A LETTER FROM Colonel Barkestead, Colonel Okey, AND Miles Corbet, TO Their Friends in the Congregated Churches in LONDON.  
WITH The manner of their Apprehension.  
London, printed in the year 1662.   

A LETTER FROM Colonel John Berkstead, Colonel Okey and Miles Corbet to the Congregations at London.  
Dear Friends,  
HAving now sad occasion to renew those former Relations which we enjoyed in our Native Country, to whom we became no strangers for several Reasons inducing us thereunto, not unknown we suppose to all the world, and from any account whereof, our Condition doth excuse us, We do intimate to you, that having passed divers dangers both of Travel and Examination through all the Countries where Providence directed us, in great fear and suspicion of being secured, both People and Magistracy following the streams of the Affairs and Government of England, we came at last to Delfe in Holland, where sitting in an Herberg, that is, an Alehouse, we were apprehended, being betrayed by a Revolter from our Cause, and so committed.  
We are nevertheless willing to own this dispensation and acquiesce under it whatever it shall determine of us; nor have we reason to think ourselves now in a worse and harder condition; for when we had the liberty of the world we had not the freedom of ourselves? nor could the more courteous and incurious entertainment from Foreigners have indulged us any satisfaction or Content, while our homebred passions and distrusts in ourselves and relations to our Families gave us no rest in our most retired obscurities.  
Indeed we have sustained a double banishment first from our Country then from ourselves; Exiles by Law find protection and have a ●asse for their peregrination by their Sentence▪ but we have thrust ourselves out of all those privileges, and have endured the most bitter insultings and exprobrations of our guilt, even in Sanctuaries for all other Crimes. Our Diet, our Lodging, our (though seldom) Converse, nay our very Devotion which these unspeakable-miseries quickened in us, filled, nay even loaden with the exaggerations of those ills with which we stand charged: Nay so heavy hath this affliction been upon us, that we have been constrained to comply and to say after those men those dire anathemas which their rage and passion transported by the Odium and revenge against the late State and Commonwealth hath proved us with as with another Shiboleth.  
The Triumphs of these men over a poor, despised and ruined party is so much the more insupportable to us, for that it proceeds not from any affection to the Government with you, but out of insolence and impotent malice stretched to the utmost for their defeat & near approaching ruin in the late war. They trample upon the ruins and rubbish of that structure to which they bowed their knees and uncovered their heads, while they besought Preservation with prayers from those whom they have now put in their Ballads and infamous Libels.  
Whatever shall be our Fate, or whatever impends over us, we can with les fear or regret think of then whatwe have already passed. As to y ● body we are ashamed to think with what revulsions we have started at the sight of any person whom we have fancied either to know or to be known by us; nor could the Rack distort a man more than our suden turnings have endangered us. There was no mischief done in any place where we were, but we feared the punishment might fall upon us as persons not able to give an account of themselves without a worse condemnation. The world was our prison, our bed our dungeon, and our going abroad the way to Execution, which we could not promise our selus to escape if once we came to be discovered to the Multitude, who no doubt would have executed that Sentence which we heard our complices suffered, by quartering & pulling us in pieces.  
But alas the troubles of our mind, the distress, anguish & perplexity of our souls we cannot express; & ill it is for us that it is not communicable that so we might vent that grief which sinks and deads' our spirits, Should we recount our dreams our visions, our formerly too adored revelations, we might portrait such a hideous Landscape, as that of Cain and his Wander! should we tell you what our Thoughts are, we are afraid of them ourselves, nor dare we use our rationality on them to bring them into discourse, to frame them into any order or method, lest they militate against us: nay were it not misery to tell it, we could show you such diversions of them as would promote Bedlam to a grave and serious residence of Sages. As for our talk 'twas wholly about the time, not the Times, what a clock, not what news, Our miserable concerns, (measured by the day whose free and open light offended our bloodshot eyes) spun out themselves in scraps and Tobacco, while we presumed not to venture into Ordinaries, or other public places for fear of public danger.  
