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party-spirit.
By examining the deputies apart, and after much investigation, we learnt
the true state of things at Paris. Since parliament had elected him
Ryland's deputy, all the surviving English had submitted to Adrian. He was
our captain to lead us from our native soil to unknown lands, our lawgiver
and our preserver. On the first arrangement of our scheme of emigration, no
continued separation of our members was contemplated, and the command of
the whole body in gradual ascent of power had its apex in the Earl of
Windsor. But unforeseen circumstances changed our plans for us, and
occasioned the greater part of our numbers to be divided for the space of
nearly two months, from the supreme chief. They had gone over in two
distinct bodies; and on their arrival at Paris dissension arose between
them.
They had found Paris a desert. When first the plague had appeared, the
return of travellers and merchants, and communications by letter, informed
us regularly of the ravages made by disease on the continent. But with the
encreased mortality this intercourse declined and ceased. Even in England
itself communication from one part of the island to the other became slow
and rare. No vessel stemmed the flood that divided Calais from Dover; or if
some melancholy voyager, wishing to assure himself of the life or death of
his relatives, put from the French shore to return among us, often the
greedy ocean swallowed his little craft, or after a day or two he was
infected by the disorder, and died before he could tell the tale of the
desolation of France. We were therefore to a great degree ignorant of the
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