A MEMORIAL Intended to be delivered to the Lords States, Monday 10 March, Stilo Novo.  
TO THE High and Mighty LORDS the STATES of HOLLAND.  
BY THE Foreign Anabaptist Churches, upon the apprehending and giving up Colonel Barkestead, Colonel Okey, and Mr. Miles Corbet.  
To the English Resident.  
Written Originally in Dutch, and Translated into English.  
Laudabant hanc urbem, quod omnes homines sibi praemetuentes si illuc perfugissent auxilii compotes faciebat.  Sophocl. 
London, printed in the year 1662.   

A MEMORIAL Intended to be presented to the High and Mighty Lords, the STATE'S of HOLLAND.  
BY THE Foreign Anabaptist Churches there, upon the Apprehension and yielding up of Col. Barkstead, etc. to the English Resident.  
High and Mighty Lords,  
IT is not without great cause, nor without great consideration, that we make this address to your Lordships; we have been always very unwilling to give you the trouble, much less the offence of any thing that concerns us, further than the Public Liberty you have professed to maintain, (and which we think and always judged to be the Basis and surest foundation of this happy and famous State and Commonwealth) did licence and indulge us.  
We cannot but remember those inducements in ourselves, that we say not invitation from the Custom, and Practise and Laws of these Provinces, that drew us to take up and fix our Residence here; and we cannot but with all thankfulness of mind as to our particulars, acknowledge the benefits and favours besides the Common protection we have received in this place of our sojourning, by which the sorrows & difficulties which attend people Exiled, or otherways compelled to Abandon their beloved Native Countries, have been greatly alleviated and lessened to us, if not wholly Abated and Removed.  
Nor shall we ever be wanting in all Humble, Dutiful and Civil Demeanour, in a peaceable and orderly subjection to the Magistracy set over us (though falsely traduced by our Adversaries, as if our Principles were enmity against all Government) to testify our gratitude to your Lordships, whose Glorious and just Dominion we esteem as raised by God to this Greatness, as having been the Asylum and Sanctuary of his afflicted and persecuted Churches:  
But amidst these Gratulations we crave your pardon my Lords, while we declare our sentiments of a late state occurrence, which seems in many circumstances thereof not obliquely to point at our Condition, and to endanger the enjoyment of those privileges and immunities which have hitherto been so carefully and inviolably preserved towards all Foreigners. The matter is this:  
We understand that some English Exiles coming down out of Germany into this Province of Holland, as a more convenient refuge and shelter, or rather drawn hither as to a snare and trap, for the near conveyance of it as to their reshipping again for England, were seized on at Delfe, by Sir George Downing the Resident of the King of Great Britain, by a warrant from your Lordships, and secured for a while in the Prison of that City, where offenders against your Laws are usually and only ought to be kept and detained.  
We shall not meddle with the Conditions of those persons, nor the quality of their Crimes, which as they are not cognisable before your Lordships, will so much the less concern us to take notice of; Only thus far we desire to take this fair advantage and opportunity of declaring our Abhorrance & Detestation of that Monstrous and Unparallelled Fact, whereby the Life of that Pious and Excellent Prince King CHARLES the First of Great Britain was so Traitorously and Barbarously taken away by some wicked Regicides in that Kingdom, to the great scandal and Infamy of the reformed Churches throughout Christendom, and more peculiarly imputed to those of our Profession and persuasion.  
Every Circumstance of that impious Fact we do from our heart disclaim, and with fear and trembling admire and adore the Divine Justice in overtaking that wickedness, and heaping the blood spilt by those men upon their own heads, by a miraculous restitution of the Son of that blessed Prince to the Throne of his Ancestors; the extent of whose merciful disposition is justly obstructed and impeded towards those Persons.  
But that which we have to lay before your Lordships, is the naked and abstracted condition of these men (as Foreigners and as they relate to us) from any English Charge or Gild whatsoever, of which as before, we said your Lordships are not competent Judges, and indeed no Judges at all; & therefore quo jure or in what in latitude of equity, could your Lordship's first apprehend them by your Order and by your Officer, then secure them in your Prison; and lastly without cause shown or compeering them, deliver them into the hands of the English to be sent home to their Trial and Condemnation is our scruple.  
In the Articles of the Union of these Confederate Provinces, there is express caution against any such Deliveries, nothing is more frequent in all the Records, Registers, and Acts of the several Treaties, Diets, and General Councils, which we forbear to recite because they are numerous and most evident: nor shall we mention the reasons of those Laws and Decrees because they are as obvious. But so strict has the observation of them been, that an Offender in one of these Provinces escaping into another, hath thereby avoided the penalty of the Law, and unless for great capital crimes never was remitted to the place of his Fact.  
We shall forbear to name how from (talibus initiis Roma crevit) from such beginnings (the conflux of all sort of lose people,) great Rome presently risen unto her Empire, because it may seem a calumny of this State, and by our Enemies be reflected on ourselves: But this is most certain, that no small additaments of wealth and power, have accrued to the Netherlands, since it hath been the common receptacle of all Nations, by whose joint Arts and Manufactures as well as Arms they have improved themselves to this puissant Grandeur. Nor is there any Precedent or Example of this Nature that occurs to us in all your Histories. The incomparably Learned Hugo Grotius, the Honour of this Country and best Judge in this case, though he seems to incline to the denying of subterfuge to notorious and heinous offenders, yet hath he an expedient for them, which we thought fit to reduce to your Lordship's Memory. Such than are to be punished or yielded, or removed at least; so the Cymaei in Herodotus when they neither would deliver Pactyes the Persian, nor durst retain him, permitted him to departed to Mitylene. Perseus' King of Macedon in his defence to Martius speaking of those that were said to have conspired against Eumenes; 
Livy lib. 22. Lib. 37.  So soon as, being admonished by you, I found the men in Macedonia, I commanded them away, and charged them never to return into my Dominions. The Samothracians declared to Evander who had lain in weight for Eumenes, that he should quit the Temple: so Rudolphus the Emperor removed from him Christopher Sbovius. And Queen Elizabeth of England answered the Scots, that she would either render Earl Bothwel or send him out of England. But this right of requiring to punishment them that had fled their Country in these last Ages in most part of Europe, is used only in those crimes which do touch the public State, or are of a very heinous nature, and unless in the Conditions of the League, it be so provided, and a more close agreement made. That of the English with the French appointed rebels and Fugitives to be yielded; with the Burgundians to be expelled.  