Should we add those to us terrible sights, of paintings and sculptures with which we have been so continually frighted, the manner of the Execution of the Regicides, etc. affixed in most of the Towns of these Provinces, where, or no where in safety (such as it is) we have sojourned, it were beyond all the strength of incompassion in the most provoked people of the world not to deplore our Condition.  
But to abandon those forlorn thoughts, we are now, brought to a Resolution (and happy had it been if we had in time taken it of ourselves) of submitting to our Fate: We have found worse abroad than what we fled from, and our Condition would have increased it. [A Peace throughout Christendom and King Charles in England, where should we hope to live?] That therefore which is left us of all that honour either militarily gained or vainly conferred on us we will bestow in this last Engagement of our Life. But we do not see the necessity of persisting in the mode of our Predecessors; for we have the opinion of the Churches abroad, that they died desperately either through infatuation or combination; we are not privy to those matters as then thinking ourselves safer, & therefore desire liberty of conscience in this great Affair which we recommend to your Consideration.  
And now Dear Friends we are coming to you again, and have saved you the labour of coming to us; we shall also save the Prisoners of the Tower going out of Town, for we shall come by Water. We could wish we had saved the Custom also and not have been craned up at the Tower but sent directly for our last Home. In short, Dear Friends, we are as weary of our lives as you will be ere long of your Principles, and therefore we request you to meet us at the aforesaid place, where we will make such a Confession together as shall vindicate our Vocations.  
We desire to be recommended to all our Sisters, whose groans and sighs if you can raise to a storm (with which the Fiend Conjured for us) that may drown us by the way, we shall take it for an everlasting wellwishing to  
Your distressed Brethren, John Berkstead, J. Okey, Miles Corbet.   

From Delfe in Holland 7/17, March, 1661.  
THough I suppose 〈…〉 this in England by another hand, yet becavse I have very passionately all along concerned myself in your affairs which for 20 years have been the discourse of Christendom, I shall give you a brief account of what happened in this place i● relation thereunto. Which is this; some of your English 〈…〉 ●●●ing ne'er this place some while ago, whose shyness and retiredness not usual to your Nation beg●t some suspicion in the Burghers that took notice of them, so that it began to be a whisper 〈◊〉 us, which soon after ●●●roved itself into discourse, where●●● a strong conceit there was among the English that pass this way to the Hague that some of those persons, 〈◊〉 of the King might possibly 〈…〉 (though it seems they came 〈◊〉 more 〈…〉 Aurange, who lie here 〈…〉 such neighbours.) Upon a nearer observation 〈…〉 Here reported well known is the 〈…〉 of their 〈◊〉 made a Discovery of them, and presently acquainted Sir George Downing, the Kings Resident at the Hague 〈◊〉 who as it seems procured an Order from the Lord of Holland for their Apprehension, this was delivered to our upper 〈◊〉 by Sir George himself, who came in person to 〈…〉 sent him to the under scout, that is to 〈…〉 having his men ready first scrupled it, understanding Sir George had strength enough with him, he came to the place where those persons, viz, Coll. Berkstead, Coll. Okey and Miles Corbet were together in the H●●●● street, it being Berksteads Lodging, where they were conferring Notes of the affairs in England over a pot of Beer and a pipe of Tobacco. The Scout knoking at door which the Maid opened, entered 〈◊〉 presently seized them, they would have shuffled away, but the room was instantly filled; First they fell to excuses, then to inquiries by what Authority they were seized, which being told them, they were all three led to the Common prison in Delf that very night and kept asunder, much tumult being in the streets to gaze upon them, and the next day delivered by Order to the Resident, Sir G. Downing who we hear hath disposed them in order to their speedy conveyance to 〈◊〉 land by a Frig●t of England riding hereabouts. This is all my present 〈…〉 assure you the people of these Provinces are no less eager and incensed 〈…〉 this sort of men than yourselves, I remain  
Your Friend & Serv●●● Adrian Van 〈…〉