mindes and to comfort the hearts of our Brethren who have need to be comforted and do wait for a good time when your Excellency shall break forth and more visibly appear through all the Clouds of Fear and Iealousie a Defence and Protection through the goodness of God to all his people that fear him in these Nations and so their hearts universally will return unto you in assurance whereof and that you will be very much confirmed and encouraged after the reading of the Declaration We remain My LORD Your Excellencies most faithfull Friends and Servants in the Common Cause March 22. 1659. STill I perceive you 're sure and yet for your weak Brethrens sake you minde His Excellency of a Pawn he has engag'd for his Fidelity to the Publick only his Soul in a Declaration before God Angels and Men that he hath no intent to return to his old Bondage Why you Impudent Sots does a Confederacy with a Pedling Little Sniv'ling Faction that would subvert Order and Government amount to a Fidelity to the Publick or does the avoiding the Old Bondage you keep such a Coil with Imply the setting up a New and more Tyrannical Imposition In fine the mention of the King proceeds from your own Guilt and Fears that have so much abused him The General meddles not at all to impose upon us but only stands betwixt Authority and Violence His Excellency refers all to the Appointment of such Persons as the People shall chuse to Act in their behalf and cannot in Honour side with a Party of Juglers that only call themselves our Representatives and we disclaim This is enough said to convince you and the World where the Abuse lies Now having eased your mindes in your own Language you may go ease your bodies too for I dismisse you and all 's but giving of the Rump a Purge Cursed is he that removeth his Neighbours Land-mark April 2. 1660. UPon this pinch of Time the Good Old Cause was hard put to 't as appears by their more than ordinary earnestnesse toward all Parties but chiefly they solicited the Army in an Audacious Pamphlet Entituled An ALARUM to the ARMIES of ENGLAND SCOTLAND and IRELAND the substance whereof may be collected from this ensuing Answer to it THis last Week has brought to light two Pamphlets so exquisitely impious as if they had been fram'd in Hell by OLIVER and BRADSHAW They speak the Language of the Damned Horrour Despairs and Desolation These goodly pieces are Christen'd PLAIN ENGLISH and AN ALARUM I suppose they are Twins the Issue of the same Brain as they are related to the same main End I had nigh finish'd a Reply upon the former when the latter came to my hand comparing which with the other I finde they correspond so aptly and so universally to the same seditious Purpose that there 's not any Interest 'scapes their Malice and Attempt They advance their Dispute and March together that what they cannot gain by force of Argument they may be ready to Essay by dint of Sword PLAIN ENGLISH is a reasoning of the case first with the General claiming from his Engaging for the Publick Liberty a title to his aid in favor of a private and enslaving Faction It labours then to puzzle the Presbyterian into a jealousie of the Kings faith and honour and consequently into a doubt of his own safety should His Majesty be restored Nay not content to blaspheme the Kings Integrity by a bold censure of his secret thoughts the shameless Beast the Author of it proceeds to charge the secluded Members with the guilt of the Kings bloud upon a senceless inference drawn from the Declaration of both Houses in 1647 touching the Reasons of the Votes for non-Address His aim is here to perswade them to accuse themselves How those Votes were obtained I have shewed at large in answer to PLAIN ENGLISH and it suffices the whole Nation knows that though the Plague was in both Houses then yet All were not infected the Rumpers only had the Tokens nor all these neither so that at last the seclusion of so many as opposed the Capital prosecution of the King amounts to a clear Act of discrimination a separation of the clean from the unclean Having there set the Presbyterians at work upon the Question of Interest and safety and after many a lame complement to his Excellency he cuts out worse employment for the Phanatick Souldiery and at the same time breathing Hot and Cold Reason and Mutiny he solicites the General into a Complyance and the Army into a Tumult To disabuse the multitude if any should be mad enough to be deluded by so gross a cheat I 'll lay the juggle open in as few and familiar words as posssible The Title speaks the business of the Pamphlet 'T is AN ALARUM and the Application To the OFFICERS and SOLDIERY c. the malice there 's Treason in the very Face on 't If the first two words cost not the Nation a hundred thousand lives 't is not the Authors fault His second page places the Legislative power in the Army challenging their promise That before they would SUFFER themselves to be disbanded or divided they would see the Government of these Nations establisht upon the just and secure fundamentals and constitutions of Freedome and Safety to the People in relation as Men and Christians and that in the way of a Common-wealth or Free-state-Government without a King single Person or House of Lords These Gentlemen I see resolve to be their own Carvers not SUFFER themselves to be disbanded This RUMP would be a perpetuall ARMY as well as a perpetual PARLIAMENT Let the Nation observe now the Quality of this suggestion First By the Law of Arms 't is Death that which these Fellows would engage the Army in that mutiny against their General for they give him for lost Next 'T is TREASON by the Law of the Land the USURPATION Thirdly 'T is MURTHER Murther intentional in the bare conception of it and actual sure enough so soon as that intention is but known Now let us weigh the Benefits it brings against the Crimes and dangers that attend it FREEDOME and SAFETY to the People both as MEN and CHRISTIANS there 's the Proposition FREEDOME there can be none to the People where a Particular and Little party pretends to impose upon a number forty times greater and enslave them Nor SAFETY where in that Disproportion the Nation is engaged against a Faction and every Sword that 's rais'd against it carries damnation upon the point on 't Neither do they act as Men Man is a Reasonable and Sociable Creature Here 's a Design that breaks the Bond of Order and betrayes a manifest Folly by a contrivance so impracticable and mischievous at once Idly to labour the saving of a few guilty persons at the price of an universal Desolation For Christianity either my Bible's false or their Opinion that shall pretend to raise a Christian Government upon a Basis
of Rebellion and Bloudshed From hence the terible Trifle proceeds to the distribution of his Design into three Heads First what the CAVALIER saies Secondly what the PRESBYTERIAN thinkes Thirdly what the Armies best Friends scornfully called COMMON-WEALTHMEN and PHANATICKS do foresee concerning the present transactions in the three Nations And lastly his own Observations and seasonable Advice He tels us The CAVALIER's OPINION that the Generals intention is to bring in the King and grounded upon these Reasons First That upon the 11th of February last he sent an imposing Letter to the Parliament in scorn called the RUMP and thereupon without any Order from them marched with their Army into LONDON then esteemed and made by Him in destroying their Gates c. their implacable enemies and at night suffered so many Bonfires and ringing of Bels and publickly drinking healths to the KING and a FREE-PARLIAMENT Roasting and burning of Rumps hearing and seeing his MASTERS in open Street declared MURTHERERS and TRAYTORS c. Feasted and associated with the Kings Friends c. This is a grievous charge assuredly and by the license of our Observator This I Reply The General's Commission expired upon the Tenth of February so he was free the Eleventh Again it was the design of the Rump to make the General odious and therefore they imposed on him such barbarous Orders as probably might leave him to retreat While he professed to Act by any Derivation from Them malice it self cannot but say His Excellency stood firm to every point of Military obedience at last when they proceeded so severely against the City he interposed but his Mediation was rejected and more imperious commands sent to him this is enough to prove 't was not the General that made London the Rumps implacable Enemies but 't was the sordid Insolences of the Members that made the Conventicle hateful to the whole Kingdome and this appeared by the Universal Joy that followed upon their disappointment If the Rump at Westminster did by a Sympathy fellow-feel the suffering Rumps in the City the Case indeed was hard but for the rest the Murtherers and Rebels they were call'd methinks it should not trouble folks to be call'd by their Names that 's only Liberty of Conscience and I dare say the people spake as they thought Are these Gentlemens Ears so tender and their Hearts so hard Is the Sound of Treason and Murther so dreadful and the Exercise of it so Trivial I must confesse to stay away Ten dayes together from the 11th of Feb. til the 21th as that his Masters charge him with was something a long Errand But seriously Gentlemen considering 'twas his first fault forgive him The second motive to the Cavaliers Discourse that his Excellency will restore the King is that notwithstanding his engagement by Letter and Verbal promise to His MASTERS that had ventured their All to secure him from being ruin'd by Lamberts Army he yet admits the Secluded Members to sit most of whom he absolutely knew to be for the Restauration of CHARLES STUART c. To this it is notorious that Designes were laid to murther the General That the Rump Received and Kept in Members impeached That they promoted and gave Thanks for BAREBONES Petition containing matters of direct contradiction to their Professions In the next place instead of the Rumpers saving the General from being ruin'd by Lambert the General saved them and touching their Opinions concerning CHARLES STUART as this Villain prates the King The Noble General regarded their Trust not their Opinions nor did he enquire what they were Thirdly say they the General will bring the King in for he hath suffered the secluded Members to release Sir GEORGE BOOTH and his Party c. Again they have de novo voted the COVENANT to be Printed Read and set up c. acknowledging the late King's Posterity as likewise suffering to be maintained in the House that none but Iesuites and Priests are for Free-Sate Government Observe yet further sayes the CAVALIER that he imprisons Commonwealth-men and releases Royalists c. These Rumpers have gotten such a trick of breaking Parliaments that 't is their publick Profession now become to enforce them to the bent of the ARMY SUFFER still is the word The General SUFFERED the secluded Members to Release Sir GEORGE BOOTH The next point is yet more remarkable These very COVENANTERS ABJURE the COVENANT As for the SUFFERING there 't is again to be maintained that only Iesuites c. the General is not properly to take cognisance of what passes in the House the King was chidden for 't see Exact Collections the Petition of both Houses Decemb. 14. 1641. now for imprisoning and releasing If it so happen that some Commonwealth-men deserve to be laid up and some Royalists to be enlarged not as such it is but justice to do the one and the other for at the rate of this subtile Argument Free-state-men shall be Protected against the Law and Royalists so Persecuted likewise Lastly the Cavaliers conclude as much from the Generals countenancing the Militia being raised and formed to murther and destroy the Army and that the same thing was done long since in Scotland besides the Irish Army have proceeded answerable to himself And divers Officers that served the late King have had fair promises from him and several of the Kings friends are peaceably returned from exile c. and again there 's a Proviso in the ACT of DISSOLUTION concerning the LORDS being a part of the PARLIAMENT c. To be short the General encourages the Militia to Save the Countreys not to Ruine the Army next if long since done in Scotland the better done the sooner for England hath been only Rump-ridden for want of it To this the conform motion of Ireland proceeds from their Commune Concerne with England in delivering themselves from the Tyranny of the Rump for the Generals promises I am glad to hear it but truly I know nothing of it In truth 't is a sad business Alderman Bunce his return and the Proviso in the Act of dissolution for certainly by the known Law the Lords are no part of the Parliament To speak my thoughts freely I am very glad to hear that the Cavaliers are of Opinion that the King will come in but I believe it never the more for your saying it Now to the SOBER PRESBYTERIANS they sayes our Phanatick begin to suspect the General for the Cavaliers are at this instant arming themselves in all the three Nations and if CHARLES STUART comes he 'll bring with him Arch-Bishops Bishops c. and then in comes his Mother with her Iesuites Priests c. and this will make little difference betwixt us and the Sectaries Now do I dote upon the sincerity of this Bubble had he pretended to Religion himself h 'ad been ridiculous but putting that scruple upon the Sober Presbyterian 't is well enough The story of the Cavaliers Arming themselves is a Phanatick not a Presbyterian conceipt
