write, is taken from a letter of Major Merediths, suddenly
written from the place.
From Dublin of the same date,
You have seen the Articles leading to quietnesse, which
the Irish have subscribed unto; and some of quality amongst
them, with a lesser number of the meaner sort then was expected,
have laid down their Arms. Others led with new
hopes, reject the agreement, and are embodied (I trust, to
their ruine) to prolong the war; Our Forces being in the
Field, and as I hear, at little distance from them, seeking a fit
opportunity to ingage and fall upon them. These parts are
of late, much freed from Incursions, and men may travell
with little danger about their affairs, and repair harmlesse hither,
as many do, to plead their grievances before the Court
established in this Citie for the administration of Justice. The
Term lasts all the year, and four days in the week the Judges
sit constantly mornings and after-noons.
From Leyden 3 July stilo loci.
Sir, your taking our ships so fast, makes our people rage as
a Bear robbed of her whelps; I should have said as a Lioness;
for here is such a stir about the Belgick Lion by Statesmen
and Poets, as if the name and picture in a ship or Coat of
Arms, were able to bite or scratch, or as if you had not master'd
the Couchant of Aquitain, and the Rampant of Scotland,
and having done so, need feare our Lion, though it roar
now. We have indeed made Spain feel our claws, but wee
have had a good cause, which God hath blest, and we had
the help of many thousand English, to whose valour, next
Heaven, we ow our glories The Zealanders, as if they were
sick of Zeewsch koorts, are in a burning fit, and talk light and
rave; for, they threaten to kill their Deputies at the Hague,
if they shall come home without Letters of Mart for them against
the English. This is not all; As the Drums were beating
for men in Middleborough, in the name of the states of
Holland and Zealand, because they also did not name the
Prince of Orange, the common Rout threw them into the
water, which spoild their drumming for a while.