THE PARLIAMENTS Proceedings justified in Declining A Personall Treaty WITH THE KING Notwithstanding the ADVICE OF THE SCOTISH COMMISSIONERS to that purpose By HENRY MARTEN Esquire a Member of the Commons House LONDON Printed for John Sweeting at the Angel in Popes-head Alley 1648. The Parliaments proceedings Justified in Declining a Personal treaty with the King To the English Readers Dear fellow Citizens MY late endeavours of this kind were bestowed upon a few Strangers in telling them that the waters were yours and not theirs wherein they went about to fish my present desire from a double engagement I finde upon me one of my own making the other made when I was born is to shew you that you are the fish they went about to catch First in a net which they spread for the whole shoal of you where you were represented being disappointed there they go to it now with paper Angles laying for you man-meal what you may be most apt to bite at according to your severall pallats as they are probably set some to the Court-way some to the Presbyterian or as they are disgusted some with your Honorable drudges and others with your gallant champions These new Peter-men more dangerous to you in point of profit as wel as in point of honour then those that fetch your Herring from off your coasts are the Scotish Commissioners and these four considerations which I have enumerated are the corner stones whereon they build their confidence of perswading some of you that five persons trusted by another Kingdom for quite another purpose should settle your peace should mannage your affaires of Church and State with more advantage to you then that numerous Body that was entrusted by you hath adventured for you must partake with you of all the good or ill their councell shall produce But since it is possible for a stander by to see more then a Player and since we might perhaps hope to find as much faithfulness in Forreiners as we have done treachery in many of our own country-men let us consider in this advice offered unto and rejected by the Parliament not from what hand it comes but upon what foot it stands The particulars insisted on are these First before the primum quaerite and with more earnestness then the unum necessarium That there be a treaty upon all the Propositions and that a personal one that for that end the King be invited to come to London with honor freedom safety as the most equal fairest and just way to obtain a well grounded Peace The most equal How like Umpires they speak not like Councellers or as if they had entered into a Covenant with the King as well as with us whereas I thought it had been their part to have managed the Agreement with the common enemy to the most advantage of their confederates and not as persons indifferent whether the Hounds catch the Hare or the Hare deceive the Hounds I have not skil enough to distinguish such Ambodexters from detestable Neuters Secondly The fairest What is that the smoothest easiest way why every fool can tell you that the easiest way to Peace is by leting your enemy do what he list and so they would have it on this side Tweed and so they would say but for shame Therefore the fairest way of couzening you is not by surrendering up your Liberties all at once but by suffring you to be formally disputed out of every one of them and by drawing on your shackles link by link Thirdly Peace is then in a just way when the disturbers thereof are so suppressed as the disturbed cannot or need not fear a new disturbance from them Neque enim ad Pacem via rectior ulla est Quam belli Authores Marte Perire suo Where they say the King should be invited to London they mean admited for He hath invited Himself But why to London His houses as He calls them sit at Westminster White-Hall is in Middlesex unless they can confide more in Colonel Titchbourn then in Colonel Hammond Then he is to be received with honor freedom and safety What honor He is capable of that shall come with a Pass like an enemy where he might have staid with the dignity of a King I know not but I beleeve if ever the Parliamenr did Him any wrong it was with giving Him after the desertion of His Trust the same respect which is usually rendered unto the Kingly Office when duly administred As for safety the Parliament should not do it Self honor if whosoever they please to send for upon a Treaty might not come and go with all the safety in the world As for freedom though I confess the consideration of restraint doth very much invalidate the credit of a grant made by a person restrained yet since a Prisoner may be as voluntary an Agent in many things as an other and since Liberty it self is as valuable to Him as any thing that can be received from Him especially considering the danger of His being loose I see no reason why we should so easily give Him His freedom who hath made us pay so dear for ours But now come their Reasons Argu. I. The sending of Propositions without a Treaty hath bin often without success and the new Propositions are less to the advantage of the Crown then the former and so no reason to expect better satisfaction then formerly we had Ans This is a two-edged Argument and therefore if it should be beaten down to the Fencers pate he might be hurt with either side of his own weapon for do they not confess that if the new Propositions were as much or more advantagious to the Crown then the former a treaty might be dispenced withal and yet better satisfaction expected then formerly we had Again Doth it not intimate that if we admit Him to a Treaty He needs not greatly care what out Propositions be There is a little mistake too in matter of fact for Propositions have been sent as well with a Treaty as without and still returned with the same success unless by Treaty they mean a Personal one and that indeed we have not yet been so inconsiderate as to venter upon Therefore say these Councelors do it now which Reason stands good to justifie what we in the Votes of January lately resolved far otherwise then they advised us Thus addresses and applications to the King by Propositions with treaty and without when He was in a considerable condition for strength and when he was not have been often assayed without success therefore we will make no more addresses nor applications unto Him Arg. 2. The Kings removal from His Parliament is acknowledged by the Houses in several Declarations to be the chief cause of all the war mischief and calamities of the Kingdoms then His Majesties presence with his Parliament must be the best if not the onely remedy to remove our troubles Answ In their first Argument they mentioned Treaty and left out