Preservation of the VVarren Feb. 18. 1659. ABout This time the Schifmatiques had all their Instruments at work to disappoint the Generall Design and Hope of a Free Parliament The Bolder and the more Ingenious sort of Honest men were Gather'd up by Flying Troops that they had every where Dispers'd to hinder a Conjunction nay they were come to That Degree of Impudence to threaten Banishment and Sequestration to the whole Party of Declarers Nor did they Act these Outrages upon the Gentry without a due regard of Popular and specious Application to the Vulgar The House should be Immediately Fill'd The Form of the VVrit was already Published The Qualifications Agreed upon and in Fine They would Instantly proceed to a Settlement of Church and State what would they more In the mean while The Presses are at Work by Libells against the King By Arguments of Interest and by False Intelligence to Corrupt and Deceive the People No Stone is left unturn'd The Common-wealthmen They 're a Birding too and Tell their Little Tales of Rome and Venice Nor does the Generall himself escape their wild Attempts either upon his Honesty by Large and Insignificant Donations or else by Plots against his Person The Party had their Friends too in the City either by Tedious Speeches From the Point to make their Meetings Fruitlesse or upon Frivolous Pretenses to Delay the very Calling of a Counsell Retarding the Militia by that means to the great Hazzard of the whole Affair This was the Face of Things when the Brave Generall Cleer'd the way for the Return of the Secluded Members who being Entred Feb. 21. fell Instantly upon the Nulling of those Spurious Orders which Related to their First Seclusion in Dec. 1648. Proceeding Thence to the Enlarging and Confirming of the Generall's Commission and the disabling of the Rump's Commissioners for the Government of the Army The Discharging of Prisoners Illegally Committed and the Appointment of a new Convention Apr. 25. 1660. In Fine they had enough to doe for one while to Vacate the mis doings of their Predecessors which thing it self they did with all convenient Modesty and Tendernesse As their Businesse was onely to Settle the Nation without Perpetuating Themselves so did they make all Haste was Possible to Finish it The Militia's they Placed in Good Hands and Empowred a Counsell of State to Govern in the next Intervall which being done and Provision made for a New Election March 16. they Dissolved Themselves The Independent Gang were strugling now for Life and Laboured by a Thousand Shifts and Cheats to make a Party in the new Militia During That Transaction I caused this Following Paper to be Published A Seasonable Word I Do not write out of an itch of Scribling or to support a Faction my Duty bids me write Nor do I love Hard words or Many Plain and Few suit all Capacities and Leisures I would be Ready by all and Understood by all for my Business extends to all Not to spend time in Complement or Apology The Readers Wisdome or the Authors Weakness is not the Question The Nation is in Distress and every Englishman must lend his hand to save it Nay That must be done Quickly too and Vigorously Delay is Mortal Can any thing be more Ridiculous then to stand Formalizing in a Case where 't is impossible to be too early or too zealous The event of things takes up our thoughts more then the Reason of them what Newes more than what Remedy As if it concerned us rather to know whose Fools and Slaves we shall be next then to be such no longer That which completes the Wonder and the Overfight is That the Miseries we suffer were before hand as easily to be Fore-seen and Prevented as they are now to be Felt and we are only to look Backward to take a perfect measure of the Future so obvious and formal is the Method that leads to our destruction If we are not in love with Beggery and Bondage let us at last bethink our selves of Freedom and from a due inquiry into the Rise and Growth and present State of our Calamities learn to be wise and Happy for the time to come It may be observed that since Church-men dabled in Politiques and States-men in Divinity Law and Religion have been still subjected to the Sword and in effect those same Excursions and Adulterate mixtures are but the workings of a Party already in motion toward that End He that designes a Change of Government must begin by imposing a Delusion upon the People and whatsoever is Necessary to his Purpose must be Accomodate to their Humour The Pulpet by false glosses and Puzzling distinctions under the Doctrine of Conditionate Obedience suggesting Liberty cousens the Multitude into a Rebellion Oaths and Covenants are but like Iugglers knots Fast or Loose as the Priest pleases The Weaker sort being thus prepared and poyson'd by a Seditious Clergy 't is then the Statesman's part to push those Mutinous Inclinations into Action and to divide the Cause betwixt Conscience and Property the better to involve all Interests in the Quarrel Under the Masque of Piety and Publiqueness of Spirit of Holy men and Patriots the Crafty cheat the Simple engaging by those specious pretenses the Rash mis-judging People with good Intentions but wanting Care and Skill in Sacrilege and Treason This was the very Root and this hath been the Process of our Evills Under the notion of Gods glory the Safety and the Honour of the King the Fundamentall Lawes and Freedomes of the People the Priviledge of Parliaments c. the Kingdome was gulled into a Complyance with an Ambitious and Schismaticall Faction The main Pretense was the Assertion of the Subjects Legall Rights against the grand Prerogative and That directed only to the Limitation of an Intended Arbitrary Power the Regulation of such and such Mis-Governments c. and all this Saving their Allegeance to His Sacred Majesty whose Person Crown and Dignity they had so often and so deeply sworn to maintain This was a Bait so Popular it could not fail of drawing in a Party and That produced a War The Formal Story of the Quarrel is little to my purpose the Logique of it Less How by the same Authority of Text and Law both King and People could be Iustifyed one aganst the other I meddle not Let it suffice that after 6. Years Conflict a vast profusion of Blood and Treasure The King a Prisoner and his whole party scattered and disarmed the Commons found themselves dispos'd to end our Troubles and passed a Vote to Treat with His Maâ—esty in Drâ—er to a Settlement This met with little opposition except from those who having Gorged themselves already upon the publique ruine were not yet satisfyed without their Sovereigns Blood The death of Monarchy it sâ—â—â— and the subjecting of a Tame and Slavish People to a Conventicle of Regicides There were not many of so deep a Tincture but what these few could not effect by
I tho' I might as well condemn your Party that is the Rump-men for the same practise WOuld you understand the correspondencies maintained with and the encouragements given to the bloody Irish Rebells for the Effecting his design together with the correspondencies and Solicitations settled in Forreign Countreys to the same purpose with all the circumstances evincing the truth THis is the same thing again shake Hands and to the next WOuld you be informed how often and with how much solicitude the Parliament notwithstanding all these things did for peace sake in a manner prostitute themselves and hazzard the whole cause by appointing Treaty after Treaty which he never entertained but with intent of Treachery and thereby frustrated all their good intentions and endeavours before ever they passed the Votes of Non-Address Then we beseech you read the following Declaration and be satisfyed to the full whether or no the late King and his Family deserved death and extirpation I Pr'ethee do not choak us with the venerable sound of Parliament I talk to You and of that Mungrel-mixture you plead for A Parliament cannot do amiss be not too quick now they may have done Amiss and the next Session may repeal or mend it What they did I don't Question but what you say will as I humbly conceive admit a Castigation Look back upon your self These are your words Which he never enterteyn'd Treaty that is but with intent of Treachery and thereby frustrated their good Intentions and endeavours before ever they passed the Votes of Non Addresses At this rate you ground the Non Addresses upon the Kings Intention of Treachery A Positive disclaim of your Obedience upon a possible Dis-ingenuity in your Prince Come to cut short Dare you say that he promised and failed That 's Treachery to betray a Trust By this Rule of Proceeding had you required his Life and he refused you might have taken it his crime was only the Non-Concession of what you demanded and he gave his Reasons too for that refusall Well but let 's come up to the Vote it self I have already proved that it concerns not the secluded Members and now I shall entreat you to Back my opinion with a slip of your own Pen Their honest strictness in the Negative afterward and their Adhesion to it through all extremities speaks manifestly the intention of the party and that acquits them 'T is your own Argument in your fourth expostulation You charge his Majesty with a treacherous Intent which you infer from a subsequent manifestation of himself by Action But to dispatch should I Grant all you Claim yet did not the late King and his family deserve death and extirpation The premises will not amount to 't Now if you please go on AS for our parts we very well recount the Series of past transactions and do remember that in February 1647. when the two Houses of Parliament passed their Resolves of making no further Address but determined to lay him wholly aside they never were in a greater state of security and freedom never passed any thing with greater deliberation and never the least disturbance or alteration arose in either of the Houses against those Resolves untill some Persons in the Commons House otherwise affected and who by procuring Elections of Persons fit for their turn to serve in Parliament in vacant places brought in new men of the Cavalier stamp as is known like themselves and thereby out-balancing the old Patriots gained the Major Vote of the House and so with heat and by design obtained a revoking of those resolves which had been passed by both Houses in a time of temper upon most serious Consideration so that though we shall not take upon us ex absoluto to justifie the interposure of the Souldiery afterwards and their Exclusion of the Adverse Members it being a transcendent Act not to be measured by ordinary Rule and which nothing can justifie but Supreme necessity yet This we can truly say in their defence In Judgment and Conscience there was so indispensable a necessity that had they not interposed those Principles and the Concernments of the Common-wealth upon which the aforesaid Resolves of both Houses were founded had been utterly shipwrackt and the whole Cause and its Defenders most inevitably have sunk together seeing the same heady confidence in treaty was then given to the Father which too many now encline to allow unto the Son who were first engaged against them in the War and held out to the time of the last treaty whom of all other Men his party do hate upon that accompt and if they had an opportunity would be sure to make them fall the severest Sacrifices to the Revenge and Memory of his Father THis is already Sifted and a little Picking will serve the Turn here A Cavalier I find is onely an Honest man that crosses a Fantan but the Old Patriots it seems were the Minor part of the House and That 's enough to entitle the Nation to the Benefit of the Treaty resolved upon For Sir if you 'l give us leave we 'l be governed by the Major part It 's true your Supreme necessity is a pretty popular Sophism But As necessity ha's no Law so is it none nor in any case pleadable against Law but by the Judges of the Law which at all hands is confessed to be the Parliament and the Major part of the Two Houses in conjunction with the King have ever denominated That I must needs take a little pains to correct the Gentleman in his next Fleere upon the Presbyterians He hangs like a Cock-sparrow upon the aforesaid Resolves of both Houses which is but an old Trick of laying a Knaves Bastard at an Honest mans door and then he preaches most Infallible Destruction to the first engagers whom the King will be sure to sacrifice to the Revenge and memory of his Father This opinion or rather suggestion of his opposes all Principles of Honesty Generosity and prudence which fall within the latitude of the case Nay Taking for granted the very entrance upon the War Justifiable There might be then a Question Now there 's none They intended only a Reformation here 's a Dissolution A Liberty was there Designed here 's an Intollerable Slavery Imposed Those quitted when they saw their error These for that very Reason proceed There is in fine This difference One side would Destroy the King the Other would Preserve him These would Govern Without Law and the Other would be governed by Law After all this peremptory rudeness at large he bethinks himself at last of an Apology to the General and now the Pageant moves WE urge not these things with an intent to make the least reflection upon your Excellencie and our Brethren the Officers under your Command as if we suspected your sincerity and constancy after so many plain and positive Declarations against returning to our old Bondage under that Family which God so wonderfully cast out before us and wherein
