country, and from Oxford, to see the glass and stones, and other stuffe,
the devil had brought, wherewith to beat out the Commissioners; the
marks upon some walls remain, and many, this to testifie.


THE PREFACE TO THE ENSUING NARRATIVE.

Since it hath pleased the Almighty God, out of his infinite mercy, so to
make us happy, by restoring of our native King to us, and us unto our
native liberty through him, that now the good may say, _magna temporum
felicitas ubi sentire quoe velis, et dicere licet quoe sentias_, we
cannot but esteem ourselves engaged in the highest of degrees, to render
unto him the highest thanks we can express. Although, surpris'd with
joy, we become as lost in the performance; when gladness and admiration
strikes us silent, as we look back upon the precipiece of our late
condition, and those miraculous deliverances beyond expression. Freed
from the slavery, and those desperate perils, we dayly lived in fear of,
during the tyrannical times of that detestable usurper, Oliver Cromwell;
he who had raked up such judges, as would wrest the most innocent
language into high treason, when he had the cruel conscience to take
away our lives, upon no other ground of justice or reason, (the stones
of London streets would rise to witness it, if all the citizens were
silent.) And with these judges had such councillors, as could advise him
unto worse, which will less want of witness. For should the many
auditors be silent, the press, (as God would have it,) hath given it us
in print, where one of them (and his conscience-keeper, too,) speaks
out. What shall we do with these men? saith he; _Aeger intemperans
crudelem facit medicum, et immedicabile vulmis ense recidendum_. Who
these men are that should be brought to such Scicilian vespers, the
former page sets forth--those which conceit _Utopias_, and have their