Nor was I suspicious of any considerable opposition in that project from any town, save Invernasse alone, whose magistrates, to the great dishonour of our whole nation, did most foully evidence their own baseness in going about to rob my town of its liberties and privileges.
Yet was that plague of flagilators, wherewith my house was infected, so pernicious to that purpose of mine, that some of them lying in wait, as a thief in the night, both for my person and means, cannibal-like to swallow me up at a breakfast; they did, by impediting the safety of my travelling abroad, arresting whatever they imagined I had right unto, inhibiting others from bargaining, most barbarously and maliciously cut off all the directory preparatives I had orderly digested for the advantage of a business of such main concernment, and so conducible to the weal of the whole Island, to the great discouragement of those gallant forreners; of which that ever-renowned gentilman for wit and excellencie in many good parts, Sir Phillip Vernati by name, was one; who being of Italian parents, by birth a Dutchman, and by education expert in all the good languages of the Christian world, besides the Arabick and Sclavonian tongues, wherein he surpassed, had a great ascendent in counsel over all the adventrous merchants of what nation soever; whereof, without the foresaid lets of those barbarous obstructors, some by all appearance had so concurred with me, that by their assistance I would ere now have banished all idleness from the commons, maintained several thousands of persons of both sexes, from the infant to the decrepit age, found employments proportionable to their abilities, bastant to afford them both entertainment and apparel in a competent measure; educing from various multitudes of squameary flocks of several sizes, colours and natures, netted out of the bowels of the ocean both far and neer, and current of fresh water streams, more abundance of wealth than that whole country had obtained by such a commodity these many yeers past; erecting ergastularies for keeping at work many hundreds of persons in divers kindes of manufactures; bringing from beyond sea the skillfull’st artificers could be hired for money, to instruct the natives in all manner of honest trades; perswaded the most ingenious hammermen to stay with me, assuring them of ready coin for whatever they should be able to put forth to sale; addicting the abjectest of the people to the servitritiary duty of digging for coals and metals, of both which in my ground there is great appearance, and of the hitting of which I doubt as little, as of the lime and freestone quarries hard at my house of late found out, which have not been these two hundred years remarked; induced masters of husbandry to reside amongst my tenants, for teaching them the most profitable way, both for the manner and the season, of tilling, dig-
13 NOVEMBER 1651:
IN CUSTODY OF CAPTAIN ALSOP, THE TOWER OF WINDSOR CASTLE.
Logopandecteison is the name of that great work which, in my weary state, I could not recall, it being too large and near for recognition, as a man counting the chief features of his lands omits the tower he surveys them from, though that the chiefest feature of all.
2 This diurnal or day-book returns to me by the magnanimity of Master Braughton, an officer of Colonel Pryde’s regiment, who, perceiving it in the street-gutter of Worcester among a mixter-maxter of other papers, in a drizzling rain which had stuck the loose sheets fast to the ground, near by to a heap of seven and twenty dead men lying on one another, commanded that a servant of his take all up, cleanse off the mire and keep safe for his circumspection.
3 The separate sheets prove to be but a parcel of my preface to the Logopandecteison, over a thousand other manuscript pages of the grammar and lexicon, with mathematical, chronological, mythological, metaphysical and dialectical commentaries, all annotated for the printer, having been pillaged, pilfered, ravaged, robbed and rifled from seven large portmantles full of precious commodity, in the lodging I took at the house of Mr. Spilsbury, a very honest confectioner with a very good wife.
4 He learned that while the puritan souldiery were plundering the town, a string of exquisite sharks and clean shavers had broke into my baggage and, seizing the red cloaks, buff suits, armaments and other such rich chafer, straight dispersed my writings to their camerads outside for packeting up of raisins, figs, dates, almonds, caraway and other sweetmeat, while some did kindle pipes of tobacco with a great part while some did kindle pipes of tobacco with a great part thereof, and threw out all the remainder into the street, save what they reserved for inferiour employments and posteriour uses.
5 Of the dispersedly rejected bundles of paper most were gathered up by grocers, druggists, chandlers, pie-makers, or such as stood in need of any cartapaciatory utensil, to the utter undoing of the writing thereof, both in matter and order; so Master Braughton (who hath no cause to ly) doth inform me.
6 I lay for some hours in great dumps, though less sad than most of the Scots beaten, but not killed, in Worcester fight, for many thousands have been driven like cattel to London, and there inclosed in little room and treated with great rigour, many perishing for want of food, or dieing of all diseases, the survivors to be shipped to the American plantations and there sold as slaves. Is this not a new thing in warfare between Christian nations who talk with the same or similar tongues? But I am used with the clemency due to my rank, and talent, and the ransom they will get by me, though not called ransom, sequestration.
7 Since my last (and first) entry much has passed. The First Charles Steward has been uncapited to the middle bone in his neck. The rump of the Parliamentary party has proclaimed England a public thing, a res publica, a republick. For two years the Second Charles hath been King of Scotland only, and would be king there still, had not the Presbyterial part of his subjects decided to prove their faith in God by fighting the Cromwel army without their King’s advice, without help from allies who worship God differently, without obedience to their own general; for against orders they deserted a superior for an inferior place and engaged an out-manoeuvred enemy on such bad ground that the Almighty (who will not tolerate for ever those who scorn his Angel, commonsense) let them be slaughtered in great numbers. From which they drew this lesson, that their faith was not sufficiently pure. At last the King had no other course, but to leave Sterling, his securest Capital, and march upon England, there to recruit the saner support of the English Royalists. But at Worcester these did not join us. The Royal party in Brittain is utterly routed. The King escaped abroad. I did not. Perhaps Brittain will remain a public thing till the end of time.
8 It is growing clear to me that my future fame may be insured by this diurnal, if from now forward I each day indite in it a record of all public doings which reach my ear, or even eye, for my imprisonment is not strict. My parole allows me to wander some distance, and when I am moved to the Tower of London I will be within what is now, by grace of the army rather than God or parlement, the govourning Capital of the four ancient Kingdoms of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, with prospering colonies in Amerigo Vespucciland and many embattled trade-forts in the Barbadoes, East India, Malagask, Africa and Europe.