“A sudden warning gives me but time of this abrupt salutation to your kind self and Mrs. Winthrop, wishing you peace. I promised to a neighbor, a former servant of your father’s, (Joshua Windsor,) to write a line, on his behalf, and at his desire, unto you. His prayer to you is, that when you travel toward Boston, you would please to come by Providence, and spare one hour to heal an old sore,—a controversy between him and most of his neighbors, in which, I am apt to think, he hath suffered some wrong. He hath promised to submit to your sentence. His opposite, one James Ashton, being desired by me to nominate also, he resolves also to submit to your sentence, which will concern more will and stomach than damage; for the matter only concerns a few poles of ground, wherein Joshua hath cried out of wrong these many years. I hope, Sir, the blessed Lord will make you a blessed instrument of chiding the winds and seas; and I shall rejoice in your presence amongst us. There are greater ulcers in my thoughts at present, which, I fear, are incurable, and that it hath pleased the Most Wise and Most High to pass an irrevocable sentence of amputations and cauterizations upon the poor Protestant party. The clouds gather mighty fast and thick upon our heads from all the Popish quarters. It hath pleased the Lord to glad the Romish conclave with the departure of those two mighty bulwarks of the Protestants, Oliver and Gustavus; to unite, (I think by this time) all the Catholic kings and princes, for Portugal was like, very like, of late, to return to the yoke of Spain, whose treasure from the Indies it hath pleased God to send home, so wonderfully great and rich this year, that I cannot but fear the Lord hath some mighty work to effect with it. We know the Catholic King was in debt, but he now overflows with millions, which God is most like to expend against the Protestants or the Turks, the two great enemies, (the sword-fish and the thrasher) against the Popish leviathan. The Presbyterian party in England and Scotland is yet very likely to make some struggle against the Popish invasions; and yet in the end I fear (as long I have feared, and long since told Oliver, to which he much inclined,) the bloody whore is not yet drunk enough with the blood of the saints and witnesses of Jesus. One cordial is, (amongst so many the merciful Lord hath provided) that that whore will shortly appear so extremely loathsome, in her drunkenness, bestialities, &c. that her bewitched paramours will tear her flesh, and burn her with fire unquenchable. Here is a sound that Fairfax, and about two hundred of the House with him, differ with the King. The merciful Lord fit us to hear and feel more. It is a very thick and dreadful mist and swamp, with which the Lord hath a great while suffered us to labor in, as hoping to wade out, break through, and escape shipwreck.