So it appears that the League with this State, being the half of that Duchy of Burgundy directs expulsion: & we remember very well, that in the Treaty this State made with Oliver Cromwell soon after those Naval Fights, 1654. the most pressed Article by him, as mainly conducing to his security in the Usurpation, was, that if any of the Enemies of the Commonwealth of England (who they were then reputed and taken to be, we list not nor is it to our purpose to mention) should come into those Provinces, the States were enjoined upon notice and discovery of their being there, to warn them to departed within fourteen days out of any of their Territories, under penalty of being taken and delivered to the English. And this was reciprocal on both sides, but was carefully observed here to the no little scandal and obloquy upon this State who shown no more respect to the interest of his illustrious Highness the Prince of Aurange, the English Royalists departing at the prefixed Time.  
To say that these men are Hostés Humani Generis, public Enemies of mankind, in that they have violated all Laws both Divine and Humane, is some i●entive to incompassion, but no rule of Justice. For first they should have been declared so in these Provinces, as is usual towards Pirates, who yet notwithstanding find in some Country's defence and safeguard; For the knowledge of the cause ought to proceed the dedition and render of the criminal saith Grotius again. It is not meet to give up men untried saith Plutarch in his Romulus. The King of Scotland in Cambden, Anno 1585. declared to Queen Elizabeth that he would transmit Ferinharst and the Chancellor too, if they were convicted by a fair trial, and not before, though their guilt was very apparent.  
It may be objected that the Custom in ancient times was otherwise, deducing it from that story of the Benjaminites, who were required to deliver up those wicked men that had committed that horrible villainy on the Levites wife, Judges 20. we will not determine the matter as others do by the success: certainly it was for some reason of State why the Benjamites refused, as taking themselves to have the absolute power and command in their own Tribe; as is also now the practice in these Provinces; besides it fits not the present matter: that demand of dedition was for a crime committed in a place and jurisdiction where their power was the proper authority of judging and punishing it; this crime was committed in a Foreign, and must be tried and avenged in that, Country. The Philistines also demanded Samson of the Israelites as an Evil doer, Judges 15. but we see what succeeds, it took not effect; besides the Philistines were then Lords over the Hebrews, who out of fear were constrained to do it as they give an Account of it to Samson himself; Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? what is this that thou hast done unto us? we are come down to bind thee that we may deliver thee into the hands of the Philistines: Moreover here was sampson's own consent as a warrant to that action which wanted other than the fear and danger aforesaid; for he had done nothing but what was justifiable, Hostis Hostem occidere voluit, as he saith himself, as they did, unto me so have they done unto them. So that there is a great disparity in the case, and which your Lordships would in no wise admit in any circumstance thereof, as owning no subjection or dependence on the Crown of England.  
And if we might interest ourselves and lay claim to the reputation of these Provinces, we should think they suffered much in loss of Honour by this Action. For we think with due submission to your wisdoms, that the world will take this for a great diminution of that Sovereignty which you have so nobly asserted, since things of lesser moment, we conceive, have as prudentially and tenaciously been insisted on by you, and which were matters not so congenial to your Country Rights and Statutes as this case to us seems to be.  
We could better express the matter indeed; if the Crown which is acknowledged the Defender of the Faith were not to be offended; which though some Shelterers here of that Nation of our way and Separation would offer, yet we assure your Lordships that we have no Communion with them in that thing.  
Indeed there is a Maxim among the Civilians that Vtilitas est mater justitiae & aequitatis; what justice or equity is in this matter will be shrewdly guest whence it proceedeth. The advantages and reasons of State we confess are too high a matter for our understanding, and the concerns of particular persons such as these men's too low for statesmen's consideration, where they interpose betwixt the Amity of Princes. And so we would acquiesce, not daring to wade in those mysteries of Government, though we cannot but be sensible of how great importance the English Friendship is to these Countries, the continuance whereof we do congratulate and shall daily pray for. But since poena & crimen ad paucos, terror ad omnes, the fear of this example reacheth us, though the crime and punishment (from which God hath and we hope will preserve us) but these few; we are bold to implore your Lordship's wont Protection and the Confirmation of our Privileges in our Liberty and Estates: desiring pardon if our fear hath transported us beyond our Duty (for in small matters and not criminal, this may chance to be drawn in imitation) which with the greatest affection imaginable, we profess to you as our Superiors and most benign Protectors.  
We shall always pray for the prosperity and happiness of your High and Mighty Lordships, and the people of this Country under your obedience, hoping that in their peace we shall find peace; that what was once said in the praise of the Athenians, that they were a hiding place and comfort to all afflicted men every where, may be truly verified of the Hollanders to their everlasting Glory and Renown.  Si crimen istis aliquot hospitibus dabis, Jus impetrabis, 
 Vi quidem hinc non aystrahes. Dem. apud Sophoclem. 
FINIS.