made Pauls and Gresham Colledge Garrisons If nothing else will do we 'll do 't our selves We have Engaged and sworn the Vindication of the City and nothing can Absolve us from the Oath we have taken This must be done betimes too 't will come too late else to prevent either the Necessity of a Tumult or the greater Mischief of a Supine and Credulous Security A Parliament in Ianuary will do us no more good than a Cordial will do him that was Hanged last Sessions Our Sense at Large we delivered to the world in a Paper Entituled The Final Protest and Sense of the CITY VVhich is Publique enough notwithstanding the great Design used to suppress it and the Insolences of divers persons disaffected to the good of the City toward those that sold them To That we adhere That Protest of Ours produced Another from the Common counsel of the 20th Current to which something ought to bee said The sum of that Order is but in effect the Justification of the Lord Mayor in the matter of Prudence and Integrity we do not Deny but finding our selves abandoned to all sorts of Outrages by the Cold Proceeding of the Court in our behalf we were transported to some bitter Reflections Involving the present Mayor with his more Criminal Predecessor Ireton in the Imputation We shall not more Gladly find it a Mistake than Readily Confess it one when we reap the Effects of that Care for the Good of the City but so long as Wee are tyed up from all Lawfull Defence and the Publique Enemy at liberty to practise all Unlawfull Violences upon us we desire to be Pardoned if we suspend in the Case The Cloze indeed is very Noble and worthy of the Court where they Declare For the Fundamental Lawes and the Protestant Religion c. and in fine to endeavour the convening of a Free Parliament in order thereunto But in Contradiction to this Resolve the Committee of Officers have yesterday published a Paper Entituled The Agreement c. fairly telling us That we are to be Governed by People of their Chusing and by a Model of their framing without any regard had to the Practice and Reason of the Antient Laws or to the Interest and Liberty of every Freeborn English-man This Usurpation is to bee considered in its due place at present it concerns us to hinder them from making the Slavery of the City their first Step towards the Subjection of the Nation The seasonable Care of This we do Humbly and Earnestly recommend to the Court of Common-counsel Our Hopes are that we are now fallen into Better hands and if our Magistrates will but Command us they have an Hundred Thousand Lives in readiness to Engage for them If we should be so unhappy as to be still delayed wee do however wash our hands of the Consequences And so God Direct and Deliver Us OBserving how much more Unanimous the Army was to Destroy Us than We to Save our Selves and Finding nothing extant of Direction to the Necessary purpose of an Universal Union I presumed to Publish a Paper containing what I judg'd might Rationally Promote such an Agreement under the Notion of a thing already done It runs Thus A FREE PARLIAMENT Proposed by the CITY to the NATION GENTLEMEN HAving certain Intelligence of great Preparations against us from Abroad together with the daily and wofull experience of a more Barbarous and Ignoble Enemy at Home we have bethought our selves of an Expedient which may at once both Secure and Deliver the Nation from the Danger of the One and from the Tyranny of the Other In order to this effect The City of London hath constituted 4 Commissioners to Treat Respectively with the rest of the People of England in the behalf of their invaded Rights and in such manner to Proceed as to the said Commissioners shall appear most convenient In persuance of this Appointment We Four whose Names and Authority you shall find in a Schedule to this annexed do in the Name and by the Commission of the City of London earnestly and unanimously desire a General Assistance toward a work of a Publique and Universal Benefit The transaction of this Affair we have committed to Persons eminent both for Honesty and Fortune and to gain Dispatch as well as Privacy wee have at the same Instant and by safe hands dispersed True and Exact Copies of These to you throughout England and Wales Our Application should have been more Regular but for three or four false Brethren in our Counsels whom wee dare not confide in We find few the Honester for the Quarrel that are the Richer for it and no other Enemies to the Peace of the Nation but the Gainers by the Ruine of it Upō a due scanning of the whole matter we have concluded that nothing can restore us but a Free Parliament Nor can any thing compose that but a Free Vote without either Force or Faction The most likely means to procure this will be a general Engagement to endeavour it We ask no more than that you will follow our Example That Paper which we commend to you is already subscribed by many Thousands of this City If you Approve it doe as much and if you think Fit chuse out of every County Two Persons of a Known Integrity that may be still Among us and at hand to preserve a fair Intelligence betwixt us No longer since than Yesterday the Conservators of our Liberties Hewson and his Mirmidons put an affront upon us and with some mischief too upon this very Point The very mention of a Free-Parliament enrages them and there is Reason for it Their Heads are forfeited and if the Law Lives They must Perish But all this while we 're in a good condition when the Trangressors of the Laws must be the Iudges of it The very Boyes and Women had destroyed the Party to a man but that with much adoe we hindred them The Truth is in such a Confusion more honest blood might have been spilt than that Rabble was worth Upon this the City is grown so impatient of the Souldiers that 't is to be feared they will sodainly break out into an open violence upon them They have already entred into a solemn Engagement to that purpose But we shall doe our best to quiet them till we receive your Answer In Fine the End is honorable and we desire the means that lead to it may be so too Let nothing be omitted that may save blood The Army is necessitous and without pay they must or Steal or Perish Let us consider they are our Countrey-men and many of them the necessity apart our Friends Let such a course be taken that so many of them as shall contribute to the Advantage of a Free Election may without either Fraud or Delay receive their Arriers We shall do our part in the Contribution and in all Offices of Relation to a Religious and Lawfull Settlement as freely engage our Lives and Fortunes with you as
we do our Pens in this Profession to you that we are True English men and your Servants Decemb. 6. 1659. THE ENGAGEMENT WE the Free born people of England having for many years last past been subjected in our Consciences Persons and Estates to the Arbitrary and Lawlesse Impositions of Ambitious and Cruell-minded men finding our selves at present in danger to be Irrecoverably lost partly by Invasions threatned us from Abroad and partly by Factions encroaching upon us at Home without the seasonable mediation of a Free-Parliament We do Declare that we will by all Lawfull means Endeavour the Convening of it and that we will afterward Protect the Members of it as the Blood of our own Hearts We do further Engage in the Presence of Almighty God that if any person or Persons whatsoever shall presume to Oppose us or to impose upon us any other Government Inconsistent with or Destructive to the Constitution of Parliaments we will prosecute him or them as the Betrayers of the Peoples Rights and Subverters of the Fundamentall Laws of the English Nation To the Honorable the Commissioners of the City of London for the Liberties and Rights of the English Nation GENTLEMEN HAving already satisfied you by what Authority we Act it concerns us next to acquaint you to what purpose we are Sent and what it is which we have in Charge to deliver unto you Your Proposals for the Settlement of the Nation and That by the means of a Free-Parliament have been as Faithfully and Generally communicated as you intended they should as Kindly received as you could wish and the whole matter brought to as speedy an issue as was possible for an Affair of that Weight and Quality to admit In Testimony hereof We are to give you the Thanks of the People of England and to assure you that they are not less pleased with your Method of promoting the Publick Good than they are Obliged by those Affections which have disposed you to endeavour it Particularly they are exceeding glad to find that the City hath entrusted such Persons in the Businesse as beside all other due Qualifications for the Employment have This also that they were never Parties in the Quarrell It hath been our Care likewise to proceed by the same rule and for this Reason If Both Parties should be taken in there might possibly be some Animosities started sufficient to obstruct the Proceeding And again should Either of them be left out the matter would probably be carried by Faction This we are commanded to represent rather as a Fair Expedient than an Absolute Necessity In the next place we are to inform you that the Engagement you sent us found so prone a Reception that we reckon it with us a greater difficulty to Find an Enemy to the Intent of it than to Subdue any whatever that shall presume to appear against the Promoters of it We do however hold our Selves bound to assure you that we are perfectly resolved to Joyn in the Charge and Hazard of the Dispute with you and that we are as Unanimous in This Cause as if the Treasure of the Nation had but one Master and the Strength of it were but directed by the Same Mind The List of the Subscribers we have here in Town If you desire to see it you may but if Otherwise we offer to your Prudence to consider if it may not be of more Advantage and Security to the Businesse in hand rather totally to conceal the Subscribers if not also the Commissioners themselves For the Thing it self we are not only Willing but Desirous to make That Publique It is of so Honest and Reasonable a Nature that no Man Dares oppose it who dares not be Damn'd no man Will that deserves to Live upon English ground and to conclude no Man Shall and escape Unpunish'd Parliaments are the Constitution Fundamentall of the Nation the Safeguard and the Honor of it nor are we more concern'd to Support them than to be wary lest we Mistake them We are to Distinguish betwixt Names and Things that we be not govern'd by Delusions Where have we a greater Cheat than that which stiles it self the Publique Faith Greater Subverters of our Liberties than some that write themselves the Conservators of them 'T is not for 40 people to call themselves our Representative Is 't not enough that they have Robb'd us unless they Govern us too They 'll say we Chose them so did we chuse above 300 more and we 'll be Rul'd by All or None of them Without more adoe having Formally assured you of an absolute Concurrence from the Nation as to what they have received in Proposition from you It remains now only that we recommend some Additionals to you which we conceive may be of some Benefit to the Common Interest of the whole In the First Place we Propose That no Petition be presented to this Pretended Parliament from the City of London and we Undertake as much for our Selves Secondly That no Levies of Men or Monies be suffered in persuance of their Pretended Acts and in case of any Force attempted upon the Refusers that we immediately Arm our Selves and by Violence Repell it Thirdly we judge it very fit in regard of Dangers Imminent both Forein and Domestique That a Free Parliament be speedily convened the Time and Manner of Summons instantly agreed upon with a Salvo Jure to all Interests By a Free Parliament we understand an Assembly of such Persons as by the Law are Qualified to chuse without any other Restreint than what the Law imposes Not that we claim to our selves the Right of Calling Parliaments but the Impossibility of procuring one Regularly and the Absolute Necessity of having something like one Suddenly This is enough to acquit us before God and Men By these means all Differences may be composed all Parties reconciled and to These purposes we are ready to Sacrifice our Lives and Fortunes GENTLEMEN We are your faithfull Servants January 3. 1659. UPon the 17 of Ian. Mr. Bampfield the Recorder of Exceter delivered a Leading Declaration to the Pretended Speaker from the Gentry of Devonshire Demanding the Readmission of the Secluded Members and filling up of Voyd Places without any Previous Engagement This Netled the Rump and Drew from Them Another Declaration Ian. 23. wherein they express'd all Tenderness possible for the Publique in a Fawning Canting way and especally Insisting upon such Particulars as might render their Design of setling in a Free-State the more Plausible to General Monck who was now as far as Leicester toward London This Declaration moved me to Print this Ensuing Paper A PLAIN CASE Ian. 24. 1659. IT were no hard Matter to Trace the Course of Government thorough all it's several Forms and Mixtures from the very Fountain of it and to Deduce the Story from it 's Original in Paradise down to this wretched Place and Instant The Sanction and Assignment of it being proved That the Almighty Wisdom placed ONE RULER over
the World Enquiry might be made into the Reasons and Equity of those ensuing Changes which either Force Craft or Agreement afterward produced To come a little neerer Home much might be added concerning our Religion Parliaments Magna Charta c. but the Presse groans under the Subject and the Nation under the Dispute Conviction puts an end to Argument The Question is no longer Right but Power and our Reasonings are only Answered with Blowes It 's true in the Infancy of the Quarrell when Rebellion like a Painted Whore under the Masque of Loyalty and Conscience Cheated the People into an Engagement when onely some Mis-governments in Church and State were to be Reformed and that Pretence back't with a Thousand Oaths to strengthen the Delusion Dominion and Obedience Law and Conscience were then a Proper and a necessary Theame to undeceive the Nation but now 't is out of Season The Sword 's the onely Iudge of Controversies Our businesse is to Talk more Sensibly and lesse Learnedly Alas to tell the Simple that which they can never understand and the Wise that which they know already Who 's the Better fort The Injuries we suffer are Notorious and Understood as universally as Felt The skill would be to find out a Fair Remedy for a Foul Disease In order to that I shall be Plain and short Prove what I say and keep my self within the Compasse of my Page This Nation is at this instant upon the Brink of a Reprochfull and Ridiculous Condition of want and slavery Nor is the Truth of our Calamity more evident than the Reason of it Half the Revenue of the Land is already shared among the Saints and in Reward for robbing us of That we are to Give the Rest and purchase our Bondage dearer than our Fore-Fathers did their Liberties Indeed a Hundred Thousand Pound a Moneth when we have scarce Money left for Bread is a modest Proportion and to endear the Proposition to us 't is to maintain a warre against the established Law and consummate our Thraldome After this Tax is paid they 'll Ask no more but Take the rest without the Ceremony and we deserve to Lose All If we Levy This By Violence they keep themselves In and their Fellowes Out By Violence they Sit and Vote and Execute They 're not the Twentieth part of those we Chose and then the Quality of the Faction is as Inconsiderable as the Number The Nation looks upon them as a Herd of Wolves they live by Blood and Rapine