The taking of My Letters was an opportunity, which, as the malice of Mine ENEMIES could hardly have expected; so they know not how with honour and civility to use it: Nor do I thinke with sober and worthy minds any thing in them, could tend so much to my reproach, as the odious divulging of them did to the infamy of the Divulgers: The greatest experiments of Vertue and Noblenesse being discovered in the greatest advantages against an enemy, and the greatest obligations being those, which are put upon us by them, from whom we could least have expected them. And such I should have esteemed the concealing of my Papers; the freedom and secresie of which, commands a civility from all men, not wholly barbarous; nor is there any thing more inhumane then to expose them to publick view. Yet since Providence will have it so, I am content so much of My heart (which I study to approve to Gods omniscience) should be discovered to the world without any of those dresses or popular captations which some men use in their Speeches and Expresses; I wish My Subjects had a cleerer sight into My most retired Thoughts. Where they might discover, how they are divided between the love and care I have, not more to preserve My own Rights, then to procure their Peace and Happinesse, and that extreme grief to see them both deceiv'd and destroyed. Nor can any mens malice be gratified further by My Letters, than to see my constancy to my Wife, the Laws, and Religion. Bees will gather honey where the Spider sucks Poyson. That I endeavour to avoid the pressures of my Enemies, by all fair and just correspondences; no man can blame, who loves Me, or the Common-wealth, since my Subjects can hardly be happy if I be miserable, or enjoy their Peace and Liberties while I am oppressed. The world may see how soon mens designe, like _Absoloms_, is by enormous actions to widen differences, and exasperate all sides to such distances, as may make all Reconciliation desperate. Yet I thank God, I can not only with patience bear this, as other indignities, but with charity forgive them. The integrity of my intentions is not jealous of any injury my expressions can do them, for although the confidence of privacy may admit of greater freedome in writing such letters, which may be liable to envious exceptions; yet the innocency of my chief purposes cannot be so obtained, or mis-interpreted by them, as not to let all men see, that I wish nothing more then a happy composure of differences with Justice & Honor, nor more to My own, then My peoples content, who have any sparks of Love or Loyalty left in them: who, by those my Letters may be convinced that I can both mind and act My own, and My Kingdomes Affaires, so as becomes a Prince; which Mine Enemies have alwayes been very loth should be beleeved of me, as if I were wholly confined to the Dictates and Directions of others; whom they please to brand with the names of Evil Counsellours.