have beene foyled in 7. Argument Arg. 7. Which the Commissioners call a farther Answer to their owne Objection is indeed a seventh Reason newly thought on and borrowed our of the Parliaments Reply to the Kings Message of the 11. of Sept. 42. All this notwithstanding as we never gave your Majesty any just cause of with drawing your self from your great counsell so it hath ever been and shall be far from us to give any impediment to your Return or to neglect any proper means of curing the distempers of the Kingdomes and closing the dangerous breaches betwixt your Majestie and your Parliament according to the great trust which lies upon us and if your Majestie shall now be pleased to come back to your Parliament without your forces we shall be ready to secure your Royall Crown and dignity with our lives and fortunes your presence in this great counsell being the only meanes of any Treaty betwixt your Majesty and them with hope of successe Answer An. All this cannot relate to all that which hath beene done since September 42. he that saith if you shall now be pleased doth not tell you at what time soever you shal be pleased he that offers you fair termes if you come without your forces would be thought to imagin you have forces to come with One while the Reasons of our former Delarat go for nothing because the Kings condition and Ours are quite altered from what they were then another while and that within foure or five lines we must be held to our old refused offers notwithstanding any alteration of affaires 8. Argument 8. Arg. If they were esteemed enemies to the Parliament and the peace of the kingdome who advised the King to withdraw from his Parliament what estimation will the world have of them scil the Parliament who after such a Declaration will not suffer him to returne to his Parliament when he offers to cast himselfe into their armes Answer Ans This whole Island I meane the highest authority therein did justly esteem them enemies to the Parliament and the Peace of the kingdomes that advised the King to withdraw from the Parliament but since he hath followed that advice hath fought against them hath despised all overtures of reconciliation with them the knowing part of the world will esteeme them no lesse enemies that shall for base and sinister ends advise the Parliament to receive him and shall injuriously asperse the Parliament for declining that advice especially considering how falsely it is affirmed that he cast himselfe into Our armes The fact standing thus when Our armes had made his Head-quarters too hot for him he cast himselfe into the Scottish Army and they like men of honour understanding by how they were entertained delivered up into Our hands all the strengths and priosoners among whom he was one that had come to theirs in England 9. Argument Arg. 9. If so kinde an offer shall be refused and the King driven to dispaire it is to be feared these Kingdomes shall be involved into greater difficulties then ever Answer I will admit for once that the King hath yet some good thing to offer and some goodnesse of will to offer it unto the Parliament Do they not deale hardly with Us who will not suffer us to refuse a kindnesse to say no we thank him without beckning him into dispaire and threatning Us with an involution of such difficulties as never were nor as is to be hoped will be And therefore I do hold that as Pharaoh was then most kinde to the Israelites when he slighted all their poore addresses so the Lord was then their compleate deliverer when he shut out all communication with their oppressors by drawing off a Sea betwixt them FINIS
Personal so in this they speak for a personal presence not caring whether there be a Treaty or no so they can bring Him in upon us But weigh their Reason First they quote our own Declarations in such places as themselves do not beleeve the truth of For I would ask them if His absence from the Parliament of England be so pernicious here why is not His absence from the Parliament of Scotland as formidable to that Kingdom Why do they not imploy all this earnestness in procuring to themselves the blessing of His company Then allowing it true against us who affirmed it the consequence thereof will hang thus My groom being drunk and falling asleep with a candle by him hath set my stable on fire and burnt it down to the ground therefore his awaking and coming to himself will set it up again Because Agag by drawing his sword had made many women childeless it seemed to be Sauls opinion That the putting up his sword again would restore the children to their mothers But the ways of God were more equal in that case where by the way you shall observe two remarkable Acts of retaliating justice One of the Kings had his thirst after mans blood quenched with his own and the other for thinking that Laws did not extend to the punishing of Kings was himself punished with being unkinged Argu. 3. In a Personal Treaty the Commissioners of both Kingdoms may give Reasons for the Equity and Expediency of our desires but without a Treaty or giving Reasons for