The Hunting of the Foxes, &c.

When we remember our solemn Engagement at Newmarket and Triploe-Heaths, and but therewith consider and compare the strange actings that have been, and still are carried on in the name of the Army (as if upon the accompt of that Engagement) we are even startled at the palpable contrariety and disparity that appeareth betwixt them; for the difference is as great and as wide, as betwixt bondage and freedom: So that it hath put us upon consideration to finde out and discover, where the fault lurketh; and upon serious thoughts, wee cannot impute the declinings of the first Principles of the Army, to the Army it self, but rather to some Persons of private and dangerous interests, usurping and surprising the name of the Army; like as it was said of the 11 impeached Members, concerning the Name and Authority of Parliament, imprinting the face and stampe of that Authority upon their prodigious designs, to the great abuse of the Parliament, as this must needs be of the Army. These, as too many such there be, are Foxes of the deepest kinde, more deceitfull and pernitious than their predecessours; and that such there are, wofull experience puts it out of question: and who they are the print of their footsteps is so evident, that you may trace them from step to step, from hole to hole to their Master Den, where you may finde the whole litter of Foxes in conspiracy, and you may know them by their shapes. Thus then to their footsteps.

When in the times of Stapteton & Hollis, the then faction was aspired to that height of tyranny and insolency, as to overtop the authority and native freedom of the People, threatning generall vassalage to the whole Nation, then the private souldiery (to interpose betwixt the people and their destroiers) drew themselves into that solemn Engagement of June 5. 1647. in the attempting and transaction of which they found no small opposition (as may well be remembred) amongst the Officers; and at that time Cromwell highly dissented, notwithstanding the earnest solicitation and importunity of many friends, til he was forced for fear of imprisonment, to fly to the then engaging souldiery (the day after the first Rendezvous) for refuge, and then Cromwell and Ireton, when they saw no other way to preserve themselves and their interest, engaged in the subversion of that domineering, tyrannical faction, and assuming high offices to themselves, acting as generall Officers, without the election of the soldiery, or Commission from the Parliament, being out by the self-denying Ordinance, and the General having no power to make generall Officers.

And being thus seated, even before they were well warmed in their places, they begin to stomack the sitting of the private souldiers in Councel with them; although it is wel known, that the actions of the Army, moving as an Army, in relation to that Engagement, was, first to be concluded of by a Councell, to consist of those generall Officers (who concurred with the Army in their then just undertakings) with two Commission Officers and two soldiers to be chosen for each Regiment; but a Councell thus modelled, was not sutable to their wonted greatnes and ambition, it was somewhat of scorn to them, that a private soldier (though the Representour of a Regiment) should sit cheek by joll with them, and have with an Officer an equall vote in that Councel: This was a thing savoured too much of the peoples authority and power, and therefore inconsistent with the transaction of their lordly Interest; the title of free Election (the original of all just authorities) must give place to prerogative patent (the root of all exorbitant powers) that Councel must change the derivation of its session, and being from Agreement and election of the souldiery to the patent of the Officers, and none to sit there but commission Officers, like so many patentee Lords in the high Court of Parliament, deriving their title from the will of their General, as the other did theirs, from the will of the King: so that the difference was no other, but in the chang of names: Here was (when at this perfection) as absolute a Monarchy, and as absolute a Prerogative Court over the Army, as Commoners, as ever there was over the Common-wealth, and accordingly this Councel was overswarmed with Colonels, Lieut. Colonels, Majors, Captains, &c. contrary to and beyond the tenour of the Engagement.

Hence followed secret murmurings & whisperings amongst the Prerogative Officers against the session and power of the Agitators, and at length palpable endeavors broke forth to suppress them: & so soon as the Officers had wound up themselvs to a faction, sufficient to overtop them, and finding the privity of the Agitators in their Councels was an impediment to their evil interest and ambition, then it was openly given out, That they stood as souldiers, only to serve the State, and might not as free Commons insist upon their liberty; and that the ground of their refusing to disband, was, only the want of Arrears and Indempnity, which, how contrary to their Engagement, Declarations, Representations, See. Hear, O heavens, and judge, O earth! for doth not their Declaration of Jun. 14. 1647. in their persons thus speak.

