Excerpt from Letters and Papers, Vol. 3: Relating to the First Dutch War, 1652 1654 As the preparation of this volume had been begun by Dr. Gardiner before he was unfortunately compelled by illness to relinquish it, I wish to explain the extent of his share in the work, not in order to shield any mistakes of which I may have been guilty under his authority, but that what is really his work may be attributed to him. He had selected and arranged the papers, had written the Introduction to Part VII., and had made a certain number of foot-notes in both parts. I have been careful to make only necessary alterations in his work, especially in the Introduction, which is, except for a few verbal changes, practically as he left it. For the majority of the foot-notes and for the Introduction to Part VIII. I am responsible. The difficulties of taking over another man's incomplete work, especially when that man is the acknowledged authority on the period with which he is dealing, have proved more considerable than I had expected, and have contributed to some extent to the long delay which has elapsed since Volume II. of these papers appeared. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.