FOr distinction-sake, I will yet stile you Mr. Speaker, although it be but to Col. Pride’s Junto or Parliament, sitting at Westminster, (not the Nation’s, for they never gave him Authority to issue out Writs, elect or constitute a Parliament for them) and you being their mouth, I could not think of any man to whom I could better direct my Lines at present to, (in my great Oppressions by You, and your Lord and Master Cromvvel] then your self: And therefore cannot now chuse but put you in minde, That the 4th. April, 1648. when I was like unjustly to be destroyed by Mr. Oliver Cromwell in my late unjust and tyrannicall Imprisonment in the Tower; I writ you a large Epistle, and stiled it in print, The prisoners Plea for a Habeas corpus; in the 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 pages of which, I positively accuse Mr. Oliver Cromwell for a wilfull murderer, and desire you there to acquaint your House therewith (who then had some little face of a Parliament stamp upon it) and, That I would engage upon my life to prove him to be so by Law: You your selves in your Declaration of the 4th. March, 1647. in answer to the Scotch-Commissioners Papers Declare p. 5. 16. that the subduing the enemies forces in the Nation, (which then were, as you there say, wholly subdued & suppressed) though the Parliament keep up an Army, in a time of peace, when all the ordinary Courts of Justice were open, where only and alone, all Law and Justice ought to be dispensed to all Englishmen in all cases whatsoever, yea, even to Soldiers as well as others; as in the aforesaid pages, and in Mr. Overtons and My printed Epistle to the Generall (in Mr. Lockiers behalf) of the 27 April, 1649. is by Law undeniably proved; which Epistle you may read at the last end of the second Edition of my Picture of the Councell of State: And yet about or upon the 15 Nov. 1647. near Ware in Hertford-shire, He, &c. wilfully and offer-malice murdered Rich. Arnell, a freeborn Englishman; and so shed the bloud of War in the time of Peace, which was Joabs case in reference to Abner and Amasa, 2 Sam. 3. 27. and 20. 10. of whom when David delivered his charge to his son Solomon, he saith thus, Moreover, thou knowest also what Joab the son of Zerviah did to me, and what he did to the two Captains of the host of Israel, unto Abner the son of Ner, and unto Amasa the son of Jether, whom he slew, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war upon his girdle that was about his loins; and in his shoos that were on his feet: Doe therefore (saith he) according to thy wisdom, and let not his hoary head goe down to the grave in peace, 1. Kings 2. 5. 6. which charge he accordingly performed; and so delivered himself and his Fathers house from the guilt of innocent blood, ver. 29, 30, 31, 32, 33. And you may also remember that upon the 19 of Jan. 1647. at your Barr I openly delivered a formal charge or impeachment of high Treason (according to your own Ordinances) against the foresaid Mr. Oliver Cromwell, and his subtil machevilian son-in-Law Mr. Henry Ireton, for their notorious doing that in reference to the King; for but the petty acting of which in comparison to theirs, they impeached Mr. Denzill Hollis, Sir Philip Stapleton, &c. of high Treason, (as appeareth in their own Book of Declarations, pag. 81, 82. Article 2 & 3.) and forcibly expunged them your House as Traytors therefore.

And in the foresaid pages of my plea for a Habeas Corpus, I truly acquaint you with the plot and design, Master Cromwell laid to take away my life, for but a little opposition to the King, whose professed and avowed proctors he and his son in Law Ireton were at that time, both openly in your House, and in the Generall Councell at Putney, nay and gave him leave to peruse and correct with his own hands their Proposals and Declarations before they published them. And yet, when the King would be no longer subservient to Oliver and his band of Tigers, they as the principall instruments caused his head to be chopt off as a Traytor and Tyrant for exercising, (as in the Declaration of 17 of March 1648. against him they declare) opression, and arbitrary power against Law, overthrowing the annuall constitution of Parliaments, imprisoning and presecuting of men, for opposing his unlawfull will, for setting up multitudes of projects and monopolize against Law, and so breaking that most excellent Law, the Petition of Right (as they call it there page 7) for endeavouring to bring in the Germain Horse to awe us into slavery and bondage, and by private solicitations, promises of rewards, and threats from him unto the Judges of Law, to cause them to do his will rather then equall Right, and to break his and their own Oaths, for the oppressions of the Councell Table, Star-Chamber, High-Commission, &c. for protecting Delinquents from Justice, for giving profuse donations of yearly salleries and pensions, to such as were found or would be made fit instruments or promoters of tyranny, protecting his own and the Lords servants from arrests and processe of Law, his breach of faith, of oaths, protestations and declarations; unto act which offences were joyned (say you in your said Declaration against him of the 17 of March 1648 pag. 15.) all along a strange obstinacy and implacablenesse, and uncessant labour for the destruction of his people; which (with the unerring truth wherein is no dispensation for Kings) and say I for Parliament-men neither) that no satisfaction shal be taken for the life of a murtherer, but he shall surely be put to death; and that the land cannot be clensed of the bloud that is shed therein, but by the bloud of him that shed it) brought on and effected the worke of Justice upon him.