asserting the lawfulness and expediency of the Propositions to be presented they may be esteemed Impositions Answ Here they would make you beleeve that if there were a Treaty they would joyn with your Commissioners in pleading your Cause against the King and all the while they are telling you so do joyn with Him in pleading for a Personal treaty against your Commissioners in Parliament But admit they would be true to their trust and would remember on which side they were first retained What kinde of Reasons be they that enemies use to shew one another in their treaties One party saith such and such things we will have or the war shall go on and the other such and such things you shall accept or do your worst and if there happen any communication besides of it is concerning the advantages or disadvantages standing out the probability or desperateness of relief but our shewing the King how expedient the things we ask him would be for us is a sure way to be denied how expedient for Him as sure a way to be laughed at Our Propositions might indeed be more properly termed of Grace then Peace because we give Him therein the honor of granting what we are able to give our selves without Him Propositions though and not Impositions because we leave it in His power to deprive Himself of that Honor without forcing Him to take His Office up again and yet I beleeve if the chance of War had turned the Dy on his side as it did on ours we should have had Impositions from Him upon Impositions and of another kinde of nature and so should our dear Brethren too in their turn and that for having made themselves our Brethren I mean the generality of the Nation the Negotiators perhaps and Treators of both Kingdoms might have saved their own stakes well enough Argu. 4. The King may have some just desires to move for the Crown and for Himself as that He may have His Revenue and that He may be restored to His Royal Government which may be done with greater honor and satisfaction unto Him by a Treaty then otherwise Answ As for the Kings being restored to the Crown as well officio as beneficio I thought every body had understood that the Propositions being signed on His part that was the onely thing to have been performed on ours In respect whereunto the things we sent might well be esteemed Suppositions and if the greatest Honor and Satisfaction of the conquered must be aymed at by the Conquerors I dare say both these Considerations would better be complied with by submiting wholly to Him then by treating at all with Him Arg. 5. A personal Treaty with the King is the best way to beget a mutuall confidence between him and his Parliament it is the best way to cleer His doubts and to remove all difficulties and it is the absolute best way to give and receive mutual satisfaction Answ Do you mark how they talk still of mutuallity Of equal giving and receiving As if the Parliament and their Prisoner were upon a Level Besides no treaty can indeed be altogether equal betwixt the King and the peoples Parliament for he deals but for himself and perhaps for some of his own Family or Posterity they for two whole Nations Again the matters to be Treated on concern him in the extent or the Retrenchment of his power to do hurt They concern us in our wel being if not in our being Hic pradam petit not salutem And therefore if the Parliament should not make the best use in your behalf of those advantages which God hath put into their hands they were not only indiscreet for themselves but unfaithfull towards you It is true that the enterview of friends doth use to strengthen friendship but the meeting of enemies is a new way to Reconciliation A confidence I confess it would argue though not in him of us for God Almighty not he hath trusted him with us already yet in us of him but such a one as would be less for our credit then a diffidence unless we could see some change wrought in the affections of him or of his party Arg. 6. We cannot expect that his Majesty wil grant in terminis whatsoever Propositions shall be sent unto him nor can every thing in the Propositions be of that Importance as that the not granting of it ought to hinder the peace neither wil the Houses of Parliament give ful power to thir Commissioners to make alterations in the Propositions as they shall see cause upon debate wherefore a personall Treaty with his Majesty in London is the most probable and expedient way to remove or reconcile all differences Answ Wee had Reason to expect without any plenipotentiary authority delegated unto Commissioners as is used in cases of a doubtfull war That the King should have granted in terminis whatsoever Propositions the Parliament thought fit to send him especially being to be made up into Laws whether he consider us as a free people and therefore fit to give our selves the Law or as his victors and therefore fit to give it him If some few things in the Propositions were of less Importance then the rest could any man have Imagined that rather then he would grant them he should hinder his own Inlargement and his Reception into so fine an office The words at London seem to be foisted in by the Printer for they have no more dependance upon
