the sky all in flames with
the wonderful lightnings; and though it be frequent to meet with great
tempests of thunder and lightnings upon this sea, and much more dreadful
than those in England, yet now the officers and mariners of the ship
affirmed that they never saw the like to this tempest, and that they were
almost blind with the shining and flashes of this lightning. They saw
also on the land houses burning, set on fire by the lightning, any flame
whereof fastening upon the combustible matter of the ship the same had
instantly been fired and all within her inevitably had perished. But
still God was their defence and deliverer. The tempest was so outrageous
that they were forced to take down their sails and let fall their
anchors. Here they found the difference between Sweden and this country:
there, at midnight, one might plainly read without a candle; here, though
nearer the summer solstice and the days at longest, they found at least
four hours of dark night, as seeming near the winter.

_June 7, 1654._

[SN: Arrive at Luebeck.]

The tempest began to cease about five o'clock in the morning, and it grew
fair weather, the wind coming good for them to continue and finish their
voyage. Thus God preserved them from the danger of the last night as of
many times before, the which Whitelocke held himself obliged more
largely to describe as so many monuments, to him and his company, of the
goodness of God towards them, and to preserve the memory thereof as
arguments to him and his, wholly to depend upon that God of whom they
have had so much experience.

The wind continued fair, and they sailed all along in the sight of land,
drawing nearer and nearer to it, which was pleasant to those who had been
in such storms, and were not a little longing to be at their native home.
They came about ten o'clock in the morning to the road at Luebeck, and no
sooner was the ship settled there but the wind ceased and blew not at
all, but it became a great calm; wherein also the providence and goodness
of God was seen, that had they not come to an anchor at this very moment,
they must have been still roaming on the sea till the wind had come about
again for them, and perhaps might have been kept out at sea many days
longer. They were all filled with joy, having passed one half of their
voyage, and seeing the place of their first descent on land. The
'Amarantha,' having let fall her anchors, fired two guns, and a ship of
the Duke of C