Of all which crimes and charges, and all your others against the King contained in your foresaid Declaration, I know not three of them, but Cromwell and his Confederates in your pretended House and Army, are as guilty of the like in kind, though under a new name and notion, as the King was of the forementioned (if not more guilty, in that they have so often and largly promised ease and redresse in the same things; encouraged and engaged the people to pour out their monies, and their blouds for seven or eight years together for that very end and no other) and in that they doe the very same things as is obvious and cleer to every rationall and unbiased eye in the whole Nation, and which in a good measure may be evinced in my own particular case, which is my intended task at this time to make appear.

But to save my self a new labour of writing things twise over, I shall here insert my Plea (yet never visible to the People of England) against the late House of Lords, and Wollaston their Gaoler of Newgate, which I prepared for (and carried to) the Committee of Indemnity the 20 of June 1648. Where the Lord Munson had the Chair, (in regard the greatest part of it is almost as pertinent to my present businesse as if it had been purposely framed for it) for the effecting of which I shall (in truth) endeavour without welt or guard) as well as God and those abilities he hath given me, will enable me to state in fact, law, your own Declarations and the Armies, your dealings with me at present; which that I may the better do, I shall here insert my said Plea to the Committee of Indemnitie first, and then unto it, add or joyn what I have besides at present to say for my self and my instant sufferings, but in the first place the plea it self thus followeth.

Anno XVII CAROLI Regis.

The true intent and meaning of this Act in the Framers, Makers, and Contrivers of it, was meerly to secure their sitting for some-reasonable time, that so they might be able to apply fit plasters to the great sores of the Nation, and not be broken up suddenly, before they had applyed them to the sores, and laid them on; and their fear was, the King would, as he used to do, dissolve them suddenly; security from which was their onely end in procuring this Act, and not in the least to make this a perpetuall Parliament; which I demonstrate thus:

First, A perpetual Parliament is repugnant to the Act made this Parliament for a Triennial Parliament (which in your Declarations is so highly extolled after the making of both the Acts:) for how can every three yeers a Parliament be begun, if this be perpetuall? which by the Act may be so, if the two Houses please. But in all the Act there is not one word of the annihilating or repealing of the Act for a Trienniall Parliament; which, if it had been intended, it would have mentioned, and not left such a businesse of consequence in any doubtfulnesse whatsoever: and the not mentioning of it, is a cleer declaration to all the Readers of it, That their designe solely in the last Act, was onely to secure themselves from the Kings sudden and quick dissolving them at his wil and pleasure. And therefore,

Secondly, In Law, according to the constitution of our Parliaments, an Adjournment of the Parliament makes no Session; howbeit, before the Adjournment the King gives his assent to some Bils; as is plain out of Cooke, 4 Instit. chap. High Court of Parliament, fol. 27. authorised to be printed by the late Parliament, in its purest purity for good Law.

Thirdly, In Law there is no Session in a prorogation or dissolution of the Parliament; they are the words of Cook himself, fol. 27. ibid.

Fourthly, This Parliament, as appears by the Act for not dissolving thereof, before mentioned, cannot be prorogued by the Kings but by Act of Parliament: but there had been as yet no Act of Parliament in that behalf: and therefore all the Acts of this Parliament are in law Acts of one Session, as appears by Plowd Com. 33. H. 8. Bro. relation 36. Bro. Parl. 86. Dier 1. M. 85.

Fifthly, In Law, all Acts of one Session, relate to the first day of the Parliament, and all the Acts of such a Parliament are Acts of one day; so the Act for the Triennial, and the Act for this perpetual Parliament, are two Acts of one day, by the Law.

Sixthly, the 4 Edw. 3. chap. 14. & 36 Edw. 3. chap. 10. forementioned, declares that a Parliament ought to be holden once every year, and more often if need be, those very Acts are every clause of them confirmed this Parliament, which also provides, that in case the King break those Laws, and do not annually call Parliaments, as is before declared, that then the Lord Keeper, whether he will or no, shall call a triennial one. Now I would fain know of any rational-man, How an everlasting Parliament doth agree with a Parliament once every yeer, or oftner if need require, or with the intention of those Laws? And how doth a Parliament every three years (provided for as sure as its possible for Law to provide, (in case the King annually should not cal one) agree with a Parliament for ever, which may be by the letter of the perpetual Act, if the two Houses please?