“We shall before disbanding proceed in our own and the Kingdoms behalf, &c. especially considering, that we were not a Mercinary Army, hired to serve any Arbitrary power of a state, but called forth and conjured by the several Declarations of Parliament to the defence of our own, & the peoples just Rights & Liberties.” And if of our own, then not to destroy our right of Petitioning, for that is in the number of our own, and so formerly owned by themselves. And further some few lines after they thus proceed.

“The said Declaration stil directing us to the equitable sense of all Laws and Constitutions, as dispensing with the very letter of the same, and being supream to it, when the safety and preservation of all is concerned, and assured us. That all Authority is fundamentally seated in the Office, and but ministerially in the Persons:” And then to confirm and justifie their motion, as Commoners in behalf of the People, they cite the Presidents of Scotland, Netherlands, Portugall, and others; adding this, “That accordingly the Parliament hath declared it no resisting of Magistracy, to side with the just principles and law of Nature and Nations, being that Law, upon which we have assisted you; and that the souldiers may lawfully hold the hands of the Generall (and if of the Generall then of Cromwell, Ireton and Harrison) who will turn his Cannon against the Army, on purpose to destroy them; the Sea-man the hands of that Pilot who wilfully runs the ship upon a rock, as our brethren of Scotland argued, and such were the proceedings of our Ancestours of famous memory, &c.”

Here out of their owne mouths it is contest, That the souldiery are not, nor ought to be mercinary; and that the General (and so consequently all the Officers) may be opposed by the souldiery in case of an immanent destruction to them; and how absolutely destructive it is to them, to be deprived of their right as Commoners, and not suffered upon pain of death or cashierment to petition the Parliament, but to be rendred meerly mercinary to the lusts and ambitions of two or three persons, to serve their pernicious ends, let the world judge: This is a case so plain, so obvious and evident, as none can deny, but that it is a palpable subversion of the Right of the Souldiery; and therfore in such a case they are bound to oppose their Officers, and it is no resisting of the General, nor of the Officers, no more than it is a resisting Magistracy, to side with the just Principles and law of Nature and Nations, as themselves have owned and contest, and if they will not stand to it, they must be kept to it.

And besides, if the equity of the Law be superiour (as they say) to the letter, and if the letter should controll and overthrow the equity, it is to be controld and overthrown it self, and the equity to be preserved, then the rule of the same reason doth tell them, that the Officer is but the form or letter of the Army; and therefore inferiour to the equitable or essentiall part, the Souldiery, and to be controlled and overthrown themselves, when they controll and overthrow the Souldiery in the essentials of their being, life, liberty and freedom, as the souldiery are, when by the Officers rendred meerly mercinary, and denied their right of addresse by way of Petition to the Parliament, for to be tortur’d, enslav’d and opprest, and not suffer’d to complain, but tormented and abused for complaining (although to the Parliament, the undoubted right of an English-man) is the highest cruelty, villany and slavery can be imagined, even Tyranny at the height, and therfore to be opposed by the Souldiery.

And thus, and upon these fundamentals of Nature and Reason the Netherlands made their resistance against the King of Spain. Thus rose the Scots up in arms, and entered this Kingdom, immediately before this Parliament, without all formal countenance or allowance of King or Parliament, since owned and justified by this Parliament. Thus this Parliament took up arms against the King: and thus the Parliament of France now taketh up armes: yea thus this Army enter’d upon their solemn Engagement against the oppressing party at Westminster. And thus may the souldiery renue and revive the same, and even oppose, contradict, dispute and overrule the commands of their Officers themselvs to the contrary, and be equally justifiable with the foregoing presidents. But to return to the matter in hand.

