HAving now sad occasion to renew those former Relations which we enjoyed in our Native Country, to whom we became no strangers for several Reasons inducing us there­unto, not unknown we suppose to all the world, and from any account whereof, our Condition doth excuse us, We do intimate to you, that having passed divers dangers both of Travel and Examination through all the Countries where Providence directed us, in great fear and suspi­cion of being secured, both People and Magi­stracy following the streams of the Affairs and Government of England, we came at last to Delfe in Holland, where sitting in an Herberg, that is, an [Page 4] Alehouse, we were apprehended, being betrayed by a Revolter from our Cause, and so commit­ted.

We are neverthelesse willing to own this dis­pensation and acquiesce under it whatever it shall determine of us; nor have we reason to think our selves now in a worser and harder con­dition; for when we had the liberty of the world we had not the freedom of our selves? nor could the more courteous and incurious entertainment from Forraigners have indulg'd us any satisfacti­on or Content, while our homebred passions and distrusts in our selves and relations to our Fami­lies gave us no rest in our most retired obscu­rities.

Indeed we have sustained a double banishment first from our Country then from our selves; Ex­iles by Law find protection and have a [...]asse for their peregrination by their Sentence▪ but we have thrust our selves out of all those privileges, and have endured the most bitter insultings and exprobrations of our guilt, even in Sanctuaries for all other Crimes. Our Dyet, our Lodging, our (though seldome) Converse, nay our very De­votion which these unspeakable-miseries quick­ned in us, fill'd, nay even loaden with the exag­gerations of those ills with which we stand char­ged: Nay so heavy hath this afliction been upon us, that we have been constrained to comply and to say after those men those dire Anathema's which their rage and passion transported by the Odium and revenge against the late State and Commonwealth hath proved us with as with a­nother Shiboleth.

[Page 5] The Triumphs of these men over a poor, despi­sed and ruined party is so much the more insup­portable to us, for that it proceeds not from any affection to the Government with you, but out of insolence and impotent malice stretched to the utmost for their defeat & near approaching ruin in the late war. They trample upon the ruins and rubbish of that structure to which they bowed their knees and uncovered their heads, while they besought Preservation with prayers from those whom they have now put in their Ballads and infamous Libels.

Whatever shall be our Fate, or whatever im­pends over us, we can with les fear or regret think of then whatwe have already pass'd. As to y ^• body we are asham'd to think with what revulsions we have started at the sight of any person whom we have fancied either to know or to be known by us; nor could the Rack distort a man more then our suden turnings have endangerd us. There was no mischief done in any place where we were, but we feared the punishment might fall upon us as persons not able to give an account of themselves without a worse condemnation. The world was our prison, our bed our dungeon, and our going a­broad the way to Execution, which we could not promise our selvs to escape if once we came to be discovered to the Multitude, who no doubt would have executed that Sentence which we heard our complices suffer'd, by quartering & pulling us in pieces.

But alass the troubles of our mind, the distress, anguish & perplexity of our souls we cannot ex­press; & ill it is for us that it is not communicable [Page 6] that so we might vent that grief which sinks and deads our spirits, Should we recount our dreams our visions, our formerly too adored revelations, we might pourtrait such a hideous Landskip, as that of Cain and his Wandrings! should we tell you what our Thoughts are, we are afraid of them our selves, nor dare we use our rationality on them to bring them into discourse, to frame them into any order or method, lest they militate a­gainst us: nay were it not misery to tell it, we could shew you such diversions of them as would promote Bedlam to a grave and serious residence of Sages. As for our talk t'was wholly about the time, not the Times, what a clock, not what news, Our miserable concerns, (measured by the day whose free and open light offended our blood­shot eyes) spun out themselves in scraps and To­bacco, while we presumed not to venture into Ordinaries, or other publique places for fear of publique danger.

Should we adde those to us terrible sights, of paintings and sculptures with which we have bin so continually frighted, the manner of the Execu­tion of the Regicides, &c. affixed in most of the Towns of these Provinces, where, or no where in safety (such as it is) we have sojourned, it were beyond all the strength of incompassion in the most provoked people of the world not to de­plore our Condition.

But to abandon those forlorn thoughts, we are now, brought to a Resolution (and happy had it been if we had in time taken it of our selves) of submitting to our Fate: We have found worse [Page] [Page 7] abroad then what we fled from, and our Condition would have increased it. [A Peace throughout Christendome and King Charles in England, where should we hope to live?] That therefore which is left us of all that honour either militarily gained or vainly conferred on us we will bestow in this last Engagement of our Life. But we do not see the neces­sity of persisting in the mode of our Predecessors; for we have the opinion of the Churches abroad, that they died desperately either through infatua­tion or combination; we are not privy to those matters as then thinking our selves safer, & there­fore desire liberty of conscience in this great Affair which we recommend to your Consideration.

And now Dear Friends we are coming to you a­gain, and have saved you the labour of coming to us; we shall also save the Prisoners of the Tower going out of Town, for we shall come by Water. We could wish we had saved the Custom also and not have been craned up at the Tower but sent di­rectly for our last Home. In short, Dear Friends, we are as weary of our lives as you will be ere long of your Principles, and therefore we request you to meet us at the aforesaid place, where we will make such a Confession together as shall vindicate our Vocations.

We desire to be recommended to all our Sisters, whose groans and sighs if you can raise to a strom (with which the Fiend Conjured for us) that may drown us by the way, we shall take it for an ever­lasting wellwishing to

THough I suppose [...] this in England by ano­ther hand, yet becavse I have very passionately all along concerned my self in your affairs which for 20 years haue been the discourse of Christendom, I shall giue you a brief ac­count of what happened in this place i [...] relation thereunto. Which is this; some of your English [...] [...] ­ing nere this place some while ago, whose shyness and retired­ness not usual to your Nation beg [...]t some suspition in the Burgers that took notice of them, so that it began to be a whisper [...] us, which soon after [...]roved it self into discourse, where [...] a strong conceit there was among the English that pass this way to the Hague that some of those persons, [...] of the King might possibly [...] (though it seems they came [...] more [...] Aurange, who lie here [...] such neigh­bours.) Upon a nearer observation [...] Here re­ported well known is the [...] of their [...] made a Discovery of them, and presently acquainted Sir George Downing, the Kings Resident at the Hague [...] who as it seems procured an Order from the Lord of Holland for their Apprehension, this was delivered to our upper [...] by Sir George himself, who came in person to [...] sent him to the under [...]cout, that is to [...] having his men ready first scrupled it, understanding Sir George had strength enough with him, he came to the place where those persons, viz, Coll. Berkstead, Coll. Okey and Miles Corbet were together in the H [...] str [...]et, it being Berksteads Lodging, where they were conferring Notes of the affairs in England over a pot of Beer and a pipe of Tobacco. The Scout knoking at door which the Maid opened, entred [...] presently seized them, they would have shuffled away, but the room was instantly fill'd; First they fell to excuses, then to enquiries by what Authority they were seized, which being told them, they were all three led to the Common prison in Delf that very night and kept asunder, much tumult being in the streets to gaze upon them, and the next day delivered by Order to the Resident, Sir G. Downing who we hear hath disposed them in order to their speedy conveyance to [...] land by a Frig [...]t of England riding hereabouts. This is all my present [...] assure you the people of these Provinces are no less eager and incensed [...] this sort of men then your selves, I remain