ncapable.

The kings of Castile having banished the Jews out of their dominions,
John, King of Portugal, in consideration of eight crowns a head, sold
them a retreat into his for a certain limited time, upon condition that
the time fixed coming to expire they should begone, and he to furnish
them with shipping to transport them into Africa. The day comes, which
once lapsed they were given to understand that such as were afterward
found in the kingdom should remain slaves; vessels were very slenderly
provided; and those who embarked in them were rudely and villainously
used by the passengers, who, besides other indignities, kept them
cruising upon the sea, one while forwards and another backwards, till
they had spent all their provisions, and were constrained to buy of them
at so dear a rate and so long withal, that they set them not on shore
till they were all stripped to the very shirts. The news of this inhuman
usage being brought to those who remained behind, the greater part of
them resolved upon slavery and some made a show of changing religion.
Emmanuel, the successor of John, being come to the crown, first set them
at liberty, and afterwards altering his mind, ordered them to depart his
country, assigning three ports for their passage. He hoped, says Bishop
Osorius, no contemptible Latin historian of these later times, that the
favour of the liberty he had given them having failed of converting them
to Christianity, yet the difficulty of committing themselves to the mercy
of the mariners and of abandoning a country they were now habituated to
and were grown very rich in, to go and expose themselves in strange and
unknown regions, would certainly do it. But finding himself deceived in
his expectation, and that they were all resolved upon the voyage, he cut
off two of the three ports he had promised them, to the end that the
length and incommodity of the passage might reduce some, or that he might
have opportunity, by crowding them all into one place, the more
conveniently to execute what he had designed, which was to force all the
children under fourteen years of age from the arms of their fathers and
mothers, to transport them from their sight and conversation, into a
place where they might be instructed and brought up in our religion. He
says that this produced a most horrid spectacle the natural affection
betwixt the parents and their children, and moreover their zeal to their
ancient belief, contending aga