When Cromwell and Ireton, and their faction of self interessed Officers thought they had got the souldiery fast by the brain, as to dote sufficiently upon their transaction and conduct of busines, they then decline the Agitators, decline the Engagement, sleight their Declarations and Promises to the people and Army, rendring the Agitatours but as ciphers amongst them, corrupting some with places, overruling and overawing others, and so bringing the transactions of the Army in order to their solemn Engagement, only to themselves, under the impression and name of his Excellency, and his Councel of War, & so by degrees, step after step they cast out the interest of the souldiery from amongst them, destroied the Engagement, and broke the faith of the Army.

So that the honest souldiery not seeing any redresse, the rights and freedoms of the Nation not cleared or secured, no indempnity or security for arrears, or provision for present pay, no determinate period of time set, when the Parliament should certainly end, no publike vindication of the Army from that most horrid Declaration against the souldiery for petitioning, nor of suppressing and burning Petitions, abusing and imprisoning petitioners, &c.

These things the souldiery beholding and observing, endeavored to restore their Agents to a competent power and ability, to make good the faith of the Army to the people, but then they found the hottest opposition from Cromwell and Ireton with his faction of Officers, as who ever cals but to mind the busines of Ware, when Col. Eyer was imprisoned, and M. Arnold a private souldier was shot to death for promoting and assisting the work of the souldiery in reference to the solemn Engagement of the Army, may know.

And then it may be remembred how insolent & furious Cromwell deported himself against the honest observers of the faith of the Army, it being then made death to observe the Engagement, or but speak for the Agitators: O let that day never be forgotten! let not the bloud of that innocent person be here had out of remembrance, till justice be had for the same; neither let our Engagement or the perfidious perjured subverters thereof be forgotten; for here the Engagement was utterly cast aside, and the Adjutators laid by, and after that no more Agitators would be permitted, but the sentence of death, imprisonment, and cashierments for all that endeavored the reviving thereof was denounced: here the right of the soldiery was clearly destroied, and the Gen. Officers became lords of the name of the Army, assuming the same to themselves, and fitting the impression thereof upon all their future actings, to the abuse and surprisall of the Army; although in deed and in truth no transacting since by Cromwell, Ireton, and their Officers, though in the name of the Gen. Councel of the Army, wil be accounted or imputed to the act of the Army, for it is no Gen. Councel, neither doth it represent the Army, neither hath it the Authority or Commission of the Army therin; for it is another Councel, differing from that of the Engagement of the Army, that was by election, this is by force and obtrusion, in that the soldiery were represented, in this only the Officers, that is to consist of those Gen. Officers concurring with the Engagement, two Com. Officers, and two soldiers chosen out of every Regiment, this is only a Councel of war, whose power doth extend to no transaction in the name of the Army, as Commoners, but only to matters of war, as souldiers: therefore their propositions and tamperings with the King, their march up to London, their violent secluding of so many members from Parl. their triall and execution of the King, of D. Hamilton, Holland, and stout Capel, their erection of the high Court, of the Counsel of State, and their raigning in, & overruling the House, their stopping the Presses, committing violent outrages and cruelties therupon, their usurpation of the civil Authority, &c. are not to be esteemed as actions of the Army, they are not to be set upon the score of the soldiery, for the soldiery hath no mouth in their Councels, neither have they therin to do.

