“Sir, many friends have frequently, with much love, inquired after you. Mr. Warner is not yet come with my letters: they put into Barnstable. She came by wagon by land, but he goes with the ship to Bristol, and, indeed, in this dangerous war with the Dutch, the only safe trading is to Bristol, or those parts, for up along the channel, in London way, is the greatest danger, for although our fleets be abroad, and take many French and Dutch, yet they sometimes catch up some of ours. “By my public letters, you will see how we wrestle, and how we are like yet to wrestle, in the hopes of an end. Praised be the Lord, we are preserved, the nation is preserved, the Parliament sits, God’s people are secure, too secure. A great opinion is, that the kingdom of Christ is risen, and (Rev. 11:) ‘the kingdoms of the earth are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.’ Others have fear of the slaughter of the witnesses yet approaching. Divers friends, of all sorts, here, long to see you, and wonder you come not over. For myself, I had hopes to have got away by this ship, but I see now the mind of the Lord to hold me here one year longer. It is God’s mercy, his very great mercy, that we have obtained this interim encouragement from the Council of State, that you may cheerfully go on in the name of a colony, until the controversy is determined. The determination of it, Sir, I fear, will be a work of time, I fear longer than we have yet been here, for our adversaries threaten to make a last appeal to the Parliament, in case we get the day before the Council. “Sir, in this regard, and when my public business is over, I am resolved to begin my old law-suit, so that I have no thought of return until spring come twelve months. My duty and affection hath compelled me to acquaint my poor companion with it. I consider our many children, the danger of the seas, and enemies, and therefore I write not positively for her, only I acquaint her with our affairs. I tell her, joyful I should be of her being here with me, until our state affairs were ended, and I freely leave her to wait upon the Lord for direction, and according as she finds her spirit free and cheerful, to come or stay. If it please the Lord to give her a free spirit to cast herself upon the Lord, I doubt not of your love and faithful care, in any thing she hath occasion to use your help, concerning our children and affairs, during our absence; but I conclude, whom have I in heaven or earth but thee, and so humbly and thankfully say, in the Lord’s pleasure, as only and infinitely best and sweetest. “Abundance of love remembered from abundance of friends to your dear self and your dearest. “My love to your cousin Clemence, and all desire love, especially our godly friends. “To my dear and faithful friend, Mr. Gregory Dexter, at Providence, in New-England, these.”