Wh. The complaints of the English have been proved by depositions of witnesses.

Gr.  Eric. Those depositions were taken in the absence of the other party; and, if you please, witnesses may be produced here on the part of the Swedes.

Wh. Witnesses produced here will be also in the absence of the other party, though I had leisure and commission to examine them on oath.

Gr.  Eric. You may see in this map of Guinea how the plantations of the Swedes, English, and Hollanders do lie, and are mingled and near to one another.

Wh. The King of that place made a grant to the English, for them only to dwell and traffic in that country; and the Swedes afterwards drove the English, by force, out of their fortifications.

Gr.  Eric. The English had no fortifications there; all the fort they had was a little lodge with two rooms only in it, out of which the Swedes did not force them; and both the Hollanders and Swedes were planted in this place before any grant made to the English, and the Swedes had a grant from the same King, whereof this is a copy.

Wh. It will be material to compare the dates of these two grants:  if that to the English was first, then the other to the Swedes was of no validity; and the like of the contrary.  If you will favour me with a copy of the grant made to the Swedes, I will compare it with that made to the English, and return it to you.

Gr.  Eric. You shall command it.

Mr. Woolfeldt, being visited by Whitelocke, told him that the Queen was extremely pleased with his treatment of her.  Whitelocke excused the meanness of it for her Majesty.  Woolfeldt replied, that both the Queen and all the company esteemed it as the handsomest and noblest that they ever saw; and the Queen, after that, would drink no other wine but Whitelocke’s, and kindly accepted the neats’ tongues, potted venison, and other cates which, upon her commendation of them, Whitelocke sent unto her Majesty.  Woolfeldt showed a paper of consequence written by himself in Spanish, and he read it in French to Whitelocke, being perfect in those and other languages.  He said, that whatsoever he wrote he did it in a foreign language, to continue the exercise of them.  The paper showed how the English might be freed from paying tolls at the Sound.  Whitelocke entreated a copy of this paper in French, which Woolfeldt promised.

A great quantity of snow fell and covered the houses and fields, and was hard frozen:  a matter at this time strange to the English, but ordinary here.

May 4, 1654.

Mr. Boteler, a Scotsman, confidently reported great news to the disparagement of the affairs of England, that the Highlanders of Scotland had given a great defeat to the English and killed five hundred of them, which news was soon confuted by Whitelocke.

[SN:  A literary dinner party.]