Thus it may well be conceived, that their clothing themselves with the glorious Garments of that Engagement, with their manifold Declarations, Remonstrances, &c. was but in order to what time hath since made manifest, to heave out Stapleton and that faction, to grasp the sole dominion into their own hands: for by their fair speeches and fawning dissimulations, they courted the Souldiery and honest party of the Common-wealth into a strong delusion, even to believe their lyes, their enchantments, and sorceries: Never were such Saints, such curious Angels of light; Pharaohs Egyptian Sorcerers were short of these in their Art. And when by that means they had compassed their ends against Hollis and his, they were so far from insisting upon the premises of their former promises and vows, that they resolve upon an Hocas Pocas trick with the King, and so set upon the work (to make him a Pandor to their dominion and power, to make him a skreen betwixt them and the people) and they drive it to a bargain, Cromwel to be made Earl of Essex, and that (beside his George and blew Ribband) to be a Knight of the Garter, his own son to be Bed chamber-man to the Prince, and his Son in law Ireton, either Lord Deputy of Ireland, or at least Field Marshal General of Ireland, and his own Son (that commanded the Gen. Life Guard) said that the King had cast himself upon his father and brother Ireton, to make his terms for him, and restore him again: [Margin note: This was delivered by Lieut. Col. John Lilburne, and offered by him to be made good upon his life, at the Bar of the House of Commons.] And to that end, they frame expedients sutable to his Prerogative Principles, cunningly interweaving the same in their business called the Proposals for the selling a just and lasting Peace (as they called it) in the heads whereof were couched the several foundations of Regal Tyranny, seating the whole power and authority of this Nation, fundamentally in the Kings will, making the same supreme, or a law paramount, to all the determinations of Parliament: This is the unanimous voice of the 1, 2, and 3. particulars, under the first general Proposal, and the last is a seal to them all. But this expedient failing them, as to their exorbitant intents, they cast off those robes of Royalty with which they had rendred themselves acceptable with the King’s adherents, and laid aside the King and them, finding the way of an Agreement of the People to be much affected and endeavoured after among the Souldiery, they also invest themselves with that Robe, to hide their deformity from the Army; and the better to allay all motions after the same, they confess and acknowledge the excellency and goodness of the premisses, they only find the same unseasonable; and this was drest out in such taking Saint-like language, as the religious people might best be surprised, not suspecting any venemous thing to be lurking under the leaf of their holy and sacred pretences: they call Fasts (a certain fore-runner of mischief with them) cry, and howl, and bedew their cheeks with the tears of hypocrsie and deceit, confess their iniquity and abomination in declining the cause of the people, and tampering with the King; and humbly, as in the presence of the all-seeing God, acknowledge the way of an Agreement of the People, to be the way to our Peace and Freedom; and even then, as soon as they had wiped their eys and their mouths, they proceed even to death, imprisonment or cashierment of all such in the Army as promoted or owned that Agreement; and to fan and cull all such Asserters of the Peoples Freedoms out of the Army, they proceed to disband 20. out of a Troup; by which the honest party of the Souldiery was very much weakned, and all the promoters of Freedom discouraged, and the people struck into desperation; which gave rise unto the second war amongst our selves, and invasion of the Scots: But the same by the great blessing of God being over, they finding the old affection of the Souldiers not yet quenched or much cooled, and great motions in the several Regiments after the Freedom of the Nation; they then formalize again, and to keep the honest party in suspense, and to wait upon their motions, and to cease from their own; and the better to make way to the ambitious intents of those Grandees, they then as a cloke, take up the way of an Agreement again, to present themselves amiable unto us; and a great pudder they make in their Councel about an Agreement, and one they brought forth, but such an one as was most abhorred by such as most fought after the way of an Agreement; so inconsistant it was with the true foundations of equal Freedom and Right; but by this means they so far prevailed over the most constant and faithful friends to the People, as to beget an acquiescence in them for a season, till they in the mean time so far effected their business, as to the introduction of an absolute platform of Tyranie, long since hatched by Ireton, for it was he who first offered that expedient of Government by way of a Councel of State, which was soon after the Armies engagement neer New-market-heath, and which ever since he hath kept in the vail, but now the vail is taken away, and it is now presented to the view of all men; But no sooner was this Monster born into the world, but it devours up half of the Parliament of England, and now it is about adorning it self with all Regal magnificence, and majesty of Courtly attendance, &c. and like the 30. Tyrants of Athens, to head it self over the people: This is, and yet this is not our new intended King, there is a king to succeed, this is but his Vice-roy: O Cromwel! whither art thou aspiring? The word is already given out amongst their officers, That this Nation must have one prime Magistrate or Ruler over them, and that the General hath power to make a law to bind all the Commons of England: This was most daringly and desperately avowed at White-hall; and to this temper these Court-Officers are now a moulding, he that runs may read and fore-see the intent, a New Regality! And thus by their Machiavilian pretenses, and wicked practises, they are become masters and usurpers of the name of the Army, and of the name of the Parliament; under which Visors they have levell’d and destroyed all the Authority of this Nation: For the Parliament indeed and in truth is no Parliament, but a Representative Class of the Councel of War; and the Councel of War but the Representative of Cromwel, Ireton, and Harrison; and these are the all in all of this Nation, which under these guises and names of Parliament, Army, General Councel, High Court, and Councel of State, play all the strange pranks that are play’d.

