Mr. Jeremy Sambrook,
Robert Thomson Esquire.


Right Worshipful,

Since my return home to my Native Countrey of England, after a long and
Disconsolate Captivity, my Friends and Acquaintance in our Converse
together have been Inquisitive into the State of that Land in which
I was Captivated; whose Curiosity I indeavour to satisfie. But my
Relations and Accounts of Things in those Parts were so strange
and uncouth, and so different from those in these Western Nations,
and withal my Discourses seeming so Delightful and Acceptable unto
them, they very frequently called upon me to write what I knew of
that Island of Ceilon, and to digest it into a Discourse, and make
it more Publick; unto which motion I was not much unwilling, partly
that I might comply with the Desires and Councels of my Friends,
and chiefly that I might Publish and Declare the great Mercy of God
to me, and Commemorate before all Men my singular Deliverance out of
that Strange and Pagan Land, which as often as I think of or mention,
I cannot but admire and adore the goodness of God towards me, there
being in it so many notable Footsteps of his signal Providence.

I had then by me several Papers, which during my Voyage homeward from
Bantam at leisure times I writ concerning the King and the Countrey,
and concerning the English there, and of my Escape; which Papers I
forthwith set my self to Peruse and draw into a Method, and to add
what more might occur to my Thoughts of those Matters, which at length
I have finished, contriving what I had to relate under four Heads. The
first concerning the Countrey and Products of it. The second concerning