and 't is the Publique Interest to Hunt them They are too Few for us to Fear too False to Trust too Wicked and Imperious to Obey 'T is not their Ianizaries that will doe their Businesse when the whole Body of the People is united against them The very Souldier that hath Raised them Hates 'em as being at once Instrumental to their Guilt and to their Punishment They are neither to be Obliged by Oathes nor by Benefits How meanly have they treated the very Officers that preserved and Restored them and Perfidiously all that ever Trusted them Those Summes which were designed for the Satisfaction of Publike Accompts they divide among themselves and Turn those Troops to Free-quarter whose Pay is already in their own Pockets After all this the Laws must be as well subdued as the People no other Title left us to our Lives and Estates but what depends upon the Vote of a Legislative Committee It is already construed Sedition to Demand what the Law tells us is Treason to Oppose and the bare mention of a free-Free-Parliament puts our blessed remnant into a Sweat There 's Violence designed upon us and Violence must meet it The Axe is laid to the root the Commune Freedome of the English Nation lies at stake and 't is our Commune Interest to defend it The Iust and peaceable assertion of our Undoubted rights is Voted Breach of priviledge and he that draws his Sword to save his Countrey forfeits his head for 't This will not doe These worthy Squires of the Fagg end must take their Turns too Suppose the City should refuse the Tax the Countries are resolved upon 't How Certain and Inevitable is their Ruine The very first attempt of Force sets the whole Nation in a Flame They Rise together and the Work is done 'T is not the stifling of the Presse can break their Correspondence nor the Old Cheat of Creating New Plots that will divert them These Iugglers have shewed all their Tricks and the whole World 's Convinced of their Intentions The Design walks bare-fac'd It is now evident that they purpose to make us perpetual Slaves and to enure us to no other Law than the Imperious Will of our hard Masters Their very best Friends and Assistants are now discarded by these Thanklesse Wretches the Scrupulous and Congregationall Party being cast into the Ballance with the Commune Enemy and both alike Excluded from the Government they promise us to shew that their Ambition is as well Insociable as Boundlesse To Finish All what Security or Quiet can that Faction expect which never Requited a Friend or Spared an Enemy What Comfort can that Nation look for that subjects it self to the Faith and Mercy of such a Faction UPon the 25 of Ian. Sir Robert Pye and Major Fincher were Ordered to the Tower for Presenting and Subscribing a Declaration from Berkshire for a Free and Full Parliament It being Voted A Breach of the PRIVILEGE of PARLIAMENT SEDITIOUS and tending to the Raysing of a New War The Squires of the Rump Scot and Robinson were by this Time doing their Complements to his Excellency and the City Commissioners upon their way toward him In which Juncture came forth a Paper Entitled A Letter of General George Monck's Dated at Leicester 23. Jan. and Directed to Mr. Rolle to be communicated unto the rest of the Gentry of Devon Occasioned by a Late Letter from the Gentry of Devon dated at Exceter 14 Ian. and sent by Mr. Bampfield to the Speaker to be communicated unto the Parliament Read in Parliament Jan. 26. To this Letter I took the Liberty to Draw what followes in Answer Addressed To His Excellency GENERAL MONCK A Letter from the Gentlemen of Devon in Answer to his Lordships of January 23. to them directed from Leicester My Lord THere is a Letter which hath passed the Press under your Name dated at Leicester 23. Ian. and directed unto Mr. Rolle to be communicated to the rest of the Gentry of Devon c. Whether this be your Excellencies Actor not is the question If so it be we receive it as a noble Respect from General Monk to his Friends and Country men if Otherwise we look upon it as the Artifice of an Anti-Parliamentary Faction under the pretence of your Concurrence and Aid to Delude and Enslave the Nation It is one thing for a Person of Honour freely to communicate his Thoughts and Reasonings although in favour of a possible mistake still refering
the Issue to the determinations of Divinity and Reason and it is another thing for a Confederate Party to charge such a Person with failings properly their own To hasten the dispatch of that little we have to say the Authors of this are of that number to whom your Letter directs We shall proceed according to our Duties and Instructions and briefly acquaint your Excellency with the sense of those that have entrusted us We shall begin my Lord with the Concession of what wee much Suspect and take for Granted that the Letter so inscribed is really Yours We are next to return you the Thanks of your Country men for the expressions of your Piety and Care therein contained and particularly that in the head of your Army you have rather chosen Arguments of Reason than of Force That you propose the word of God for your Rule and the Settlement of the Nation for your End That you take notice of many Factions and Interests introduced and yet professe a service to None of them That you so earnestly desire to Compose Old Differences at Home and to Prevent New Mischiefs from Abroad And finally That you submit the Result of all to a Fair and Rational Examination To profess and to persue all this is but like your self and to these purposes we shall not stick to live and dye at your Feet If upon Discussion of the Reasons you alledge we assume the Liberty which your Candour allows us of declaring wherein we differ we beg to be understood with all tenderness toward your Excellency to whom as a stranger to our late Oppressions and Calamities the state of our Affairs and Affections may probably be misrepresented To observe your own Method our Letter to the Speaker importing the recalling of the Secluded Members was the occasion of Yours to Us which sayes that Before these Wars our Government was Monarchical both in Church and State but as the case now stands Monarchy cannot possibly be admitted for the future in these Nations because it is incompatible with the several Interests which have ensued upon the Quarrel viz the Presbyterian Independent Anabaptists c. as to Ecclesiasticks and the Purchasers of Crown and Bishops Lands Forfeited Estates c. as to Civils by which means the support it self is taken away so that the Constitution qualified to fix all Interests must be that of a Republique To which the Secluded Members of 1648. will never agree many of them being Assertours of Monarchy and Disclaimers to all Lawes made since their Seclusion Over and above that the Army also will never endure it The Conclusion This that it were better for us to desist from that Paper and rely upon the Promises of this Parliament for a due Representative a Provision for succeeding Parliaments and a Peaceable Settlement than by an unseasonable Impatience to embroil the Nation in a fresh Engagement From hence is appears that we might be allowed a Free Parliament but for Four Reasons First The Major Part Inclines to Monarchy and they that have swallowed the Revenues of the Crown declare against it Secondly The Entangled Interests of this Nation can never be United but under a Republique Thirdly The Army will never endure it Lastly It would beget a new War whereas this Parliament promises to settle us in a lasting Peace To all which in Order and First concerning Monarchy not as the thing which we contend for we onely wonder why it is Prejudged and particularly by those Persons who have sworn to defend it But my Lord you have hit the Reason they have Gained by Dissolving it and they are afraid to Lose by Restoring it Having put the Father to Death whom they Covenanted to Preserve they Abjure the Son whom they Fear to Trust By Force they would Maintain what by Force they have Gotten In effect the Question is not so much what Government as what Governours A Single Person will down well enough with the fiercest of them when it lies fair for any of Themselves Witness the late Protectour and the Later Lambert Briefly since the Death of the late King we have been Govern'd by Tumult Bandy'd from One Faction to the Other This Party up to day That to Morrow but still the Nation Under and a Prey to the Strongest It is a feeble Argument against Monarchy that we never have been happy since we lost it and yet nothing hath appeared to obstruct our Quiet but the Division of the Booty What Hath been Shall be so long as this Violence continues over us nor can any other Government Settle the Nation than that which pleases the Universality of it And in that we pretend not to direct our Representatives but which way soever they encline we shall with our Lives and Fortunes Justifie and Obey their Appointments Whether we have Reason or not in this Particular let your Excellency Judge The Second Objection against a Free Parliament is drawn from the Necessity of a Republique to reconcile all Interests To This we offer First that it is not Necessary next that it is not so much as Effectual to that purpose and Lastly that a Free Parliament ought to Introduce it if it were both the One and the Other The First we prove thus It is not the Form of Government but the Consent of the People that must Settle the Nation The Publike Debt must be secured out of the Publique Stock and That disposed of by an Engagement of the Publique Faith to such Ends and purposes as the Representative of the Nation shall deem expedient for the Good of it In like manner may all other Interests be secured whether of Opinion or Property under what Form of Government soever a Free Parliament shall think fit to unite us That it is not Necessary enough is said We are now to deduce from your Lordships Text that a Free-State would be as little effectuall also as to our concerns You are pleased to intimate the Dangerous Inclination of the People to Monarchy and to Ballance the Satisfaction the Right and the Universall Vote of the Nation with the Interests of some Few persons that would Rule us Themselves for that 's the English of the Settlement they propose By this Argument a Republique excludes the Negative and more Considerable Interest in favour of a Small and a Partial one and if it be granted that a Free Parliament will never agree upon a Free State it follows necessarily that That Form will never doe our Businesse Lastly what Government soever is forced upon us must certainly expire with the Force that imposes it and the Voice of the People in this case is the Declaratory Voice of Providence The Third Difficulty is The Army will never endure it This is to say You are to be Govern'd by the Sword To Conclude The Fear of a New War and the Promise of a speedy Composure are the last Suggestions of Disswasion to us Alas my Lord doe we not see that Parties are uniting against us
Abroad and we conspiring against our selves at Home How certainly shall we be Attempted and how easily Overcome without such a Medium to Reconcile us All as may Please us All but we are promised fair We beseech you Lordship to consider the Promisers Are not These the People that vow'd to make our Last a Glorious King Just such a Glorious Nation will they make of Us Did they not next Abjure a Single Person and yet after that set up ANOTHER with Another Oath Not to pursue this Subject further These Men we dare not Trust nor any other of that Leaven we have have no thoughts but of Justice to all Interests and in order to that Settlement and Good we wish the Nation we shall empower our Representatives with the Command of all we are worth and most remarkably evidence our selves My Lord Your Excellencies Servants Ian. 28. 1659. THe Generall was plyed with Addesses for a Free-Parliament throughout his whole Passage and the Nation entirely Concurr'd to the same Effect Upon Tuesday Feb. 2. a Considerable Party of the Red-Coates Tumulted for Pay Cast off their Officers and Formally Engarrison'd themselves in Somerset-House Publiquely Reproaching the Rump and Declaring for the City and a Free-Parliament Finding the Citizens well enough disposed to emprove the Mutiny I appointed Immediately the Printing of Two papers directing them to Associate and in These Terms The SENSE of the ARMY WHereas the Calamities of this Unhappy Nation are charged upon those that have ventured their Bloods for the preservation of it We hold it necessary to acquit our selves both to God and Men by declaring to these following Particulars First That we will engage our Lives against all opposers of a Free-Parliament Secondly That we will according to the best of our Knowledge observe and cause to be observed the Known Lawes of the Land Thirdly That we will practice no violence but what we are obliged to by the Laws of Honesty and Nature Lastly That we will not leave our Quarters unsatisfied nor lay down our Arms without our Pay Somerset-House Feb. 2. 1659. The Citizens DECLARATION for a FREE PARLIAMENT WEe the Young Men in and about London doe unanimously Declare That we will Assist and protect to our uttermost what Party soever we shall find opprest for desiring a FREE-PARLIAMENT And that such of the Souldiery as shall joyn with us in so necessary and just an Undertaking shall receive half their Arrieres upon the first Rendezvous and the Rest upon the Accomplishment of the Work Feb. 2. 