The conclusion of all is this, that at one day in law, the late Parliament passed two Acts, (for, howbeit the one was in the 16 of the King, and the other in the 17 year of the King: yet both in law are Acts of one day) the one saith, the King shall call a Parliament once a year, after the sitting of this Parliament, and in case he doth not, the Lord Keeper, &c. shall call a Parliament three years after the sitting of this Parliament. The other Act in the letter, or litterall construction of it, saith, this Parliament shall sit for ever if the two Houses please. The one will have a Parliament with an end, the other a Parliament without an end: Now the question is, which of these two was the true intent and meaning of the Makers of this Act: for as Learned Cook rationally and well observes in his excellent exposition of the 1 Eliz. chap. 1. 4 part. Institut. fol. 328. (which Act established the power of the High-Commission, that by colour of this Statute did many barbarous and illegall things) such an interpretation of ambiguous and doubtfull things is alwayes to be made, that absurdities and inconveniences may be avoyded; but the highest absurdities and inconveniences in the world would follow, if this last Statute should be taken according to the literall construction of it, and not according to the equity and true intent and meaning of the makers of it, which was not to make this everlasting if they pleased, and so totally to destroy annuall Parliaments, or in the Kings default of calling them, then trienniall Parliaments whether he would or no, but only to secure them from the Kings sudden breaking them up at his pleasure: that so they might sit some reasonable short time to dispatch the great business of the Nation; and that reasonable time cannot by any words (or the true meaning of any) in either of the Statutes, Be rightly interpreted to be above a year at most, especially from the date of the last; for the laws (in the right and true meaning) notwithstanding the last Act, were yet still in force to binde the King to call Annuall Parliaments; but two Parliaments by Law cannot sit together: but without two Parliaments should sit together, (viz. An everlasting one, and an annuall one, which is our right by Law) we cannot enjoy the benefit of those good and excellent Laws, for Annuall Parliaments or oftner if need require. And therefore to take the utmost extent of the length of that time, the two Houses were enabled to sit by vertue of the force and power of the last Act, it could not be above a year at most, from the day of the date of it, and yet they have sate almost eight since, by vertue and colour of that alone, and of nothing else in law, having no other visible Commission under the Sun, to authorise them to destroy our undoubted naturall and legal Rights, of having often and frequent successive Parliaments totally new, which they have done by their long and unwarrantable sitting, principally to enrich the most of themselves, and enslave our spirits.

And that an everlasting Parliament was never intended by that Act, I think their own words printed in December, 1641. which was immediately after the passing that Act, will easily decide the controversie.

And in their or your first Remonstrance of the state of the Kingdom, after excusing of your selves from any invasion of the rights of the Crowne, 1 Part. Book Declar. pag. 16, 17. there is these very expression, viz. The trienniall Parliament, for the matter of it, doth not extend to so much as by law we ought to have required, there being two Statutes still in force, for a Parliament to be once a year: And for the manner of is, (viz. THE TRYENNIALL PARLIAMENT) it is in the Kings power, that it shall never take effect, if he by a timely summons shall prevent any other way of assembling. In the Bill for continuance of this present Parliament, there seems to be some restraint of reall power in dissolving of Parliaments, not to take it out of the Crown, but to suspend the execution of it for THIS TIME AND OCCASION ONLY, which was not necessary for the Kings own security, and the publique peace, that without it we could not have undertaken any of these great charges, but must have left both the Armies to disorder and confusion, and the whole Kingdom to bloud and rapine.

Which words are a plain and cleer demonstration, That the intention of the makers of the foresaid Act was never to make this a perpetuall Parliament, but onely for some reasonable time, to secure their sitting from the King’s sudden breaking them up when he pleased; whose hands were now tied therefrom by this Act: which thing onely is and was the clear meaning of the makers of it.

And that the generall words of a Law, or the literal sense of it, when they hold forth absurdities, and inconveniences, and visible mischiefs, are to be interpreted and controuled by the intent of them that made it, is clear, from their own Oracle Sir Edw. Cook, who in his exposition of the foresaid Statute of 1. Eliz. chapt. 1. in his 4 part Institutes, fol. 330. hath these very expressions: Now that divers and many other Acts of Parliament (BESIDES THIS OF ELIZ.) which are generall in words, have, upon consideration of the mischief, and all the parts of the Act, (for the avoyding of the inconvenience and absurdity that might follow) received a particular interpretation, it appeareth in books in cases of far lesse inconvenience and absurdity.

Plo. Com. in Stowels Case fol. 369. The Preamble is to be considered, for it is the key to open the meaning of the makers of the Act, and mischief which they intend to remedy. The Judges of the Law have ever in such sort pursued the intents of the meaning of the makers of such Acts of Parliament, as they have expounded Acts generall in words to be particular, where the intent hath been particular (which are the words of the Book) And therefore upon that rule it is there adjudged. That where the Statute of 7. Edw. 6. is generall, IF ANY RECEIVER OR MINISTER ACCOUNTANT &c, RECEIVE OF ANY PERSON ANY SUM OF MONEY FOR PAYMENT OF ANY FEES, &c. HE SHALL FORFEIT vi s. viii d. FOR EVERY PENNT. That this do not extend, according to the generality of the words, to the Receiver of common persons, because these words subsequent be added (otherwise then be lawfully may by former Laws and Statutes.) Now the Judges restrained the generality to a particular, to the Kings Receiver onely; for that no Law or Statute was formerly made concerning common persons Receivers, &c. But in the Case in question, as well the precedent clause of Restitution, as the subsequent clause expressing offences in particular, and the words in the same generall sentence, viz. UNDER YOUR HIGHNESSE, &c. and principally the cause of the making of this Act do qualifie the generality of the words. And yet notwithstanding it was resolved by all the Court in the said case of Stradling, fol. 203. a. That the Receiver of common persons were within the words of the said Statute. But there it is said, that if a man consider in what point the mischief was before the Statute, and what thing the Parliament meant to redresse by this, he shall perceive that the intent of the Makers of the Act, was to punish onely the Ministers of the King. And a little after the Judges say, That the stile of this Act is, AN ACT FOR THE TRUE ANSWER OF THE KINGS REVENUES. And by this also the intent of the makers of the Act is to be collected; and these be the words of the Book, which is a far stronger case, then the case in question.

