray to. The chief trade of the town is iron, wine, and oil.

Their iron-mills are near to the town, and their iron bars are brought to the town on horses or mules, on crooksaddles, to the publick magazine, which is under the town hall; where constant attendance is given for receiving them out of the country, and delivering and weighing them to the buyer. Our tin-men in Cornwall are here supplied with their stamps, and other utensils for the carrying on their work.

All other merchandises, except iron, are drawn on sledges, by two oxen, in and out of the town.

They deal somewhat in train-oil and whale-bone. They have some ships that go to the northward a whale-fishing; besides, they catch some in sight of the castle; and in order to this, some months in the year, they hire a man that looks out continually from the top of the hill, betwixt St. Sebastians and Passage, who, when he sees a whale or bottle-nose, makes a sign to the castle; the centinel, from the castle, advertises, by his bell, the town; immediately the fishermen upon that go forth to the prey. There was a bottle-nose about the bigness of that which was brought up to Greenwich, brought into St. Sebastians in November last, out of whom they got a great quantity of that which they call sperma ceti; the flesh was boiled to oil.

They have also some trade to Newfoundland, but with that sort of fish, Cabelau they call it, they are better supplied from other nations than by their own ships.

The great quantity of pilchards, caught on the coast of Galicia, is a mighty help to this part of Spain; of which they are great lovers, and are in more esteem with them than herrings.

But the more remarkable trade of the town at present, and that which brings most money to the town, is the wine trade.

The late war with France, from whence we were supplied with their excellent Grave Medoc and Pontack wines, occasioned our Parliament to put such a great duty on French wines, and other liquors of the growth of France, that merchants have looked out how to be supplied otherwise, that they may pay easier duties; and, luckily, they have light upon a spot of ground, called the Spanish Navarre, of which Pampelone, Ablitas, and Villa Franca are the chief towns, that afford us as good wines as any French wines; and the Spaniards of late both at St. Sebastians, Passage, Fontarabia, and Guitaria, finding such a demand for wines, and considerable profit by them, have improved their vineyards to so great

a degree, both in quantity as well as quality of good wines, that their improvement equals, if not exceeds that of Portugal; which, before the war, was not able to furnish us with above three or four hundred pipes in a year, and now there are above ten thousand pipes a year imported from thence, which appears from the custom-house books.

This will not be allowed by some, but it is very true. One shall see at St. Sebastians mules by hundreds, loaden with wine in hogskins; three skins upon à mule, containing ten gallons each, come every day into town, Sunday not excepted. All this is unloaden in the magazines and sorted, and next day put into casks; the mules carry away the empty skins into the country for more.

This is not only done at St. Sebastians, but also at Fontarabia, Passage, and Guitaria. From these places they come to St. Sebastians in barques and barcelongo's, because of the conveniency of sea-carriage, in casks, and are lodged in merchants cellars ready for the buyer.

The truth of all this is so well known in England, from the care the commissioners of the customs took, in sending over two of their officers to examine into the truth of it, and from some tryals at the Exchequer bar, that it cannot be further questioned.

Besides, for all wines shipped off from St. Sebastians, the masters of ships are obliged to take certificates from the mayor and consul, as a sufficient testimony that their wines are of the growth of Navarre, in his Catholick Majesty's dominions, given under the great seal of the

Most noble and Most Loyal City of St. Sebastians.

And undersigned by their sworn master cooper, Signior Nicola and his assistants, that the very casks are made by them.

A LIST OF THE

MONASTERIES, NUNNERIES, AND COLLEGES,

BELONGING TO THE ENGLISH PAPISTS IN SEVERAL POPISH COUNTRIES BEYOND SEA.

Published to inform the People of England, of the Measures taken by the Popish Party for the re-establishing of Popery in these Nations. In a Letter to a Member of Parliament. [From eight Pages Quarto, London; printed in 1700.]

SIR,

FIND that your honourable House is fully sensible of the dangerous consequence of the numbers of Papists amongst us by