1659. LAte at night The Apprentices drew into a Party in the City and were scattered by the Army Horse whereas had they rather drawn down into the Strand and joyned themselves with Those in Somerset-House it was believed by sober Persons that they might have carried it About One in the Morning the Revolted Party was False-Alarmed and perswaded out of their security upon Pretense that if they were not Instantly Posted to hinder Monks Entrance into the Town they would have all their Throats cut in their Quarters This Device brought them out and so That morning they were Commanded away Leaving the Town Quiet and in Condition to entertain Honester Guests Upon Friday Afternoon Feb. 3. his Excellency marched in the Head of his Army to his Quarters at White-Hall and the Day following I took the Liberty to shoot another Bolt under the Title and Form here-ensuing For his EXCELLENCY Generall MONCK MY LORD YOu are too Wise and Noble to need either a Direction or a Spur where your Iudgement or Honor lies at Stake And to tell you that to make your self the Happiest Person in Nature you must Deliver us from being the most Miserable People is but to speak your own Thoughts and Purposes Yet such is the Passion I have for your Personall and for the Publique Good that a Burthen lies upon my Soul â—ill I have given some Testimony of my Respects and Tendernesse both for the One and the Other how-superfluous-soever toward a Iudgement and Inclination so well Qualified for the Knowledge and Practice of what is Honorable My Lord We are a wretched people and Providence hath put it in your power to finish all our Troubles The Eyes of Men and Angels are upon You and the whole Nation courts You as their Tutelary Spirit Never was any Action so easie and so Glorious at once as our Deliverance 'T is wrought without the hazzard or expence either of Blood Time or Treasure The Hearts the Hands and Fortunes of the People are all at Your Devotion Nay lest You should submit to be misled by Popular Applause Ambition or any other Frailty Heaven hath annexed Your Interest to Your Duty forgive the Language You must be Mad too to be wicked and Quit all other Principles of Beneficiall Prudence with those of commune Honesty and Conscience Ballance my Lord the main Accompt Heaven and Hell are the Difference One way You are sure to be as Great and Safe as Love and Gratitude can make You whereas all other Acquisitions are deceitfull A word now of the means to effect our Quiet and that with all due respect to better Reason First In the Case of differing Perswasions be pleased to form such an Expedient that all may quietly enjoy and exercise their opinions so far as they Consist with the Word of God and with the publique Peace Secondly Appoint an Act of Oblivion to be drawn if you please as Comprehensive of all Interests as care and skill can make it and after this let a Free-Parliament be called with this previous Engagement imposed upon them That they shall first secure these two Particulars of Conscienee and Property according to the true Intention of the Parties therein Concerned ere they proceed further and that they may then apply themselves to other Debates at Liberty and settle what Government they shall think fit This I presume not to deliver as the Arrogant Imposition of a single Person but I doe offer it humbly as the sense of a Numerous and Sober party Some Mutinous and Peevish Spirits there are whom nothing can please but what displeases all the World beside It were pitty to alter the whole Frame of the Law to gratifie the humour of so Inconsiderable a part of the People Changes are Slow and Dangerous God and Truth are Invariable We were Well till We shifted and never since having tried all other Postures in vain were it not better to attempt That once again than thus expose our selves to be Restlesse for ever My Lord the Author of this is very much Your EXCELLENCIE's Servant Feb. 4. 1659. THe City of London having of late behav'd themselves a little Crosse disturb'd the self-created Representative exceedingly The Common-Counsel was too Stout and Honest for their purpose The Aldermen but an Untoward Mixture yet those among them that were Right were Eminently so and there were not a few that were so A very Worthy and Particular Instrument in the Frank carriage of the
Number they did by Force For upon the 6th of Decemb. 1648. Sir Hardresse Waller Pride and Hewson Seized and Emprisoned 41. of the Commons House Clapp'd Guards upon all passes leading to it Some 160 more were given in upon a List to those that kept the Door with an express direction from severall Leading Members to oppose their Entrance a matter of 40 more withdrew for fear of violence Their Crime was only the carrying of a Vote for Peace already mentioned the day before This action was so Enormous that the very Contrivers of it were ashamed to own it transferring That upon the Army-Officers which was done by their own appointment They passed however a Formall disallowance of the violence and ordered their discharge which yet the Officers refused upon a Combination now most evident Observe this That which in 48. they told us was an act of the Army-Officers in 59. they call a Iudgment of Parliament and they justifie and continue That very Seclusion by a Vote of Ian. 5. 59. Which they Themselves Condemned and Discharged by severall Orders in Dec. 48. The Particulars of these Transactions are excellently delivered by Mr. Prynne the Honour of the age in his true and perfect Narrative as also in the Declaration of the true state of the Secluded members and in the History of Independency Return we now to the great Test of the Spirits and Designs of the several Parties and Members of the House and from that Judgment and Discrimination of Persons and Humours we may learn seasonably to provide against After-claps This Blow brake the House of Commons into Three Pieces One Party adhered to the Vote opposed the Violence Declared against it Claimed from time to time their own and the Peoples Rights Pleaded the Covenant and their Declarations and stood it out The Second sort was not so well prepar'd for Martyrdom a kind of Barnacle neither Fish nor Flesh This was a Party that Flew off at first but soon retracted Herded again and went along for Company my Charity perswades me well of diverse of them and that they mixed rather in hopes to moderate the Rest then in Design to strengthen them A Party rather Weak and Passive than Malicious But nothing can excuse those sons of Belial the periur'd Remnant no nor express them Beside their Oathes and Covenant they have above a hundred times in Printed Declarations renounced the very Thought of what they since have executed Read the Exact Collections We are say they so far from altering the Fundamental Constitution and Government of this Kingdom by King Lords and Commons That we have only desired that with the consent of the King such Powers may be setled in the Two Houses without which we can have no Assurance c. These are the very words of their Declaration April 17. 1646 published by the House of Commons alone toward the end of the war and most remarquably entituled A Declaration of their true Intentions concerning the Antient Government of the Nation and securing the People against all Arbitrary Government Let this Quotation serve for All lest I exceed my Limits Nor to insist upon things known and publique How faithfully these People have managed their Original Trust how strictly they have kept their Oaths and Promises how tenderly they have observed the Laws and asserted our Freedoms how poor they have made themselves to make us Rich how Gracioussly they have assumed the Legislative power and then how modestly they have exercised it In fine How Free and happily we lived under their Government till Oliver plai'd Rex among them and threw them out by a Trick of their own Teaching This was in April 1653. It were worth the while to enquire into the good they did us during that 6 years Session but that I leave to Needham Nor shall I far examine the Protectors Reign by whose advice by what assistance or by what Laws he ruled how many of our late Republicans forgaâ—e themselves and sware Allegiance to a single Person How many things like Parliaments he dispersed It is enough at last he died Died in despight of Priests and Poets Goodwin c. The former telling him from Heaven that he should scape that Fit the Other telling us so needlesly His Highness having other things to think on left his successor doubtfull till as they say His Secretary Then one of Ours now with Goodwin His Prophetique Confessour Swore his son Richard into the Protectorship But he Good Gentleman did not much hurt but peaceably resigned to Fleetwood and Disborough and They quite at a Loss for want of Brains and Courage called in the Fag-end of the old House to their assistance So that those Members which Dived in April 53. came up again upon the 7th of May 59. and acted as impetuously as ever Till they were once again unseated by the Army the 13. of Octob. last and then the Committe of Walling fordhouse was invested with the Supreme Authority 'T is but a slippery Title that of the Sword This change gave General Monk occasion to shew his Charity to his Native Countrey by whose Generosity and Conduct the Honest and Suffering Party was relieved and the Phanatique Army dispersed without Blood Hereupon the Souldjery tack'd about once again Lamented their backslidings and on the 26th of Decemb. following the Good-Old-Cause-men re-enthron'd themselves more eager now than formerly against the Re-admission of the secluded Members This barbarous and Arbitrary proceeding put the whole Nation upon a necessity of procuring a Free and Full Representative to which end they proposed Modestly and Fairly the Restoring of the Excluded Members and Filling up the House or else the Liberty of a New and Legal choyce For bringing Letters to this purpose Sir Robert Pye and Major Fincher were imprisoned This was an Insolence too grosse to doe much Mischief but to Themselves Are these the men the People cryed that put the King to death only upon Pretence of a Design to Erect and Uphold in himself an Unâ—â—â—â—ted and Tyrannical Power to Rule according to his Will and to overthrow the Rights and Liberties of the People Yea to Take away and make Uoid the Foundations thereof and of all Redress and Remedy of mis-Government which by the Fundamental Constitutions of this Kingdom were reserved on the Peoples behalf in the Right and Power of FREQUENT AND SUCCESSIVE PARLIAMENTS these are the words of the charge That which was Treason in our Lawfull Prince how comes it to be Law now with these Fellowes They took away the Kings Life for but Intending the very thing they Act and we are to be Hang'd for Asking only That they sware they Fought for No they are a Pack of cheats They Murthered Him that they might Rule Themselves The Plot was grown so Rank the Commune People smelt it and without more adoe associated to free themselves from an infamous and perpetual bondage Witness that Union in their Declarations both of Demand and Resolution against the
Kings Son must be brought in ANSWER THis is not the Original Parliament That was compos'd of Three Estates King Lords and Commons Further These very Persons now sitting Declar'd the King a Party with them in the Quarrel beginning the War in the Kings Name For Him not With that is as it lies here Against Him If Thus the House must be Divided as well now in the Question as formerly it was so in the War The Parliament even in the Querists sense were those that suitably to their Duties and Engagements Voted a Peace in order to the Preservation of his Majesty but there was a Faction too that contrary to Honour Faith and Conscience did forcibly seclude their Honester Fellows by much the Major Part and Prosecute and put to Death the King Those that have been Honest are Safe nay and so should those be too that will at last be so by my Consent but I Demand What Equity or Reason is there that those Persons who Murthered the Father and are still professed Enemies to the Son should have an Equal Benefit with Others that were Affronted for their Loyalty to the Former and are at present upbraided as if 't were Criminal for their Affection to the Latter If the Kings Son must be brought in whether they will or no what have we to do further with those people that Declare they 'll keep him Out if they Can 2. Whether this Parliaments first undertaking and prosecuting the War with the late King were Iust and upon good and Warrantable Grounds If it were as no doubt it was and God having by his Providence after a long Interruption of some of them and a longer Seclusion of the rest restored them to their trust whether they ought not now to stand to their first Good principles maintain their first Good Cause and secure all the good people that have been engaged with them and by them ANSWER THe War was Iust in that part of the Parliament which Declared for the King and Acted accordingly but Unjust in thâ—se that Swore to Preserve him and Intended to Murther him That the Parliament ought to stand to their first Good Principles we are Agreed In so doing they are to bring to condigne punishment the Infringers of their Privileges the Introducers of Arbitrary power the Obstructors of Successive Parliaments The Murtherers of the late King the Subverters of the Establish'd Government c. I grant you further that they are obliged to secure all the good people that engaged With them and by them but not consequently all those that acted violently Against and Without them now my Question How is it possible for those that Began upon Principles of Contradiction as the Saving and Destroying of the King c. to stand to their First principles 3. Whether this be not that Parliament and these the very persons who by the good esteem they had among the people of their Integrity Faithfulnesse and Constancy whether I say this be not the Parliament who by these and other means engaged the Honest and well Affected of the Land in the aforesaid War And if so whether this Parliament having now power in their hands are not obliged in Duty and Good Conscience to secure all the said Honest and well affected people for this their Engaging and Acting under them and not leave them as a prey to their professed enemies nor their terms of pece to be made by they know not whom Another Parliament which there is too great cause to fear will be too much made up of such as neither have been nor are friends to the Parliaments cause nor to those that engaged in it ANSWER 'T is not the Gaining of a good Esteem but 't is the practice of Integrity that recommends a Worthy person I may believe well of a Cheat and ha' my pocket pick'd But after that I should deserve a Yellow Coat ever to trust that fellow Again though he should plead he had my good opinion formerly Some I confesse are yet in Being of those whose Interest raised the War but these are not the men our Quaerist means and beside the most considerable of that number are in their Graves For the rest to wave this Argument from Power to Conscience Those people that dare not abide the test of a Free Legal Parliament must not presume to act themselves as an Authority without Law or Limit In fine If this be the Same Parliament that first engaged then Why should the Secluders and their Adherents Those which by Force of arms Baffled this very Parliament in 48. 