THE copy OF A LETTER Sent out of the Netherlands, to a Gentleman in ENGLAND, touching the present distempers of this kingdom, or some particular Relations how the affairs go in ENGLAND, observed by the NETHERLANDS.  
Noble Sir,  
Tied hereunto by the many obligations of friendship received from you, during my abode in England, in satisfaction of your importunity, to certify you how we discourse here, of the great distempers of your kingdom; and what my opinion is in particular touching the same, according to the measure of my weak abilities, and the small observations I made of the several passages of State, which fell out whilst I sojourned with you, and my mean intelligence kept in that kingdom since my departure thence unto this present time, I thus proceed: Our discourse (as it usually falls out in all republics so) is it here, very free and various, but in the general as we favour the cause, so we pity the case of your Parliament, that is forced to struggle so long with so many great difficulties, supported only with the tottering foundation of the unsteady resolutions of the giddy headed multitude: And we are exceedingly transported with admiration, to hear, that so many thousands, who are so nearly concerned in their good, in the happy progress, and conclusion of that great consul, and in their undoubted ill, both present and future, in the subtle interruption and fatal dissolution of that great Assembly, should be so strangely altered (upon no true ground, that we can hear) as to cast calumnious aspersions upon those, that with so great hazard of their own lives, and Fortunes, like renowned Patriots, do yet constantly persist, in their unwearied endeavours, to rid your Nation, from the most grievous burden of an overgrown Monarchy, and to suffer themselves to be so far deluded by the cunning working of the Royalist Hierarchian and Papist, the three great incendiaries of your kingdom (and indeed of all Christendom)▪ as voluntarily to thrust ●heir necks into the yoke, and to resign up with their own hands their Religion and laws unto those, who could never by violence have been able to have wrested either of the twain from out their possession, and to be talked into an undoubted slavery, under the spacious show of a royal protection. To deliver my particular opinion, touching the original, and the various, and disguised ways, of advancing your unhappy jars, cannot be comprised within the narrow limits of an Epistle: you see the Scots have made a volume of theirs, and I recommend it to you as a piece worth your reading, and whence (I believe) your own ●ngenuity will be able to gather, more satisfaction in these particulars than I shall ever be able out of my poor observations to acquaint you with. For though it was the business of another kingdom, and is now happily composed, and may therefore seem either not to concern England at all, or at least not at this time, yet if you parallel the passages there, with those that have happened with you some years past, and especially since your Parliament began, you will easily believe, that if not one man, yet men of the same mind, laid the Machavillian ground work of both your disturbances, and how many other things soever have in show been offered as happy means to maintain Monarchy and Hierarchy, yet there were two other whites only shot at, the silencing of the laws, and the alteration of the Religion in both kingdoms. The main block in the way to hinder these designs, we say is your fixed Parliament, and are therefore persuaded, that what ever else may be pretended, yet the drift of the plot at present on foot is this, to cause that great Assembly by little and little of itself, to languish unto that death, unto which by violence its enemies is not yet able to bring it, and therein to make good the Proverb, to do that by the Fox which is not feasible by the lion. For my own sense of the business thus much in short, The ambitious clergy will (never willingly) harken to any alteration, (for the better) much less to a perfect Reformation in the Church, and in this the Papist and Libertine will certainly join hands with them: The Royalist will hinder (in what he may) the pu●ging of the State, and he will be backed by David's guard (though in a far greater multitude) mentioned, 1 Sam. 22. Cap. 6. 2. And for the foolish neutral, that hopes to have his throat last cut, it is likely, he is not an inconsiderable part of the kingdom, so that now if you can conceive that the remainder is a stronger and as resolute a party as these, there is good hopes of a good Conclusion, else without the omnipotent hand of Heaven miraculously assisting, I fear that a short lived man may live to hear, that the bravery of the renowned English walks hand in hand with the sordid vassalage, of the French and Spanish Nations; And that the Language of your Magna Charta, and Leges, & consuetudinis Regni be translated into Sic volo, sic jubeo stat pro ratione voluntas. The Jarre of which string because I know it must needs grate your ear, I will forbear any more to strike it, and do heartily wish and pray it may for ever be dumb, as I will be for the present, after I have only said  
Noble Sir I am Your humble Servant Abraham Waersegger. Vltra traiect. 18. Junii Stilo veteri.   

Printed for B. A. in the year, 1642.