Deer Countreymen and fellow-souldiers, you that by your adventerous hazards and bloud have purchased a precedency in your Native and just Rights; Consider and weigh these things in your hearts, for surely none are more deeply concerned than your selves, none are more highly infringed of their Rights than you; You are not so much as suffered (how oppress’d or abus’d your selves, how sensible of the miseries of the publike soever) to represent your desires or apprehensions to the Parliament; while you are souldiers, you (in their account) are no Free-men, neither have an equal right in the Common-wealth with other of your fellowmembers therein. The General now tells us, if we will petition, we must lay down our swords; these were his own words unto us. It seems he hath forgot the contest of the Army (in which he concurred) with Stapleton and Hollis about their right of Petitioning as Souldiers; Why then (if this must be their received maxime) did he and the General Councel (as by usurpation they call it) present their petition, since we presented ours, and not lay down their swords and their high places, and petition as private Commoners? We are confident it would be an happy day for England, would they but practise that doctrine they preach unto others; But alas deer friends, it is but in this case with them as in all others, they condemned Stapleton and Hollis, because they were not the Stapletons and Hollis’s themselves; they condemned privat correspondencies with the King, because they were not the corresponders themselves; they condemned the force offered to the Parliament by the tumult of Apprentices, &c. because they were not the forcers themselves; they condemned that monstrous declaration of the Parliament against the Souldiers petitioning; they condemned the imprisoning petitioners, and burning petitions, because they were not the Declarers, Imprisoners, and Burners themselves: As who, that doth but consider their waies, may not plainly discern.

But to trace the foot-steps of those Foxes yet a little further, we shall discover their dealings with us. When they heard that the Soldiers were about a petition in behalf of themselves and the people for whom they had engaged, they thereat were highly offended and enraged, and desperate motions upon it were made in their Conventicle (by themselves stiled the General Councel) some moved for an Act of Parliament, that they might have power to try, judge, condemn, and punish all such, whether of the Army or not of the Army, as should disturb them (as they now call it) by petition to the Parl. or otherwise; and upon the modest reply of one, who desired that the execution of civil affairs, might be left to the Magistrate, Col. Huson answered, we have had tryal enough of Civil Courts, we can hang 20. before they will hang one, and in the Lobby at the Parl. dore, the said Huson breathing out bitter invectives against us Petitioners, who then were waiting at the dore for an answer to our petition, said thus openly, O that any of them (speaking of the Petitioners) durst come into my Regiment, they should never go out; we shall never be quiet till some of them be cut off for examples, and then the rest will be quash’d; there are 10. about this Town that better deserve to be hanged, than those Lords that are at their Tryal before the high Court. And now the Colonels, Lieut. Col. Maj. Capt. of this Gen. Councel, are now moulding up to that sweet temper, insomuch that about March 6. they concluded on the Act, it must now be death to petition, or for any Countryman to talk to us concerning ours and their Freedom: This enforceth us to put you in remembrance of their former words, for out of their own mouths they are judged.

In the Book of the Armies Declaration, pag. 17. we humbly represent in their and our behalfs, as followeth: 1. That whereas it pleased the Honourable Houses of Parliament, having received information of a dangerous Petition in the Army, to declare and immediately to publish in print to the Kingdom, that that Petition did tend to put the Army in distemper and mutiny, to obstruct the relief of Ireland, and put conditions on the Parliament: And declaring the Petitioners if they shall continue in the promoting and advancing that Petition, shall be lookt upon, and proceeded against, as enemies to the State, and disturbers to the publick Peace.