4 Ed. 4. fol. 4. & 12. Every Statute ought to be expounded according to the intent of them that made it, where the words thereof are doubtfull and uncertain, and according to the rehearsall of the Statute; and there a generall Statute is construed particularly, upon consideration had of the cause of making of the Act, and of the rehearsell of all the parts of the Act.

To conclude this point with a generall Rule allowed by all Laws in construction of Statutes, viz. Although the Law speak in generall terms, yet it is so to be bound up or accepted, That WHERE REASON CEASETH, THERE THE LAW CEASETH: FOR, SEEING REASON IS THE VERY LIFE AND SPIRIT OF THE LAW IT SELF, the Law giver is not to be esteemed to respect that which hath no Reason; although the generality of the words at the first sight, or after the letter, seem otherwise. Mark, I intreat you, these last words well, for they are strong and full.

And much more is there to this purpose: for he is most excellent in his exposition of the said Statute of 1 Eliz. 1. And that this equitable and intentionall manner of expounding Laws in dubious cases, or where absurdities or mischiefs do depend upon the taking of it in the litteral sense, is justifiable, legall and good, is unquestinably demonstrated our of your own 1 part Book Dec. pag 150. in these very words, viz. That there is in the Laws an equitable and literall sense. His Majestie (let it be granted) is intrusted by Law with the Militia; but ’tis for the good and preservation of the Republique, against forraign Invasions and domestick Rebellions: For it cannot be supposed that the Parliament would ever by Law intrust the Militia against themselves, or the Common-wealth that intrusts them to provide for their WEALE, NOT FOR THEIR WOE. So then, when there is certain appearance, or grounded suspicion, that the letter of the Law shall be improved against the equity of it, (that is, the publick good, whether of the body reall, or representative) then the commander going against its equity, gives liberty to the commanded to refuse obedience to the letter: For the Law taken abstract from its originall reason and end, is made a shell without a kernell, a shadow without a substance, and a body without a soul. It is the execution of Laws according to their equity and reason, which (as I may say) is the spirit that giveth life to Authority, the letter kils.

Nor need this equity be expressed in the Law, being so naturally implyed and supposed in all Laws that are not meerly Imperiall, from that analogie which all Bodies politick hold with the naturall, whence all Government and Governours borrow a proportionall respect. And therefore when the Militia of an Army is committed to the Generall, it is not with any express condition, that he shall not turn the mouthes of his Canons against his own souldiers; for that is so naturally and necessarily implyed, that its needlesse to be expressed; insomuch as if he did attempt or command such a thing, against the nature of his trust and place, it did ipso facto estate the Army in a right of disobedience, except we think that obedience binds men to cut their own throats, or at least their companions.

Yea, the very title of the Act in hand literally declares, it was never intended to be perpetuall; no, nor to extend to so long a time as to be mischievous to the Common-wealth, by subduing the Soul of all our Liberties, frequent and annuall Parliaments, elected wholly and totally new; for it is called, An Act to prevent Inconveniences which may happen by the untimely adjourning, proroguing, or dissolving of this present Parliament. Mark the words well, and it puts all out of dispute, that this Act was but meerly done to tie the Kings hands for a certain reasonable time, that so it should not be dissolved untimely: and the Title declares, it was made to avoid Inconveniences, and therefore not to beget and increase them; which it must needs do as is already fully proved, if it destroy frequent, successive, annuall Parliaments.

But yet once again more fuller: Reason and Nature it self saith, yea and the Law of England saith, That when an Act of Parliament is against Common Right, or Reason, or repugnant, or impossible to be performed or kept, the common Law shall controul it, and adjudge this Act to be void: they are the words of the Law, 1 part Dr. Bonham’s Case, fol. 118. & 8. Ed. 3. fol. 3. 30. 33. E cessavit 32. & 27. H. G. annuity 41. & 1 Eliz. Dier 313. & 1 part Cooks Institutes lib. 3. chap. 11. & 209. fol. 140 a. An Act of Parliament that a man shall be a Judge in his own case, is a void Act in Law, Hubbert fol. 120. and the 8 part Cooks Reports in Dr. Bonhams case. See the Army Book Declar at. pag. 35. 59. 61. 63. 143.

First therefore let us begin with Common Right; and we shall easily see this perpetuall Act is against that For it is against common Right, that indebted men (as most, if not all Parliament men are) should not pay their debts. Or that, if any Member of Parliament do any of the People of England wrong (as daily they do) by unjust and unwarrantable disseising of him or them of his land, or dispossessing him of his goods, or blasting of his fame, or doing violence to his person by beating, wounding, or imprisoning, &c. that such persons, during their lives, by a priviledge of Parliament (that was intentionally good and just in its institution, when Parliaments were often and short) should be protected and secured from all manner of question at the Law, by any parties so wronged by them, is absolutely against common Right. Nay, and more, That this should extend to multitudes of persons besides, that are their servants or attendants; and also that any, or all of these shall have the benefit of the Law in any Court of Justice in England at their pleasure, against any man whom they shall pretend wrongs them, are such transcendent and grievous enormities, that common Right abhors; and yet this, with a thousand times as much more as bad as these, are the fruits of a perpetuall Parliament, if they please; which tends to the utter destruction of all mens actions, reall, personall, or mixt, who have to do with Parliament men; as appears expressly by the Statute of Limitations of the 21 of James, chap. 16. which strictly confines all manner of Suits to be commenced within certain yeers after the occasion given.

