BURROUGHS. 19 nature, incompany not to be trusted. I am so fully clear in that business, that I wiped off before my lord of Warwick whatsoever might have seemed indiscretion, not by mine own assertion only, but by the testimony of two gentlemen, being all the company, besides the accuser, who were present while we discoursed of that matter. The truth is, there were no such speeches ; there was only some accusation of speeches. What man can free himself from accusation ?" This ungenerous accuser afterwards recanted, and expressed his great sorrow for having aspersed the character of our,pious and worthy divine.. Mr. Burroughs replies to .the charge that he fled in all haste to Rotterdam, by saying, " It was four or five months after this accusation before I went to Rotterdam. Had not the prelatical faction been incensed against me, for standing out against their superstitions, I should have ventured to have stood to what I had spoken, for all I said was by way of query, affirming nothing. I knew how dangerous the times then were. I knew what the power of the prelatical party at that time was, who were extremely incensed against me. Aman's innocency, then, could not be his safety. A mere accusation was enough then ' to cause me to provide for my security. I was, by Bishop Wren, deprived of my living in Norfolk, in which, I believe, I endured as great a brunt as almost any of those who stayed in England; though Mr. Edwards is pleased to say, we fled that we might be safe upon the shore, while our brethren were at sea in the storm. I believe neither he, nor scarcely any of our presbyterian brethren, endured a harder storm at sea, than I did before I went out of England. Yet, I bless God, he stirred 'up noble friends to countenance and encourage me in my sufferings ; for which I will not cease to pray that the blessing of God may be upon them and their families. For some months I lived with my lord of Warwick, with whom I found much undeserved love and respect, and was in the midst of as great encouragements to stay in England, as a man deprived, and under the bishop's rage, could expect ; when I set myself in as a serious a manner as ever I did in my life, to examine my heart about my staying in England ; whether some carnal respects, that countenance I had from divers noble friends, the offers of livings, did not begin to prevail too far with me. My spirit was much troubled with these thoughts, Why do I still linger in England, where I cannot with peace enjoy * Enrroughs's Vindication, p. 18, 21. Edit. 1646.
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