Now the Lord had tourned my mourning into joy and gladnesse againe, in granting me the sight of that day wherof I had many hundred tymes dispaired of before. Great and unspeakable have beene the sufferings of my body, but farr greater and even beyond all expression have beene the sufferings of my minde. Had I had a thousand worlds in my possession I would freely have given them all for my liberty, and made choyce besides to live in the condition of the meanest beggar all the dayes of my life, if I might have beene freed from those horrid feares which at severall tymes suppressed my spirit with such a weight as if heaven and earth had laid upon my shouldiers. My burthen was so much the heavier the lesse hopes that I had ever to be eased of it, when I tasted and felt in the highest degree all the greife and anguish that poverty, nakednesse, hunger, frost, and the most tiranicall persecution that cruell enimyes could ever inflict upon any mortall body. I could looke for ease no where but from death it selfe, who would have beene my most welcome friend, so it had not beene accompanied with so cruell and exquesite torments as my enimyes threatened me withall. But blessed and for ever blessed be the Lord, who doth great and marvillous things without number; who disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot performe their enterprize; who delivereth the poore from him that is too stronge for him; he woundeth and he healeth again; he bringeth downe to the grave and raiseth up againe; he hath not suffered my foes to rejoyce over me, nor given me as a prey to their teeth; he hath beene my sanctuary, my refuge, and my stronge tower from the enimye; he hath saved me from the reproach of those that would have swallowed me up; he hath revived me in the midst of my troubles; he hath delivered my soule from death, myne eyes from teares, my feet from falling; he hath not dispised the affliction of the afflicted, neither hath he hidden his face from me, but when I cryed unto him he heard me; he hath given me my harts desire, and added a length to my dayes. To him only belongeth all praise and thanksgiving for evermore. Amen. NOTES =P. 5=, l. 20. Blaye is on the east side of the estuary of the Gironde. It had in 1876, according to Reclus, a population of 4,500 souls. =P. 15=, l. 9. 'Graffe,' i.e. a ditch or moat. Richard Symonds describes Borstall house as defended by 'a pallazado without the graffe; a deepe graffe and wide, full of water.' _Diary_, p. 231. =P. 17=, l. 4. Pullitor, apparently the same place as Pulliac mentioned on p. 40, i.e. Pauillac or Pauilhac, a 'chef-lieu de canton' in the department of the Gironde, on the west side of the estuary nearer the mouth than Blaye. It contained in 1876 a population of 4,150. =P. 31=, l. 20. 'mandring,' i.e. maundering. Nares in his glossary defines maunder as meaning to mutter or grumble. =P. 53=, l. 21. 'pootered beef,' i.e. salt or spiced beef, usually termed 'powdered beef.'