'scape better then the Cavaliers that fought against it in 42 4. Whether this be not the Parliament who by many Declarations and Remonstrances by Protestation and Vow by Solemn League and Covenant have declared and engaged themselves before God Angels and Men and have thereby drawen in and therewith engaged all Honest people to assert and defend their just undertaking and one another therein Whether as things now stand when this just Cause which through Gods assistance could not be won from us in the field is in great danger to be stoln from us by the dark contrivances of its and our adversaries if this Parliament should dissolve at such a time as this and leave all both Cause and all engaged by them in it to another Parliament the greatest part whereof may be no friends but enemies or at least strangers or but little concerned in the first undertaking whether this would not be exceeding contrary to all those Former Declarations Remonstrances Protestation Vow and Solemn League and Covenant ANSWER I Do allow the Members of this present Session are those persons that stand engaged by Oath and Covenant and to that OATH and COVENANT we appeal For Granted they stand bound to protect all the HONEST people they have engaged but not the KNAVES the Covenant-Breakers I desire only this Whether or Not are they that took the Covenant bound to protect the Violaters of it Nay can they purge themselves of manifest Perjury and Complication should they not prosecute the obstinate Opposers of it 5. Whether it be not more then sufficiently manifest what will be the carriage of these Enemies to the Parliaments Cause and its Adherents when they get power into their hands since they are so forward already in their discourses to charge the Parliament with Treason and Rebellion in their first Undertaking the War and look on all their Friends as Rebels and Traytors for assisting them in the prosecution of it and who are now in all places contriving and promoting the electing of such into the New Parliament as are Enemies to the present Parliament their Friends and Cause wherein if they prevail as 't is too likely their work is done How absolutely necessary is it then for the present Parliament to continue their Session for prevention of these Mischiefs which otherwise will ensue Upon these and many other very weighty considerations it can by no means be accounted either
honourable or just or safe or prudent for the present Parliament to dissolve themselves till first they have fully asserted and vindicated their own just Undertaking and the faithful adherents to it and them and not to leave both themselves and their Friends to the Malice and Revenge of a vanquisht Enemy If this should be we may bid adieu to the Honour and Renown of English Parliaments and to all future hopes of assistance from the People whatever the Necessity may be And let English men bid farewell both to their Civill and Religious Liberties if after so high a Conflict for them with the expence of so much Blood and Treasure and having by Gods blessing subdued their Opposers yet after all to be exposed to a farr worse Condition then before which O God forbid We hope for better things from our present Parliament All that we add is only this If the King must come none so fit to bring him as our present Parliament ANSWER 'T Is not the Parliament is charged with Treason but that Rebellious Faction that by an Insolence praevious to the Murther of his Sacred Majestie threw out the Major Party of their Fellow-Members which interposed to save him and 't is in their behalfs this pittifull half-witted Pamphleter engages Should these Gentlemen sit till they found a Free Parliament their Friends they 'd hardly Rise betwixt This and the Day of Iudgment and that 's all they desire Alas a Trifle The care they take of our Religion and Civill Rights in truth is a great favour from them that never understood their Own If the more sober conscientious Persons at the Helm think not fit to dissolve so soon the IONASSES however must be thrown over-board to save the Vessel He that dissents let him produce his Reasons and in Particulars but shew what Good they 've either Done or Meant us to Ballance the Calamities they have ingaged us in I should be Glad to see these Men Repent Hardly to see them Govern These Folks are Ruined if they doe not Rule the Nation if they doe The Question then is but Whether is more prudential by saving of some half a score Secluders that We should Perish or by their SPEEDY DISSOLUTION that we should save our selves A Free Course of Successe against the Rump had put the People upon a Iollier Pin Their Humour was quite chang'd They thought the Danger Over and it was now become a Thing Unseasonable to be Serious Accounting it expedient however through all Forms to Follow them and Fool for Company I was content to play the Mimique as you may see in that which follows Entit'led No Fool to the Old Fool HEark ye my Masters for one half quarter of an hour now let 's be as Wise as Woodcocks and talk a little Treason Why should not We thrive in the World as well as our Neighbours Had not other people Heads and Souls to lose as well as We If men will be Damn'd they had better Damn Rich than Poor as Bradshaw and the Attorney General Damn'd Believe me three or fourscore thousand pound is a convenient Plaster for a Broken Head there 's something to bear Charges yet Beside There 's Power and Plenty They Cousen whom they please Hang and Draw at Will they keep their Lacquays and their Whores and at the last they go to Hell in Triumph They have their Blacks Elegies and leave the State to pay the Draper and the Poet T would make a man be-pisse himself to see the soft and tender-hearted Needham weeping like Niobe till he turns Stone over the Tomb of Bradshaw to see him Cry with one Eye and laugh with the other and yet the Tragicomical Puppy keep his Countenance The Tears of such a Saint cannot but fall like Drops of Lambeth Ale upon the Tongue of Dives how great a Consolation was it think ye to the late Protector to finde himself placed at the right hand of God by Sterry that Blasphemous bold Phanatique of whose Condition Charity it self can scarce admit a comfortable thought For after a long Course Of Treason Murther Sacrilege Perjury Rapine c. he finish'd his accursed Life in Agony and Fury and without any mark of true Repentance You 'll say he was the Braver Villain for 't Crimes of this large Extent have indeed something that 's Masculine to allay them But to be Damn'd for Sneaking To purchase Hell at the price of all that is pleasant Here to contract Sin and Beggery in the same Act and Moment This is the most Imprudent and Ridiculous wickednesse that may be He that Indents with the Devil has a merry Bargain compar'd with Us There 's Time and Pleasure Here the Vengeance treads upon the Heels of the Offence and the Punishment of our Misdoings is the next immediate Effect of them In Paying Taxes to an Usurped Power There 's a Defection from the Right and a Complyance with the Wrong which renders us doubly Criminal and in this case we do but Buy our Chains and the next Consequent of our Disobedience is Slavery It comes all to a Point in what concerns Subjection to Unlawfull Powers Under a Force is a Brutish Argument Vice is the Obliquity of the Will That 's Free The same Plea lies in the Case of Martyrdom and by the same Rule we may renounce our Maker If Wicked we 're Resolv'd to be Le ts go a nobler way to work let 's get a matter of Half a Dozen Crafty Knaves together take in some Thirty or Forty silly Rascals into the Gang and call our selves a Parliament Why Gentlemen This is no impossible thing Our Title is as good as Theirs that ha' done the same thing before us but then be sure of the Proportion Seven parts of Eight must have neither Wit nor Honesty yet Look as wise as Iudges and in the very middle of their Pater-Nosters pick their Neighbours pockets These are to be directed by the Rooks and by them Both the Nation which would be over-stocked with Cheats were any more admitted into the Grand Conspiracy against the People To Personall abuses the rest are likewise Qualified They may Imprison When Where and Whom they please without Cause shewed their Will is a sufficient Warrant for the Well-affected In fine they are the Peoples voice and That 's the voice of Heaven Why now should we despair of the same Events from the same Means considering what a Drowsie Patient and Phlegmatick people we have to deal with Shall's Fool a Little Le ts Vote down Magna Charta and the Petition of Right Settle a Preaching Militia and a Fighting Ministry Out with our Whinyards and off with the Names instead of the Heads of the Kings Tryers as Okey did upon the Change Take away Monk's Commission Petition the Souldiery to Petition Us to declare our selves Perpetual Bind up the Nation under Limitations for the next Session and exclude all but our own party from the Choise No matter for the Law or Conscience
of the business ARTICLES OF SURRENDER and Publick ACTS of INDEMNITY amount to nothing OATHS and COVENANTS are but occasionall Submissions to Conveniency not Binding any man that in the very act of Taking them resolves to Break them Let things come to the Worst when we have Overturned the Government Polluted the very Altar with our MASTERS BLOOD Cheated the Publick c. 'T is but to Whine and Snivel to the People tell them we were mis-led by Cardinall Appetites cloath all our Rogueries in Scripture-Phrase Humble our selves before the Lord But not a Sillable concerning Restitution and they 'l Forgive us Nay perhaps Trust us too Think us their Friends For doing them no more than all the Harme we could 'T is a good natur'd sort of Beast the Common-People if it be Pleased and 't is the Easiest thing in nature for Fools and Knaves to Please it They have not been gull'd half long enough yet what will you say now to a New-Parliament made of an Old one As Ther 's no Fool to the Old one so there 's no Knave to the Old one What do ye think of your Episcopal Cole-marchant Sir Arthur for Durham and let him bring in his Fellow-Labourer Sir Harry Vane for Newcastle In the City of London you cannot choose amiss provided that Ireton or Titchburn be One and that he choose his Fellows For Kent no Man like Sir Michael Livesy For Norfolk there 's Miles Corbet and if the House does not like him they may send him to the Red-Bull for he personates a Fool or a Devill without the Charge either of a Habit or a Vizor If the Nation be so Charitably disposed as to erect an Hospitall in favour of the Lame the Rotten and the Blind let 'um take in Limping Luke Robinson Rheumatique Mounson Bobtail'd Scot and the Blinking Cobler But why do I pretend to direct in Particular Among the Kings Tryers Excise-men Sequestrators Close-Committee-men Major-Generalls Buyers and Sellers of the Crown and Church-lands c. they may wink and chuse Alas they 're all Converted I 'm sure he 's Right cryes one he Told me so Dull Sotts let Us be Right our Selves and then what need we care who 's Wrong I 'll put a Case to you suppose upon the Dissolution of this Session six or seven thousand of the Phanatique Souldjery that knowes a Settlement destroyes their Trade should try a Blow for 't yet and by the help of some of their Confederates yet in appearance of Authority should put a Force upon the Honest Party 'T is but to suppose what many of that Gang are bold enough in Publique to declare I have a Phansy you 'l look on still and betake your selves to your Old senseless Plea They have the Power Which if you do No no you cannot be so Tame and witlesse ☞ Be carefull whom you Trust either in your Militia or Counsels Chuse Persons of Estates Honestly gotten Such whom the Law Preserves will Preserve the Law Whereas If you chuse such as have an interest of their Own that th'warts the Publique you 're yery Charitable to believe that those people who all this while have Cheate You to benefit them Selves should at the last adventure All to preserve You. March 16. 1659. UPon the Dissolution of the House the Phanatick party betook themselves to their wonted Insolence Declaring publickly divers of them that they were not Dissolved Offering to sit again and protesting against the Choice of the next Convention They tamper'd the Army into a Combination and proceeded to that point of Boldnesse that the Common-Counsel found it proper to entreat the Counsel of State and the General to retire into the City during that Interval of Parliament for their greater Security March 19. Observing the Leud Practises of the Faction and desirous to give the world some notice of Particulars in Order to the better Knowledge of them I printed this ensuing Paper THat this Nation hath been long miserable under the power of a violent and Restless Faction is clear to all such as are endued with Memory and Reason nor is it more superfluous to reflect upon their pass'd Miscariages than Necessary to take some notice of their Later Cheats and Insolencies Their Design was to fix themselves in a Perpetual Counsel contrary to Oath and Law and to cut off successive Parliaments To carry on which Project they had Armed all sorts of Libertines throughout the Nation particularly threatning London with Fire and Sword if they should not comply Their barbarous purposes were Disappointed by the General's Re-introduction of the Secluded Members Together with the united rage of the People against them In this hopeless and Deserted condition what they could not effect by open Force they attempted by Treachery and Corruption They used all Art and Diligence during the Session both to gain Opportunities and to Emprove them but being over-voted in the Main They fell upon a more direct and shameless method of Villany They falsified the Lists of the Militia sollicited Petitions from the City for their Continuance Iuggled the Army-Officers into a Tumult Employed their Instruments to Destroy the General Mutinyed the Army and the City and Finally they engaged a great part of the Souldjery to Remonstrate against the rest of the Nation But all too little to prevent their Dissolution or to Disturb our Hopes of Settlement The General hath approved himself in the calm steady menage of this wild Affair a Person worthy of all the Honour we can give him These Brutish Libertines finding all their Plots Bubbled their Mines vented their Party Weak and Heartless themselves Friendless Abroad and Comfortless at Home as Guilty and as Desperate as Cain after the sad despair of any the least Benefit to themselves they are yet pleased in the Contrivance of our Mischief They 're not Dissolved they tell us and attempt to meet again That 's in vain and now they come to their last shifts These Senselesse Cox-combs offer the Honest Generall the Instrument of Government as if that Noble Generous Soul were to be wrought upon to prostitute his Honour and his safety and all this to preserve a Kennel of such Reprobated and Ridiculous Puppies I wonder seriously how these Pimps and Knights o' th Post Scot and his Fellows scape the fury of the People That Rabbet-sucking Rascall with his Fellow Cheats and Pandars these are the Youths Gentlemen that offer you like Doggs to any Master that will bestow the Haltering of you For shame bethink your selves To be as short as possible thus farr you're safe but yet these Tumblers have not shew'd all their Tricks their last Recourse is to the Forgery of Letters but so ridiculously framed they are rather argument of Sport than Anger for the Brewer is much better at a Cheat than at a Stratagem There are diverse Scandalous Papers dispersed in the Name of the King and as the sense of the Royall Party You shall do well to take notice that nothing of that
