Hence we find the following note in his register, dated 10 March, 1651:
"Good reader, tread gently:
"For though these vacant years may seem to make me guilty of
thy censure, neither will I excuse myself from all blemishe;
yet if thou doe but cast thine eye upon the former pages and
see with what care I have kept the Annalls of mine owne time,
and rectifyed sundry errors of former times, thou wilt begin
to think ther is some reason why he that began to build so
well should not be able to make an ende.
"The truth is that besyde the miserys and distractions of
these ptermitted years which it may be God in his owne
wisdom would not suffer to be kept uppon record, the special
ground of that permission ought to be imputed to Richard
Finch, the p'rishe Clarke, whose office it was by long
pscrition to gather the ephemeris or dyary by the dayly
passages, and to exhibit them once a year to be transcribed
into this registry; and though I have often called upon him
agayne and agayne to remember his chadge, and he always told
me that he had the accompts lying by him, yet at last
p'ceaving his excuses, and revolving upon suspicion of his
words to put him home to a full tryall I found to my great
griefe that all his accompts were written in sand, and his
words committed to the empty winds.
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