417 who were not very distant neighbours, with others whom she knew not at all. She told him she understood nothing att all of that paper: 'then he turn'd downe the rest, and shew'd her a letter, beginning, " My deare Amaranta ;" which she told him she knew not att all. " But," sayd he, " you will yet owne your owne hand;" and -shew'd her among these papers the copie of the letter that was sent to the house of parliament in her husband's name, written in her hand, which when she saw she was a lit tle confounded, wondering how it should come into his hands; but she told him that she could not absolutely say that was her writing, though it had some resemblance: and so when she had againe urg'd the businesse she came for, and could obteine nothing from him, she went away, and left · in the roome with the secretary Sr. Robert Biron, a cousingerman of her husband's, who was by chance come in 'thither upon some businesse of his owne, and had stood by while she urg'd to the secretary the mischiefe and ruine her husband's imprisonment brought upon his famely and estate. Assoone as she was gone the secretary told Sr. Robert that he had heard Mrs. Hutchinson relate the sad condition of her husband and his house; " and," sayd he, " you may here take notice how the iustice of God pursues those " murtherers, that, though the king pardon'd both his life and estate, " by the hand of the devine iustice they were now like to come " to ruine for that crime:" which words being told Mr. Hutchinson, he ]aught much at the simple folly of the man, that could call his owne illegall persecutions and oppressions of innocence the iudgements of God. The papers which he shew'd Mrs. I-Iutchinson she after learnt to have been some letters betweene Mrs. Vane, one of Sr. Henry Vane's daughters, and one Mrs. Hutchinson, a gentlewoman that us'd to come thither, fill'd with such frivolous intelligence of private amours and intrigues as young people use to communicate to their confidcnts, and such as any wise statesman would have believ'd himselfe affronted to hare had
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