Reason but still it is the Monarch's part to Act according to his own without that Freedom the Prince is bound to Act in many Cases against his Conscience and his Assistants are become his Governours Not to insist upon the Gentleman's mistake in asserting All things to be done in conjunction with his Counsell This is too evident to need a refutation He spends his two next Pages in dilating upon the Desire of absolute Power in the Monarch and the Reserves or acquisitions of the People were he dashes the Kings Prerogative and the Privileges of Parliament the One against the Other Whereas the King hath some Prerogatives without a Parliament but the Parliament hath not so much as any Being without the King he being an essentiall of it To pass over his False-fires I shall come now to his main strength And thus it runs The Monarch cannot Rationally be thought to have other Business or Study than to confirm and establish the Monarchy to himself pag. 5. To this First Hee 's Entitled to the Government That pro concesso Next hee 's Entrusted in Order to the Publique Welfare to Uphold it and That not only in the Form but to Himself 'T were to Betray his Trust should he do less As to the appetite of Rule which as our Popular Champion will have it transports the Monarch into a dangerous elevation above the People That Restless Impotency is much more Hazzardous in any other Government than in that of Monarchy For the Monarch's upper-most already and rationally Ambition seeks rather to Raise it self above all others than when 't is at that Height still to exceed it self 'T is but a glorious envy which aspires till it be highest and there determines As there is less temptation from without so must the inclination be much calmer Greatness is native and familiar to the Monarch or in case any eagerness of Spirit should enflame him It spends it self upon his Neighbours liberties rather than upon his Peoples and 't is extent of Empire abroad not enlargement of Prerogative at home he covets This is not to exempt the Person of a Prince from the frailties of a Man he may be vitious But that too with less mischief to the publique than to Himself He ha's no private aims but what proceed from Principles nearer ally'd to Kindness then to Malice Now to examine the likely Incidences to popular Government and to proceed upon his Postulatum That in all men there 's an inbred appetency of Power That granted what can we expect from Persons of mean Fortunes and extraction invested with a title to Dominion but Bondage and Oppression The short is there are many men earnestly intent upon the same end spurr'd on by keen and craving Desires to make themselves Rich Great and these design to raise their Fortunes and Reputations upon the publick stock of blood and treasure At last when they have skrewed themselves up to that pitch of Power by force and craft where divine providence by birth had placed the single Person when after a sharp long and chargeable contest they have brought us within view but of the counterfeit of what we quietly enjoy'd before Ready to seize the sum of their own wishes and the dear-purchas'd Fruit of all their Labours they find that point which supports Soveraignty too narrow for them all too large for any one of them and as they climbed together so they fall crush'd by those Hands and Principles that rais'd them We need not look far Back for instances What ha's obstructed our long look'd-for Settlement but Competitours for a personal rule even among the Salus-populi-men themselves 'T is nobler at the worst to yield our selves to prey to a single Lyon than to a Herd of Wolves and that 's the Difference upon experiment betwixt the tyranny of One and of a Hundred old Oliver and the Rump Methinks 't is a strange Confidence to Argue for a Cause confuted by the loss so many Lives and Millions For these twelve years last past we have been Slaves to Tyrants Divided in design to supplant one another but still United to destroy the Nation under the gay amusement of a Free-state But I grow tedious The next thing I take notice of is very remarkable i. e. Our Author 's in the right he sayes that From the Soveraignty there lies no appeal But then he follows that where a People will be ruled by a King they must give that King absolute power to Govern pag. 6. No need of that sure neither the Soveraignty is in the King tho' in a Limited Monarchy which so attemper'd as that the People may not Rule in any Case nor the King singly by himself in All secures all Interests I must fix one note here before I pass Although our Author tellsus pag. 7. that Absolute Monarchy is unlawful Regulated Dangerous nevertheless he rather advises the former than the latter That which he terms Disconsonant to the Laws of God than the Other which he pronounces only Dangerous as related to the civill Good and Utillity of the People This is the Method of the whole party they decry first the Form it self as being too Tyrannical yet they condemn the Limited of Insufficience as to the Exercise of Government and the absolute of Exorbitancy as to the End of it One has too much Liberty the Other too Little What is 't they offer in Exchange a Free-State Of a Model ten times more Arbitrary and Pernicious When they have spent their Powder upon the Government for 't is but Powder their Shot is still directed to the Person Hinc illae Lachrymae How have they courted the Generall whose Honesty is as Invincible as his Courage to Accept of what these Paper-Kites so much disclaim against Our Grave Philosophising Mounsieur he makes one too and tells us that Providence hath cast the Lot upon the Peoples side and the Monarch has lost if the People will exclude him Alas Good man the Congregation 's Holy everyone of them Pretious Beagles to ascribe that to Providence which they owe to Perjury and Sacriledge Where 's your Prescription Where 's your Title Enform the People by what power they are absolved from all their tyes of Conscience Honour Thankfulness and Piety Shew them the Laws their Fathers purchased with their Bloods Preach to them out of Magna Charta There 's the Foundation of the Peoples Freedoms But Sir I ask you pardon The Kings a Woolf you say and all the abjuring Saints are Lambs I warrant ye But by your leave once more you are absolutely of Opinion then not to admit the King by any manner of means Indeed you should do well not to Anticipate the Parliament it spoyles the project to play the Tyrant while you argue for the People Pray let the King come in if the next Parliament pleases I must be now a little serious for your next Paragraph has a spice of Conscience in 't the Word I mean you will perswade the
World that if the King comes in 't is neither Faith nor Honour nor Humanity nor all together can tye up his Revenge It would become you to tell the People where ere he brake his Faith Nay Ill content my self if you ll but shew me where ever your Phanatiques Kept an Oath or Promise if they might gain the least by Breaking of it The Conversation of the Person you inveigh against is beyound all Exception Honourable and t is in vain to mis-enform against an evident and contrary assurance Many of those very men that fought against him will witness for him both for his Courage and his Clemency His Prudence and his Piety are manifest in This that in despight of all Distresses and Temptations he stands Firm to his Temper and to his Conscience A Better Friend there lives not nor a Better Nature And this is Heat last our Guilty Pamphletter bestows his Gall upon I am no stickler for Prerogative my Patience will hold out till the next Session but to see Majesty invaded by a private Hand the People Poyson'd by the same instruments that destroyed the Prince all I can say is we are tame Fools to suffer it But though his passion may be Troublesome our Author gives us some Diversion in his Argument and Kinder still he proves best Company at last Kingly Government if not absolute he sayes is Lame if Absolute Destructive to the People Very good Help the Defect if that be all of the One or at least do not impose upon us in another shape the possible Mischiefs of the Other pray what 's the Difference as to our Security the Supreme Authority under a Popular Form or the same power under a Monarchique You 'll have your Popular Assembly the Iudge Unquestionable of all Expediences and Dangers why not a Single Person as well You say He may abuse that power and I say so may They For instance suppose they judge it fit to change the very Form what Hinders them or if they rather chuse to entayl the Government upon their own Families and to perpetuate themselves what Remedy If any they 're not Absolute if none we are worse Here than Before The King cannot Betray the Peoples Trust these may What signifies your telling us that the King absolute is not bound to the Laws he shall make pag. 9. And by and by that contrary to the Monarchy this meaning Democracy makes not any one Law to which every individuall person in the Assembly is not subject the whole Assembly indeed as it is the Soveraign power is unquestionable you say 'T is not the Persons but the Power we are to consider Conjunctim they 're as little subject as the single Tyrant and possibly they 'll ne're dis-joyn they that can make what Lawes they please will doubtlesse make this one of the number that their own Members shall be only tryable by their Peers and by that device they make themselves both Parties and Iudges To grant more then is needfull be it that in a State of Quiet and Universal liberty such a Form might be admitted as our Contriver thrusts upon us but to attempt to force a Government that excludes nineteen parts of twenty of the people from the exercise of it and this upon a Nation pre-engaged by Oath and by a sad experience interessed against it How practicable or how prudent such a proposal may appear to others I cannot say To me it wears the Face of a Design promoted by a Factious guilty Party to sacrifice the Nation to their private interests and despayres And yet such is the charity of our Author he reckons all the miscarriages of these late years in Government but as foul way upon a Iourney and bids us not conclude against our Inne at Night because the passage was dirty This is according to his wonted tenderness Now to my Phansy it looks rather thus We have been hitherto mis-led our very Guides have robb'd us and yet they bid us follow them still they 'll bring us to Paradise at last Whither they 'll carry us we know not we are in the Bryars at present we know the way home again what have we then to do but to return Our Authors little Reasonings concerning Trade are triviall I shall refer him to the Merchants for his Answer They are the fittest Iudges in the Case They have try'd war and peace Monarchy and Popular Government let them say which they like best His Pen begins to run a little muddy and what I do not understand I 'm not oblig'd to answer Something he talks of Peace abroad and of the motives to it which he pronounces to be Advantage and no Body denyes it This does not hinder because the Reasons of the Peace betwixt the Crowns of France and Spain might properly result from a Particular Conveniency of State betwixt them that therefore the effects of that Agreement cannot referr to Us They 're more at Leisure now nay there 's a high necessity incumbent upon them to send abroad those Forces which otherwise would be both Expensive and Dangerous at Home Not to presse other arguments of themselves obvious to hasten our Composure even for that very Cause that they 're Agreed I presume not to direct as our Imperious Commonwealths-man does but as one Private Person I pretend to Reason the Opinions of another submitting still my Iudgement to any Legal determination or Rational Conviction Touching the King of Spains Design to Propagate the Romish Religion Ibid. we 're the securer for that very design if we unite upon the Basis of the English Law The meer Antiperistasis preserves us whereas If we compell that Person who by Divine Assignment and Civil right is our undoubted Soveraign to employ Forreign Succours to recover his Dominions It may be feared and 't is but Reason that Spain will Article for some concessions in favour of the Catholicks more then otherwise would possibly be granted to them where the Fault lies in case of this extremity let the People Iudge Blesse us what a Fit of Piety has taken our Friend now of a suddain He calls in the Ministers for his Compurgators and desires them to declare what Government Hee 'l feed their Flocks in the mean while Indeed these Pulpit-Politiques are not amisse The Priests shall tell us what Government fits their Reformation Pray Sir let me help you out a Gloss upon the Covenant does your Business 't is but to tell the people that in the Holy Tongue KING signifies COMMON-WEALTH and the work is done The Gentleman begins now to Fumble and Talke Idle and in effect he 's drawing home But first he recommends the Nurcery and Education of his Brat-project even unto any Kinde and Powerfull hand that will promote it From hence he passes into a Quaint Resemblance of the state of the Nation to a man in a feavour and the People in Gross to a Restive Horse with a Galled Back and so committing the issue to the Lord the man
