mine at home; and though nothing was so grievous to us both as
parting, yet the necessity both of the public and your father's
private affairs, obliged us often to yield to the trouble of absence,
as at this time. I took my leave with sad heart, and embarked myself
in a hoy for Dover, with Mrs. Waller and my sister Margaret Harrison,
and my little girl Nan; but a great storm arising, we had like to be
cast away, the vessel being half full of water, and we forced to land
at Deal, every one carried upon men's backs, and we up to the middle
in water, and very glad to escape so. About this time the Prince of
Orange was born. [Footnote: This is an error, as he was born on the
4th of November, 1650.]

My husband went from thence by Flanders into Holland to his master;
and, in February following, your father was sent into Ireland by the
King, there to receive such monies as Prince Rupert could raise by the
fleet he commanded of the King's; but a few months put an end to that
design, though it had a very good aspect in the beginning, which made
my husband send for me and the little family I had thither. We went by
Bristol very cheerfully towards my north star, that only had the power
to fix me; and because I had had the good fortune, as I then thought
it, to sell 300 pounds a year to him that is now Judge Archer, in
Essex, for which he gave me 4000 pounds, which at that time I thought
a vast sum; but be it more or less, I am sure it was spent in seven
years' time in the King's service, and to this hour I repent it not, I
thank God. Five hundred pounds I carried to my husband, the rest I
left in my father's agent's hands to be returned as we needed it.

I landed at Youghall, in Munster, as my husband directed me, in hopes
to meet me there; but I had the discomfort of a very hazardous voyage,
and the absence of your father, he then being upon business at Cork.