Meanwhile the hospital became every day more disagreeable to me, and
seeing but one way to get out of it, I endeavored to hasten my
abjuration with as much eagerness as I had hitherto sought to retard
it.
The two Africans had been baptized with great ceremony; they were
habited in white from head to foot, to signify the purity of their
regenerated souls. My turn came a month after; for all this time was
thought necessary by the directors, that they might have the honor
of a difficult conversion, and every dogma of their faith was
recapitulated, in order to triumph the more completely over my new
docility.
At length, sufficiently instructed and disposed to the will of my
masters, I was led in procession to the metropolitan church of St.
John, to make a solemn abjuration, and undergo a ceremony made use
of on these occasions, which, though not baptism, is very similar, and
serves to persuade the people that Protestants are not Christians. I
was clothed in a kind of gray robe, decorated with white Brandenburgs.
Two men, one behind, the other before me, carried copper basins
which they kept striking with a key, and in which those who were
charitably disposed put their alms, according as they found themselves
influenced by religion or good will for the new convert; in a word,
nothing of Catholic pageantry was omitted that could render the
solemnity edifying to the populace, or humiliating to me. The white
dress might have been serviceable, but as I had not the honor to be
either Moor or Jew, they did not think fit to compliment me with it.
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