We cannot chuse, but with sadnesse of Spirit be deeply sensible that so humble and innocent Addresse could beget so strange an Interpretation.

Yet now Stapleton and Hollis being removed, are not they in the same steps? do not they call the Humble and Innocent Addresses of the Souldiers to the Parliament, Disturbance to their proceedings, and to the Publick Peace? And do not they seek for worse than a Declaration, an Act of Parliament, to put to death for Petitioning? And even as Stapleton and Hollis would have divided and broken the Army, under the pretence of relief for Ireland, do not these men now do the like? it was formerly opposed and condemned by them, it is now their own expedient.

In the particular charge against the 11. Members, pag. 83. Article 5. That the said M. Hollis, Sr Philip Stapleton, and M. Glyn, have been and are obstructers and prejudices of several Petitioners to the Parliament, for redresse of publick grievances: And the said Mr Hollis, and Sr Philip Stapleton, in the moneth of May, last past, did abuse and affront divers Petitions, offering to draw their swords upon Major Tuleday, and others of the said Petitioners, causing Nicholas Tew to be imprisoned in Newgate, and to be detained a long time there, for no other cause, but for having a Petition about him, which was to be presented to the House: O how carefull were they then, of, the freedom of the People to Petition!

In the eighth Article, fol. 85. Hollis is charged with procuring of the foresaid Declaration against the Souldiers petitioning, as a thing to the great dishonour of the Parliament, to the insufferable injury, the just provocations, discouragement, and discontent of the Army, &c.

O Crumwell, O Ireton, how hath a little time and successe changed the honest shape of so many Officers! who then would have thought the Councel would have moved for an act to put men to death for Petitioning? who would have thought to have seen Souldiers (by their Order) to ride with their faces towards their Horse tailes, to have their Swords broken over their Heads, and to be casheered, and that for Petitioning, and claiming their just right and title to the same? Such dealing as this was accounted in their Representation of Iune the 4. and 5. 1647. to be against the right both of a Souldier and a Subject. And in pag. 33. it thus saith, And if our liberty of Petitioning for our due be denyed us, and be rendred such a crime (as by the said Order and Declaration.) we cannot but look for the same, or worse, hereafter, not only to our selves, but to all the free-born People of the Land in the like case. And so this President (if it stand good) would extend in the consequence of it, to render all Souldiers under this Parliament the worst of slaves, and all Subjects little better. And though there hath been of late in other mens cases, too many dangerous presidents of suppressing Petitions, and punishing or censuring the Petitioners, &c.

Then they could say, (pag. 35.) Let every honest English man lay his hand on his heart, weigh our case, and make it his own, (as in consequence it is) and then judge for us and himself. But if we now lay our hands on our hearts, and weigh their present case, what may we say for them or our selves? we may forbear pronouncing the sentence they have said for themselves and us.

In the Declaration, Iune 14. 1647. fol. 44. We desire, that the right and freedom of the People, to represent to the Parliament by way of Petition, their grievances may be cleared and vindicated.

In the Remonstrance, June 23. 1647. fol. 58. They account the suppressing of Petitioning in the Army, an infringement of the Rights and Liberties, both of Souldiers and Subjects. And (fol. 60. of the same Declaration,) a putting the faithfull servants of the Parliament and Kingdom out of the protection of the Law. Divers other passages of moment out of their own Declarations, Remonstrances, &c. might be cited: but here is sufficient to condemne their violence against, and justifie the Souldiery in Petitioning.

Was there ever a generation of men so Apostate so false and so perjur’d as these? did ever men pretend an higher degree of Holinesse, Religion, and Zeal to God and their Country than these? these preach, these fast, these pray, these have nothing more frequent then the sentences of sacred Scripture, the Name of God and of Christ in their mouthes: You shall scarce speak to Crumwell about any thing, but he will lay his hand on his breast, elevate his eyes, and call God to record, he will weep, howl and repent, even while he doth smite you under the first rib. Captain Joyce and Captain Vernam can tell you sufficient stories to that purpose.

