A LETTER, From a Gentleman in Colchester, to his friend in London.  
SIR  
I Am happy in this occasion, to tell you how greatly I affect you, and what high content and satisfaction it would bring to me to hear of your welfare, and other my loving friends. Be assured our condition here is very good: Our storehouses and Magazines are full, Our soldiers at as good command as the Centurians in the gospel. One said; should he paint war like a Beast, he would begin with his Belly: Money may be the Nerves and Sinnues of war; But meat and Drink is the soul of it. This place is the Grannary of the County, and fishmarket of these Eastern-parts, we have infinite quantities of corn, Salt, &c. and had they not got the Block-house at the mouth of the River, we had lived in too much luxury, yet have we no Dearth of Oysters and other Fish. The Lord Fairfax hath made a Battery on the Coney-warren, half a mile from us, but our Cannoneers shoot so exactly well they have little rest in their new works; we hear they dwindle away daily by reason of fresh Insurrections in other places, and that some Bumpkins are come to them from Suffolk, but all that are Arethmeticians know that a great many such Ciphers stand for nothing. Mounsieur Thomas is lieutenant to his cousin's troops and salutes you all. Commend me kindly to all friends. I pray you do it particularly. I would fain see a perfect relation of the fight wherein Lambert was slain. I pray for you all daily. We hear you had a Common-Hall in London on Saturday, we expect glorious events thereby: I wish you could at last become a loyal Subject, and leave that idol the present Parliament which you so much adore, I pray for your conversions; and rest.  
Your faithful servant I. B. Colchester 26. June 1648.