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SIR,

Have received your letter, which shewes to mee, like a Starr in a dark stormy night; viz. not only a Sign of fairer weather, but a mark of direction in the soul: Wherefore, as I have received it gladly, so I shall also answer it largely, and perhaps with a more ample account of my Condition than you expected or desire.

I hope you will not require from mee much method or politeness; for if oppression make a wise man mad, you may well pardon both confusion and rudeness in mee, whose Brain as it is naturally not of the firmest fabrick, so it hath been accidentally shaken into an incapacity of such performance.

The perclose of your desires (to speak like a Land Measurer) and prayer of your Petition (to talk like the Clerk of the Councel) is to know the causes and manner of my Tribulation, the occasion of the Aspersions cast upon mee, with the root of that envy and seeds of that malice which afflict mee, &c. Unto all