that spilt his Blood with Pleasure Nor does the Brutish Rebel only quit the Man in point of Tenderness his rage against the Royall Line disturbs his Reason too otherwise smooth enough to delude such as are not very well aware of him Whether it be the Agony and Horrour of a Wounded Soul which thus transports him or that in these excesses he only Personates the last Convulsions of a Heart-broken Faction It matters not Thus much we may collect from his distempers That Rabble is at this instant upon a Combination to Tumultuate the Army and the People and such as will not share the Guilt of their Conspiracy they labour to engage within the Reach and Danger of it That we may better understand what they Design wee 'll see a little what they Say This Phamphlet speaks the sence of the whole Gang and throughly Examined will discover the frame and the extent of of their lewd Purposes I look upon 't as an Affront to Christianity and to Reasonable Nature so scandalous I vow to God in Favour meerly of Humanity I would suppresse it were no more Copies extant of it but 't is too late for that The Countreys are already furnished and the Town yet full of them the singular and carely care of the Publick Magistrate to hinder it notwithstanding so that it rests now only to lay open the vile interests of this bloody Faction and Antidote the People against the danger of their Pestilent Infusions Let Time produce the Author if it be lawfull to Prophane the Light with such a Monster The Matter only of this Licentious Paper must be my Subject IF we must never be quiet til these People think themselves Safe we must stay till divine Justice is dissolved till they believe the word and Power of God a Fable till they can Lay that Devil Conscience and Blot out of the Table of their Memories all their Presumptuous outrages both against Heaven and Earth till they can Quench those raging Horrours that Exagitate their Souls Remove those hideous Fantomes that whereso'ere they fly pursue them with the images of those that they have murther'd Bleeding afresh and when they think to Turn away their Looks from the Dire object to the other side they meet with a Remembrancer that mindes them of their Sacrilege and Treason and then they start again another way and there they meet with a Sword drawn to revenge their Perjuries In fine their Injuries are of a large extent and such by consequence must be their fears while they persist in their Impenitence In this distresse rather of Thought than Danger of Terrour from within rather than Violence without They do well to implore the Generals help to save their Lives that would have taken His especially obliging him in Surplus with this additional respect That they have made him Free of the Phanatiques Embarqued him in the same Bottom with themselves and Finally Involved the Honour and the Saver of his Countrey in common with the Blemish and the Pest of all mankinde Say MILTON NEDHAM either or both of you or whosoever else Say where this Worthy Person ever mixt with you That is You or those that Employ you and allow you wages more then in order to those very purposes to which he still adheres and from whence you recede The returne of that Family which Pretends as this Tumbler phrases it to Govern us nor was nor is the Question The publick interest that he fought for and you swore to was the Preserving of our BIRTH-RIGHTS the good old LAWS his MAJESTIES LEGAL AUTHORITY the PRIVILEDGES of PARLIAMENT c. Read the Old Declarations not to maintain a Canting Faction in the Army a Py-bald Ministry or which amounts to all the Residence the Errata's of an Honest Parliament Again to comply fairly with an Universall Votes That does our Scribler call forgetting of a publique Interest and keeping of the Covenant or an Oath is with him lulling of a Man's conscience asleep A desire to be well again after a Cursed fit of the Spleen and ply'd with steel too of well-nigh Twenty years continuance our Demy-Levite terms it a Hankering after our old Leeks and Onions For that Every man as he likes you 're for a Rump it maybe I 'm for somewhat else Believe me I had rather Live poor and Honest than Hang Rich and Treacherous then give my self a turn in one of the King's old Houses But De Gustibus non est Disputandum I 'm sorry my first Page is Printed I shall be thought a Fool now for suspecting our Plain-English-man of Wit Something there 's in his vein like bottle Ale Stir it It Tumults Sputters and at last it spends it self in Foam but Nourishment or Comfort there 's none in 't The Fellows Jadish Dull out of his Beaten and Known Rode but when he comes to rail against the King he 's in his Element There he 's a Thorough-pac'd Egregious villain and yet a Stumbler but a false step or two may be allowed him This Formal Devil how great an honour does he to the Royall Family in his reviling of it The Injuries and Oppressions it has done to Church and People trouble him sore The Blotting out of EXITTYRANNUS sticks in his stomach too but though the Statues gone the story shall stand firm there lyes his Consolation Audacious Brute the Blot and the Deformity of Humane Race During the Warr the Nation lay opprest under the Common fate of an Intestine Broyl The Quarrel was disputed both with Pens and weapons doubtfully as to the Vulgar among the wiser sort some steer'd their course by Interest or Passion others resign'd themselves abstracted from all other thoughts to what they reckoned Piety and reason Thus far the Burthen seems divided After this the King is made a Prisoner and his Party sunk now I Demand Who has oppress'd us since but those that Swore till then they fought to save us If we look back beyond the Warr our Mischief there was that we were better fed than taught We were Rich Wanton and Rebellious But I begin to waver in my undertaking I find I have a Wolf to deal with not a Man That preys upon the Dead A Devil whose Business is to break the Bonds of Unity and Order and to Calumniate Vertue Nor does it serve him the bare Murther of his Master as it does other beasts of Rapine that leave the Carkasse when they have sucked the Blood This wretch must descant and Rhetoricate upon his Ashes with an Audacious Petulancy Make Providence it self a Complicate and with a Comique sawcyness Place or Displace in Heaven or Hell as his Luxuriant Humour pleases BRADSHAW these Villains rank among the Heroes and he deserves a Saints place in their Kalender a man of whom we dare not barely hope well so enormous was his life and so Conform his Obstination in that lewdness to his Death Whereas that glorious Creature that Dyed the object of this Monsters insolence and Rage that
innocently suffered what that Pageant-President as vilely acted that with a Primitive patience Piety Constancy and Resignation endured the scornes the injuries and persecutions of his own Subjects and at the the last received his Death from their very hands in whose behalf he Dyed This Saint and Martyr BOTH beyond Controversie so far as we can Judge is by our Charitable intelligencer Enroll'd in the Black List Charged with Indevotion and Intemperance so as was our Saviour a Wine-bibber a haunter too of Publicans and Sinners to whose Inimitable example I speak with Reverence to God and Truth both in his life and suffering I do believe the story of our Late Soveraign bears the nearest proportion of all others But t is amid their Bon-fires and their Tipple this Miscreant tells us that he 's Canonized and that his Majesty commanded Drinking as a Sunday exercise The World that knew the King knows this to be a Lye but t is our Mercuries Trade 't is his Diana to amplyfie a little for the Publique good 't is true there were some Liberties upon the Sabbath which being mis-employed were counter-manded How does this scandall both of Providence and Society scape Thunder or a Dagger We shall now have the story of our King and Saint he sayes and to usher in the erection of his Statue his Picture first drawn by the PARLIAMENT in 1647. as our libellous Pamphletter would perswade us when the Vote passed both by Lords and Commons concerning Non-Addresses I should be tedious to reply upon every particular in the Declaration he talks of But as to what concerns the needfull and the proper Vindication of his Majesty together with those worthy Members whom this seditious Rump-whelp labours to involve in the same desperate and exorbitant proceedings with his ungracious Masters In what concerns I say their Vindication I shall be clear and punctuall leaving the Judgment of the Controversy to the Impartial Reader WE revive this the rather sayes he because the memory of Men being frail cannot retain all particulars which is the reason we fear why so many formerly engaged against him as high as any upon conscientious accompts both Religious and Civill are staggering and backsliding and have need of some quick and faithfull Monitor to mind them of things past and make them beware of the present lest they return with the Rout and cry Let us make our selves a King again of that Family that Family which so cruelly persecuted us and our Brethren and which still remains engaged by reason of State and ancient Principles of Enmity and Interest to plow up the old Furrows upon our backs and re-deliver our persons and consciences into the hands of our old Tormenters and our Men of might and our Counsellours to become sacrifices to the revenge of an implacable party March on then my Lord and Gentlemen for believe it there is in point of Safety no possibility of retreat and much less in point of Conscience or Honor For if you respect Conscience as we hope you do lay your hands upon your hearts and tell us what hope you or we can have that the reformed Religion and Cause will be protected and maintained by the Son which was so irreligiously betrayed both at home and abroad by the Father It may be you do not readily remember these things nor how much blood was spilt by royal treachery nor the manifold usurpations and designs by him projected and acted upon our liberty the like never done by any Prince before and for Blood the Scotish Ministers employed hither Anno 1644. proclaimed and published in Print That the Late King had spilt more blood than was shed in the ten Heathen Persecutions of the Christians and the Ministers of London as we can shew you by severall Prints of theirs declar'd That satisfaction ought to be had for blood that he was a Man of blood and not capable of accomodation with the Parliament We mention not this to upbraid them for we reverence their antient Zeal in this particular and humbly entreat them as well as your Excellency and the Officers and all the good people of these Nations to observe the forementioned Resolves of the Lords and Commons which were introductory to that most noble Act of Iustice afterwards executed upon the King And that it may appear to be such in despight of Ignorance and envy we have been bold here to present you in Print that most remarkable Declaration of the Commons assembled in Parliament in pursuance of the said Resolve of both Houses wherein they declare the Grounds and Reasons why they passed the Resolves of no further Address and therein you will see also how well he deserved to lose his head and his Family the Kingdom whose corrupt and irreconcilable interest had been the head and fountain of those Rivers of blood and misery which had flowed so many years about these Nations TO help the memories of some that may very well forget the things they never thought of and to reproach to others their inconstancy who out of good intent at first engaged and after That convinc'd of their Original mistake upon a better Light relinquished there needs no better Monitor than such a Person whose Guilt and Desperation transport him beyond all hopes of mercy This Man sollicites for his Head when under the pretext of Conscience he labours for a Party and yet methinks he should not need Alas hee 's but the Rump's Sollicitor he pleads their Cause takes their Fee and vanishes Impudent Creature to presume to be afraid as if a Hangman would disgrace himself to meddle with him O'h that Family That Family puzzles our Men of Might as the Droll words it our Counsellors wonderfully Now do I phancy the Fellow this Bout extremely to see the Little Agitatour fall upon his Politiques betwixt flattery and sawcyness Half-Tutor and Half-Parasite with one eye up and t'other down accost the General My Lord and Gentiemen march on the word of Command a Noble Rogue for believe it c. their 's no retreat he tells them either in point of safety conscience or honour and then the Whelp takes another snap at the King as shamelesly as senselesly affirming that the Reformed Religion that is as I suppose he means the Protestant and Cause that is the Peoples Laws and Liberties was irreligiously betrayed by our late Soveraign Who lost his head in defence of one and th' other the Caution he puts in against the Son is of the same allay a Person so indulgent to his People that out of his particular Necessities he yet relieved the English prisoners that were taken in Flanders although his Enemies and in point of Conscience further so tender that he preserves the Church of England in the Dominions of the King of Spain and still his Honour with his Religion But let us a little examine his Instances for he pretends now to proceed to proofs The Scotich Ministers as he tells us proclaimed and published in