Thus it is evident to the whole World, that the now present interest of the Officers is directly contrary to the interest of the Souldiery: there is no more difference betwixt them, than betwixt Christ and Belial, light and darknesse: if you will uphold the interest of the one, the other must down; and as well you may let them bore holes through your ears, and be their slaves for ever, for your better distinction from free men: for what are you now? your mouths are stopped, you may be abused and enslaved, but you may not complain, you may not Petition for redresse; they are your Lords, and you are their conquered vassals, and this is the state you are in: If a Souldier commit but a seeming fault, especially if by their tentred far fetcht consequences they can make it but reflect on their prerogative greatnesse: Oh to what an height that crime as they call it, is advanced? what aggravations and load is laid upon it? and if there be never an Article in their out-landish Mercinary Articles of Warre, that will touch them; yet they find one in their discretionary conclave, that will doe the businesse, for there must be no standing against the Officers; they must be impeached only by their Peers, the Souldier must not say Black is their eye; if they say the Crow is white, so must the Souldier; he must not lisp a sillable against their treacheries and abuses of the State, their false Musters, and cheating the Souldiery of their pay, though it be their constant and familiar practise: that Souldier that is so presumptuous as to dare to Article against an Officer, must be casheered: Quartermaster Harby was but the other day casheered, but for delivering in a Charge of Delinquency against Lieut. Col. Ashfield, for his perfideous confederacy with treacherous Lilburn, that betrayed Tinmouth Castle: and dayly honest men are casheered for complaining against their Officers: no interest must now stand in the Army, that is against the interest of the Officers, we must all bow to their Lordships, and lay down our necks under their feet, and count it our honour that they will but be pleased to tread upon us, but like worms we must not turn again, upon pain of death, or casheerment. This makes us call to mind the saying of Ireton to honest Major Cobbett of Snow hill, who for joyning with the Agents of the Army asked him, if he were not deluded in his understanding in joyning with the giddy headed Souldiers: and advised him not to run against the interest of himselfe and the Officers. And now we have plainly found what that interest was, it was long a forging, but is now brought forth: but like a Viper, we hope it will gnaw out their own bowels.

But now dear friends, that you may see that their Conclave of Officers at White Hall hath suckt into it the venome of all former corrupt Courts, and interests that were before them, we shall shew you how the Court of the High Commission, the Star chamber, the House of Lords, the King and his Privy Councel are all alive in that Court, called the General Councel of the Army.

First if you do but remember, the King to his death stood upon this principle. That he was accomptable to none but God; that he was above the Parliament, and above the People. And now to whom will these be accomptable? to none on Earth. And are they not above the Parliament? they have even a Negative voice thereover: Formerly the Commons could passe nothing without the concurrence of the Lords, now they dare passe nothing without the concurrence of the Conclave of Officers: we were before ruled by King, Lords, and Commons; now by a General, a Court Martial, and House of Commons: and we pray you what is the difference? the Lords were not Members both of the House of Lords, and of the House of Commons, but those are Members both in the House of Officers, (the Martial Lords,) and in the House of Commons. The old Kings person, and the old Lords, are but removed, and a new King and new Lords, with the Commons, are in one House; and so under a more absolute arbitrary Monarchy than before. We have not the change of a Kingdom to a Common wealth; we are onely under the old cheat, the transmutation of Names, but with the addition of New Tyrannies to the old: for the casting out of one unclean Spirit they have brought with them in his stead seven other unclean Spirits, more wicked than the former, and they have entered in, and dwell there; and the last state of this Common wealth, is worse than the first.

Now as for their High Commission and Star-chamber practises, if you will be pleased to view over an Epitomy of our several Examinations before them; you may have a perfect Embleme of those Courts before your eyes; and to that end (and not out of any vain-glorious folly,) we have subjoyned an Abstract of their Interrogatives, with our Answers; together with their Sentence they passed upon us. But first we desire you to take notice, that the matter which they made the occasion of advantage to proceed against us, was a Paper which we delivered to the General, a Copy whereof (lest you should not have seen it) we herewith present you: and then we shall proceed to our Examinations.