Secondly, For common Reason: Parliaments were ordained and instituted (as is before truly and legally declared) for remedies to redresse publick and capitall grievances that no where else could be redressed: but it is against reason (and the very end of the Institution of Parliament) that Parliaments should make and create multitudes of publike and insufferable grievances; The law of the Land allowes no protection for any man imployed in the service of the Kingdom, but for a yeer at most, as to be free from Suits; and in many Suits none at all, howbeit he be in such services. But a perpetuall Parliament may prove a protection (in all manner of wickednesse and misdeameanours committed against other men, not of the Parliament, amongst any of whom they may pick and chuse whom they please, to ruinate and destroy) and that not for a yeer, but for ever; which is against all manner of Reason, or the shadow or likenesse of it. And therefore, as young Sir Henry Vane said against Episcopal Government in the beginning of his large speech of the 11 of June 1641 now in print, at a Committee for passing the Bill against Episcopall Government, so say I of an everlasting, or of any Parliament that shall do as you have done, in largely sitting beyond the time of your Commission. &c. That when any thing is destructive to the very end for which it should be, and was constituted to be; and not onely so, but does the quite contrary (as your House in every particular doth) certainly, we have cause sufficient enough to lay it aside; and not onely as uselesse, in that it attains not its end; But is dangerous, in that it destroyes and contradicts its end.

Thirdly, For Impossibilitie: The death of the King in law undisputably dissolves the Parliament, spoken of in the foresaid act, which is pretended to be perpetuall; for the Writ of Summons, that is directed to the Sheriffs, by vertue of which, Parliament-men are chosen, runs in these words: King Charles being to have conference and treaty with, &c. upon such a day, about or concerning (as the words of the Triennial Act hath it) the high and urgent affairs concerning his Majestie (and he writes US) the State, and the defence of the Kingdom and Church of England. But I would fain know how it’s possible for a Parliament to confer or treat with King CHARLES now he is dead: it’s impossible. See 2. H. 5. Cook tit. Parl. 3. part. And therefore the whole current of the Law of England (yea, Reason it self) from the beginning to the end, is expresly, That the Kings death doth ipso facto dissolve this Parliament, though it had been all the time before never so intire and unquestionable to that very hour; and it must needs be so, he being in Law, Yea, and by the authority of this very Parliament stiled, the head, the beginning, and end of Parliaments: See Cooks 4 part Institutes fol. 1. 3. Mr. Pym’s forementioned Speech against Strafford pag. 8. S. John’s forementioned argument against Strafford, pag. 42. And therefore as a Parliament in law cannot begin without the Kings presence in it, either by person or representation, Cook ibid. fo. 6. so it is positively dissolved by his death; for thereby not only the true declared, but intended end of their assembling (which was to treat and confer with King Charles) is ceased, and thereby a final end is put unto all the means that are appointed to attain unto that end: And therefore it is as impossible for this Parliament, or any Parliament to continue as long as they please, as for a Parliament to make King Charles alive again.

Fourthly, For Repugnancy: That which is but for a time, cannot be affirmed to have continuance for ever [it is repugnant:] but this Parliament in the intention of the makers of the Act, was to be but for a time, not above a yeer at most, after the date of the Act, as is before proved and declared from their own words; And therefore it cannot be reputed perpetual, for there is a repugnancy betwixt them.

Again, The King’s Writ that summoned this Parliament, is the Basis in law, and Foundation of this Parliament: If the Foundation be destroyed, the Parliament falls: But the Foundation of it, in every circumstance thereof, is destroyed: And therefore the thing built upon that Foundation must needs fall. It is both a Maxime in Law and Reason.

But if it be objected, The Law of Necessity requires the continuance of the Parliament against the letter of the Law.

I answer, First, Its necessrry to consider whether the men that would have it continue as long as they please, be not those that have created the necessities on purpose, that by the colour thereof they may make themselves great and potent; and if so, then that Objection hath no weight, nor by any rules of Justice can they be allowed to gain this advantage by their own fault, as to make that a ground of their justification, which is a great part of their offence. And that it is true in it self, is so obvious to every unbiased knowing eye, it needs no illustration: but if it shall be denyed by any of their pens, if God please to give further opportunity, I shall prove it to the full.

