[Lxxxiii.]
To Sir H. G.
SIR,
I Have the honour of your Letter, which I am almost sorry to have received: some few daies before the receit thereof D[octor] Turner, who accompanied my L. Carow [Carey] to Sion to dinner, shewed me a Letter from you, from which I conceived good hopes that your businesses, being devolved into the hands of the Treasurer, had been in much more forwardnesse, then by your Letter to me they appear to be. I beseech God establish them, and hasten them, and with them, or without them, as he sees most conducible to his purpose upon you, continue in you a relying upon him, and a satisfaction in his waies. I know not whether any Letter from your son, or any other report, may have given you any mention of me; he writ to me from the Compter, that he was under a trifling arrest, and that 3l and some little more would discharge him. I sent my man with that money, but bid him see it emploied for his discharge: he found more actions, and returned. Next day he writ to me that 8l would discharge him, and that Mr Selden would lay down half. But Mr Selden and I speaking together, thought it the fittest way, to respite all, till, in a few daies, by his writing to you, we might be directed therein; and in the mean time, took order with the Keeper to accommodate him, and I bade my man Martin, as from himself, to serve his present want with some things. Since we told him, that we would attend a return of his Letter to you, I heard no more of him, but I hear he is out. Whosoever serves you with relations from this Town, I am sure prevents me of all I can say. The Palatinate is absolutely lost; for before this Letter come to you, we make account that Heydelberg and Frankindale is lost, and Manheme [Mannheim] distressed, Mansfield came to Breda, and Gonzales to Brussels, with great losses on both sides, but equall. The P[rince] of Orange is but now come to Breda, and with him, all that he is able to make, even out of the Garrisons of their Towns. The ways of victuall to Spinolaes Army, are almost all precluded by him, and he likely to put upon the raising of Spinola, between whom and the Town, there are hotter disputes, then ever our times saw. The Secretary of the States here shewed me a Letter yesternight, that the Town spends 6000 pound of powder a day, and hath spent since the siege 250m pounds. Argits Regiment and my L. Vaux, are so diminished by commings away, as that both (I think) make not now in Muster above 600. Mr Gage is returning to Rome, but of this Negotiation I dare say nothing by a Letter of adventure. The direction which his Maty gave for Preachers, had scandalized many; therefore he descended to pursue them with certain reasons of his proceedings therein; and I had commandment to publish them in a Sermon at the Crosse, to as great a Congregation as ever I saw together, where they received comfortable assurance of his Maties constancy in Religion, and of his desire that all men should be bred in the knowledge of such things, as might preserve them from the superstition of Rome. I presume it is but a little while before we shall see you here, but that little time is likely to produce many things greatly considerable. Present, I pray, my thankfull services to your good daughters. I can give them no better a room in my prayers, and wishes, then my poore Constance hath, and they have that; so have you Sir, with
J. Donne.