A letter sent to his Lordship from the Assembly held at Saint Marys in April 1649
 

Great and many have been the miseries, calamities, and other sufferings which your poor distressed people, inhabitants of the Province had sustained and undergone here...
 

Violent, even like a tempest for the time, yet now (thanks be to God) all is past and calm and the whole province in perfect subjection again under your lawful government and authority, during all which time your honour cannot be ignorant what pains and travail your friends underwent in aiding your dear brother....
 

as for Mistress Brent's undertaking and medling with your Lordship's Estate here...we do verily believe and in conscience report that it was better for the colony's safety at that time in her hand, then in any mans...

We really suppose and verily believe all former mistakes and misunderstandings that have happened between your honor and us, for these many years, have proceeded only from mere mistakes and misinformants, [over], so vast a distance,

there is ... a willing(ness)... to give your Lordship all just and honorable satisfaction that can be expected from a people at present so illiterate and void of that understanding and comprehension, necessary for a mature, and wise discussion of such a body of laws as is now proposed by your lordship.
 

whereas we have, with much solicitude and earnest endeavor, according to our weak understanding, read over, perused, and debated upon all the body of laws, so proposed unto us by your honour in real desire, indeed, in compliance, with your lordship, of receiving them as laws, but in conclusion finding them so long and tedious, containing withal so many several branches and clauses, that in prudence we cannot,
 

[instead] we have chosen and selected out of all your Lordships laws such as seemed to us most conducing to confirm a long desired and settled peace among us, and have further added such others of our own as we conceive to be most necessary and best suitable to our present condition and towards a future support out of this colony...
 

We do humbly request your lordship hereafter to send us no more such bodies of laws which serve to little other end then to fill our heads with supitious jealousies and dislikes of that which verily we understand not
 

rather we shall desire your lordship to send some short heads of what is desired and then we do assure your lordship of a most forward willingness in us to give ...all just satisfaction that can be thought reasonably by us
 

Your lordships humble and faithful servants, signed by all the council and burgesses that day present