Secondly, I answer, There can no necessity be pretended that can be justifiable for breach of trusts that are conferred on purpose for the redresse of mischiefs and grievances, when the trust is perverted to the quite contrary end, to the increase of mischiefs and grievances, yea, to the subversion of Laws and Liberties. I am sure, Mr. Pym by their command and order, told the Earl of Strafford so, when he objected the like, and that he was the King’s Counsellor, and might not be questioned for any thing he advised according to his conscience. But saith Mr. Pym pag. 11. He that will have the priviledge of a Counsellour, must keep within the just bounds of a Counsellour. Those matters are the proper subjects of Counsel, which in their times and occasions may be good or beneficiall to the King or Common-wealth. But such Treasons as these, the subversion of the Laws, violation of Liberties, they can never be good or justifiable by any circumstance or occasion; and therefore (saith he) his being a Counsellour makes his fault much more hainous, as being committed against a GREATER TRUST. And in pag. 12. he answers another excuse of his, which was, That what he did he did with a good intention. Its true, saith Mr. Pym, Some matters hurtfull and dangerous, may be accompanied with such circumstances, as may make it appear usefull and convenient; and in all such cases, good intention will justifie evill counsell. But where the matters propounded are evill in their own nature, such as the matters are with which the Earl of Strafford is charged viz. To BREAK A PUBLICK FAITH, to subvert Laws and Government, they can never be justified by any intentions, how specious or good soever they pretended.

And that they have perverted the ends of their Trust more then ever Strafford did, I shall instance at present but in 3 particulars, the main ends of their Trust was to ease the People of their grievances; and what their Grievances were, are excellently reckoned up in the Parliaments first Remonstrance of the state of the Kingdom: First, destruction of their Trades by Monopolize, &c. Secondly, exhausting of their estates to maintain and promote pernitious designes to their destruction. Thirdly, their essentiall Liberties and Freedoms quite destroyed: Where is the remedy now? hath not the Parliament contrary to that, excellent, Law against Monopolize, of the 21 Jame., Chap. 3. of late erected Monopolise by Ordinances, Orders and Votes, (although in the first month of your sitting, you made Orders to throw down Monopolizers out of your House:) as particularly, Whale Oyle, White fine, Wyer, Tynn, with many others; yea, and continuing all the old Monopolies, Merchants, Companies that Trade beyond seas; yea, and set up for eternity that Monopoly of all Monopolies, the Excise; the bare endeavouring of which, they call an unjust and pernitious attempt in the King in the fore-mentioned, Declar. pag. 6.

And then for exhausting of their estates, the King did it by a little Shipmony and Monopolies &c but since they begun they have raised and extorted more mony from the people and nation then halfe the Kings from the Conqueror ever did, as particularly; 1 By Excise. 2 Contributions. 3 Sequestrations of lands to an infinite value. 4 Fifth Parts. 5 Twenty parts. 6 Meal-mony. 7 Saile of plundered goods. 8 Loanes. 9 Benevolences. 10 Collections upon their fast dayes. 11 New Impositions or Customes upon Merchandise. 12 Guards maintained upon the charge of private men. 13 Fifty Subsidies at one time. 14 Compositions with Delinquents to an infinite value. 15 Sale of Bishops Lands. 16 Sale of Dean and Chapters Lands, and now after the wars are done. 17 Sale of King, Queen, Prince, Duke, and the rest of the Childrens revenue. 18 Saile of their rich goods which cost an infinite summe. And 19 To conclude all a taxation of ninety thousand pound a month, and when they have gathered it pretendedly for the Common-wealthes use, divide it by thousands and ten thousands, apeere amongst themselves; and wipe their mouths after it like the impudent Harlot as though they had done no evill; and then purchase with it publique lands at small and triviall values; O Brave Trustees! that have protested before God and the world, againe and againe in the day of their straits, they would never seek themselves, and yet besides all this divide all the chiefest and profitablest places of the Kingdom amongst themselves; And then thirdly; what regulating of Courts of Justice, and abridging of delayes, and charges of Law suits have they performed as in their first Remonstrance they promised? Nay are they not worse then they were before the wars, and besides, then High-Commission, Star-Chamber and Counsel board were all downe; and have they not now made a Star-Chamber, High-Commission and Councel-Board of most of their petty Committees? but most dreadfull ones of the House and their New-Councel of State? as is evident to be seen in my Comrades and my illegall and arbitrary imprisonment, and cruel close imprisonment Thirdly, Nay have we at all any Law left Master Peters your grand Teacher averred lately to my face we have none?) but their meer wils any pleasures; saving Fellons Laws, or Martiall law, where men-Butchers are both informers, Partie, Jury-men and Judges; who have had their hands imbrued in bloud for above this seven yeares together, having served an aprentiship to killing of men, for nothing but mony, and so are more bloudier then Butchers that kill sheep and calves for their own livelihood, who yet by the Law of England, are not permitted to be of any Jury for life and death, because they are conversant in shedding of bloud of beasts; and thereby, through a habit of it, may not be so tender of the blood of men; as the Law of England, reason and Justice would have men so be. Yea, do not these men by their swords, being but servants, give what law they please to their Masters: the pretended Lawmakers of your house, now constituted by as good and legall a power as he that robs or kils a man upon the high-way.