any one syllable in the half dozen of Reasons then Warwick-Castle hath The way to remove or reconcile al differences betwixt the King us had been worth the shewing before the war began that it might have bin prevented But for the Parliament when after so long serious consideration they had Resolved upon what tearms they would re-admit the King to the Excercise of his function had addressed themselves 6 or 7 times unto him had reduced their desires into 4 particulars whereof one was necessary to our safety some others not to be abated for honors sake and put them into the form of Bils Whereby if he had passed them he had been owned for King again though he should have denyed all the rest to be perswaded to let go their hold to turn all loose again and go to it a now with Syllogisms whether we shal be freemen or slaves to hazard a gained cause upon a treaty I say not a personal one but a Treaty upon all the propositions is a thing which I think the King though he doth desire and press it cannot be so weak as to flatter himself with the hope of ever bringing it about Obj. His presence may breed division and continue our troubles and when his Majesty desired to come hither from Oxford with freedome and safety it was thought unfit and denyed by the Houses and the Commissioners from Scotland Look ye Countreymen the Scottish Commissioners are on our side once again and dispute against the King but how long it will last you shall see Sol. That argument now hath no force at all for the case of affairs the Kings condition and ours which were given for reasons in that answer to his Majesty are quite altered from what they were then Then the King had armies in the field he had garisons and strong holds to return to Now he hath none of these And his Majesty offers a full security against all hostility or danger that can be expected by granting to the Houses the power of the Militia by sea and land during his reign Rep. First A man might tell them that sure the King hath still as many Armies in the field as we have Garrisons as many and strong holds or else his granting or not granting our Propositions for peace could not be so considerable to us as they wou'd make it Secondly what ever they think Sir Thomas Fairfax knows he hath indeed no open force at all and yet the objection hath force enough for the Parliament knowes that there is need of keeping of Sir Thomis Fairfax and the army under his command or else they would not put the Kingdome to the charge of sixtie thousand pounds per moneth they are not ignorant that besides their first enemyes who are rather kept under then brought in there is a daily swarme of discontented persons in all parts some from the unquietnesse of their own disposition some for want of employment some for want of what they earned when they were employed others for pure want some from unsatisfaction in point of Church-government and not a few from a wearinesse of expecting the issue of our Parliaments longanimity towards the common enemy and whether it be their purpose rather to continue us for ever in our distractions then to settle the Common-wealth without him who first diserted it and is to this day set in his heart upon being either an absolute Tyrant over us or no King I leave you now to reckon how strong the presumption is that when such a paire of bellowes shall come to blow the ashes from off the coales that were as I told you raked up but not put out when such a brand shall be brought into the midst of a house full of bituminous matter in every corner thereof we may assure our selves to find our divisions heightned and our troubles renewed But they tell you so grossely as if they did not mean to cozen you you may be fully secured against all the dangers of his comming into the thickest of you by the offer he makes us of treating after he shall be with us concerning the power of our Militia for he declares himselfe plainly that no one particular desired by us shall be understood to be so granted by him as not to be null and void in case the whole be not agreed betwixt us from whence you may gather that either we must not be safe at all or else we must be content with that shadow of safety that is to determine at the latest with his breath in stead of all other things which the Parliament can propose for the present Peace or for the future weal of England or of Ireland and indeed some of his freinds with whom I have occasion to converse will by way of discourse ask me what a Devil We would have besides the strength of the kingdome by Sea and Land let him have that but for a month and he shall ask nothing else I answer them almost in their kinde the prince of the aire whom they mention so often seemes more reasonable in his demands then our heavenly Father for where God requires the whole heart he will accept a little peece whereby he craves in effect no lesse then all since he is sure God will have no partnership with him When a Serpent would obtaine an entrance he needs not capitulate save for his head it is not so with other creatures The power of the Sword is to a Monarch of absolute necessity for the maintenance of his tyrannicall government and that power had need to be alwayes actuated the same in the hands of a Parliament or the representatives of a free Nation is not so much the power of the Sword as of the Buckler and will not be exercised at all but in cases of Rebellion or Invasion if all the quarrell betwixt the Parliament and the King were as is preached in some Pamphlets and libelled in some Sermons which of them should domineer over the people the forenamed offer might perhaps serve their turne and yet I should advise them to consider that if the temptations of the Court either by Sugar-plums or by bug-bears have beene able as by sad frequent experience appeares to deboche so many of the peoples deputies in this very Parliament as if they were altogether in the Commons House againe and could but perswade most of those Moderate Members to joyne with them whose estates during the late warre have lyen in Round-headed quarters might carry what Vote they pleased without much opposition though for the making a Forrest of all England and a God of Nimrod I should advise them I say to consider that the like inference may in short time work upon the Members of the Army and then the Heyfer indeed is Ours that is of our breed and for us to keep but her service will be his to plough his ground for him and bring him home that croppe which all his Bazan-Buls and nobly descended horses