for miscarriages in compliances with their King; and this hath
for yet taken up their whole time.
Col. Fenwick and a Scotish Lord came hither on Wednesday
last, to visit the Lieutenant Generall, and returned this
day. We hear nothing yet of Argile, Huntley, or Belcarris;
onely, some parties of about forty, sometimes fifty, and
sometimes a sixty Horse in a Troop, appear hovering upon the
Hills, &c.
From Lisbon in Portugall, this II Sept. 1651.
Our Condition is now worse then before, this king having
taken all our Ships and fraight, with all their Materials, into
his custody, turning our men a shore, without allowing them
any Moneys for the Relief of our selves and Company, wherby
we might send them home, although wee have often petitioned
him thereunto: However, wee have endevoured to
send all our People home by severall Conveyances, giving
them provisions for their passage, and Moneys to carry them
for London, our selves remaining as prisoners, not permitting
us to come home, until we have adjusted with the Company,
which is impossible to doe, unless wee will yeeld to such unreasonable
demands as will be to our extreme prejudice; as
to remit all the Demoradge of our Ships both in Brasile and
here in this place, which is as much as our whole Fraight,
which wee cannot doe: for which cause they still keep us
under Fianso not giving us leave to depart this place, which
I desire the State would take to much into their Considerations
as not to let us remain here Captives, and our ships and
estates be wholly lost.
From Rotterdam, the 20. of October 1651.
Your wonderful great successes and victories over your
enemies, put not onely this little world of Holland, but verily
all Europe, where your fame reatheth a a stand, and in a muse,
that they know not what to think of it. And though there be
yet many so Atheistically minded, that impute all their misfortune
to chance and treachery, whose hearts are hardened
and feared with a hot Iron, that they will not feel the hand
of God upon them, yet some more moderate spirits do easily