But to conclude this tedious point, I shall end it with such an Authority, as to the ruling men in your House, must needs knock the Nail on the head, and that is with the Declaration of the Army, (Your Lords, Masters, Law givers, and Law-executers) who in their most excellent of Declaratrons of the 14 of June, 1647. About the just and fundamentall rights and liberties of themselves and the Kingdom, page 40, 41, 42. of their book of Declarations, after they have sufficiently cryed out of Stapleton and his party, for abusing, deluding and over-swaying the house from their true end for which they were assembled together: say thus,

But yet we are so far from designing or complying to have an absolute or arbitrary power fixed or settled for continuance, in any persons whatsoever; as that (if we might be sure to obtain it) we cannot wish to have it so in the persons of any whom we could must confide in; or who should appear most of our own opinions and principles, or whom we might have most personall assurance of, or interest in, but we doe, and shall much rather wish, That the Authority of this Kingdom in Parliament (rightly constituted, that is, freely, equally and successively chosen, according to its originall intention) may ever stand and have its course. And therefore we shall apply our selves chiefly to such things as (by having Parliaments setled in such a right constitution) may give most hopes of Justice and Righteousnesse, to flow down equally to all, in that its Ancient channell, without any overtures, tending either to OVERTHROW that foundation of Order and Government in this Kingdom, or TO INGROSS THAT POWER FOR PERPETUITY INTO THE HANDS OF ANY PARTICULAR PERSONS, OR PARTY WHATSOEVER.

And for that purpose though (as we have found it doubted by many men, minding sincerely the publique good, but not weighing so fully the consequences of things) it may and is not unlike to prove, that, the ending of this Parliament, and the election of a New, the constitution of succeeding Parliaments, (as to the persons Elected) may prove for the worse many wayes; yet since neither in the present purging of this Parliament, nor in the Election of a New, we can promise to our selves or the Kingdom, and assurance of Justice, or other positive good from the hands of men; but these who for present appear most righteous, and most for common good (having an unlimited power fixed in them during life or pleasure) in time may become corrupt, or settle into parties, or factions; or, on the otherside in case of new Elections, those that should succeed, may prove as bad or worse then the former. We therefore humbly conceive that (of two inconveniences the lesse being to be chosen) the main thing to be intended in this case (and beyond which humane providence cannot reach, as to any assurance of positive good) seem to be this, viz. to provide, that however unjust or corrupt the persons of Parliament men, in present, or future may prove, or whatever ill they may doe to particular parties (or to the whole in particular things) during their respective termes or periods, yet they shall not have the temptation of an unlimited power fixt in them during their owne pleasures, whereby to perpetuate injustice or oppression upon any (without end or remedy) or to advance and uphold any one particular party, faction or interest whatsoever, to the oppression or prejudice of the Community, and the enslaving of the Kingdom unto all posterity, but that the people may have an equall hope or possibility, if they have made an ill choice at one time, to mend it in another, and the Members of the House themselves may be in a capacity to taste subjection as well as rule, and may be so inclined to consider of other mens cases, as what may come to be their own. Thus we speake in relation to the House of Commons, as being intrusted on the Peoples behalfe, for their interest in that great and supreme power of the Common wealth (viz.) the Legislative power with the power of finall Judgement) which being in its own nature so arbitrary, and in a manner unlimited, (unlesse in point of time) is most unfit and dangerous (as to the peoples interest) to be fixt in the persons of the same men, during life or their own pleasures. Neither by the originall constitution of this State, was it, or ought to continue so, nor does it (wherever it is, and continues soe) render that state any better then a meer tyranny, or the people subjected to it, any better then vassals; But in all States where there is any face of common freedom, and particularly in this State of England (as it is most evident both by many positive laws and ancient constant custome) the people have a right to new and successive Elections, unto that great and supream trust, at certain periods of time, which is so essentiall and fundamentall to their freedom, as it is, cannot or not to be denied them, or witheld from them, and without which the House of Commons is of very little concernment to the interest of the Commons of England. Yet in this we could not be understood in the least to blame those worthies of both Houses, whose zeale to vindicate the Liberties of this Nation, did procure that Act for the continuance of this Parliament; wherby it was secured from being dissolved at the Kings pleasure, (as former Parliament had been) or reduced to such a certainty as might enable them the better to assert and vindicate the Liberties of this Nation, (immediately before so highly invaded, and then also so much endangered) and those we take to be the principall ends and grounds for which in that exigency of time and affairs it was procured, and to which we acknowledge it hath happily been made use of; but we cannot thinke it was by those Worthies intended, or ought to be made use of to the perpetuating of that supream trust and power into the persons of any during their owne pleasures, or debarring of the people from their right of elections totally new.

But it here it should be objected although the King be dead, yet the Parliament hath altered the Government into a Common-wealth, and so may if they please change the Constitution of Parliaments.

To which I answer, First, that those company of men at Westminster, that gave Commission to the High Court of Justice to try and behead the King, &c. were no more a Parliament by Law, nor a Representative of the people, by the rules of Justice and Reason, then such a company of men are a Parliament, or Representative of the People, that a company of armed Theeves chuse and set apart to try, judge, comdemn, hang, or behead any man, that they please, or can prevail over by the power of their swords, to bring before them by force of arms, to have their lives taken away by pretence of Justice, grounded upon rules meerly flowing from their wils and swords; for I would fain know any Law in England, that authoriseth a company of Servants to punish or correct their Masters, or to give a Law unto them, or to throw them at their pleasure out of their power, and set themselves down in it, which is the Armies case with the Parliament, especially at Tho. Prides late Purge; which I call (and will maintain to be) an absolute dissolution of the very essence and being of the House of Commons; and I would fain see any Law or Reason in Writing or Print to justifie that action, upon any other account, then in hindering them from raising a new Warr, and from destroying the peoples Liberties by their eternall sitting, seeing they keep their power longer by far then their Masters, or impowers the people intended they should, and also employ it to their mischief, by hindering them, (I mean those that had not acted against the Liberties of the Parliament) entering into a mutuall engagement to appoint rules whereby to chuse (seeing they cannot all meet in one place themselves) and impower new Trustees, Commissioners, or Representors, to make equall and just Lawes to bind all, and provide for their future well-being, there being no other may justly, either in Law or Reason; to settle this Nation in peace and quietness, but by one of these two means: First, either by admitting the King in again upon terms: or else, secondly, to lay foundations of a just Government, by an Agreement made amongst the generality of the people capable of it: and if any man upon earth can either by Law or Reason shew me a third way, that hath any more shadow of Justice in it, then for William the Conqueror, or the great Turk by their swords to give a Law unto this Nation, I will forfeit my life.

But secondly I answer, the main end of the peoples chusing of the Members of the House of Commons was not to come to Westminster to set up a common-wealth, especiall to invest all power in themselves, and with that at their pleasure rob and take away (by the rules of their wills) the liberties and lives of those that chuse them, and be unaccountable as long as they live, although they do what they please; therefore I would fain see any bit or shadow of a pretended Commission to this end, either in writing, or tacitly in intention; nay, or so much as in the thoughts of the major part of the Members themselves, when they were impowered; I am sure all their Declarations declare the contrary. And therefore I say, and will make it good against all the tyrannicall Sophisters in England, in a Publique dispute before the People, That the main end wherefore they were sent, was to treat and confer with King Charles, and the House of Peers, about the great affaires of the Nation, &c. and therefore are but a third part, or a third estate of that Parliament, to which they were to come and joyn with; and who were legally to make permanent and binding laws to the people of the Nation; and therefore having taken away two of the three Estates, (through a pretended necessity, for a pretended good end, the accomplishment of which can only justifie this act) that they were chosen on purpose to joyn with to make Laws; the end both in reason and Law of the Peoples trust is ceased; for a Minor joyned with a Major for one and the same end, cannot play Lord paramount over the Major, and then doe what it please; no more can the Minor of a Major, viz. one estate of three legally or justly, destroy two of three without their own consents, or the Authority of a higher power, then all given and deligated for that end intended and declared, which is the People, the fountain and originall of all just power, which they never did in their lives; and therefore the whole power of all is returned to them singly and alone, (but if any part of it is yet inherent in any, then it is in Prince CHARLES as Heir apparent to his Fathers Crown and Throne) over whom (I mean the people) no persons nor power on earth can now set no change of Government whatever, but what is done by their own mutuall consent by AGREEMENT AMONGST THEMSELVES, but with as reall a face of Tyranny, as ever was acted by any Conqueror or Tyrant in the world; unto which whosoever stoops and supports it is as absolute a Traytor both by Law and reason, as ever was in the world, (it not against the King, yet against the Peoples Majesty and Soveraignty, the fountain of all power on earth,) and the present setters up of this Tyrannicall new Commonwealth, considering their many Oaths, Covenants, Promises, Declarations and Remonstrances to the contrary, (with the highest promises and pretences of God for the People and their declared Liberties, that ever was made by men) are the most perjured, perfidious, false Faith and Trust, breakers and Tyrants what ever lived in the world; and ought by all rationall and honest men to be the most detested and abhorred of all men that ever breathed, by how much the more under the pretence of friendship and brotherly kindness they have done all the mischief they have done in destroying our Lawes and Liberties, &c. Is any Treason like Judas his Treason? who betrayed his Lord and Master with a kisse: Is any murder in the world, like that of Joab committed unto Abner and Amasa? who while he kissed and embraced them with the highest declarations of friendly and brotherly affection, stabbed them under the fifth Rib, 2 Sam. 2. 27. & 10. 9, 10. Is any wrong or mischief done unto an ingenuous spirit, so bitter to his soul, as the treachery and baseness of a pretended and familiar friend? No undoubtedly, for against a professed enemy a man hath a fence, for he will not trust him, but is alwayes jealous of him: but against a pretended friend he hath none, for he lyes in his bosome, from whom he fears no ill, but sleeps in security, in the height of which he is ruinated and destroyed: which kinde of dealing was most bitter to Davids soule, which made him say, Psalm 55. 12, 13, 14, 15. For it was not an ENEMY that reproached me, then I could have born it: neither was it he that HATED me, that did magnifie himself against me then I would have hid my self from him. But it was thou, a man, mine equall, MY GUIDE, MINE ACQUAINTANCE. We took SWEET COUNSELL together, and walked into the house of God in COMPANY: Let death seiz upon them, and let them goe down quick into hell, for wickednesse is in their dwelling, and among them, and let the present generation of swaying men, that under the pretence of good, kindness and friendship, have destroyed and trod under their feet all the Liberties of the Nation (and will not let us have a new Parliament) and set up by the Sword their own unsufferable, unsupportable Tyrannicall Tyranny; consider the ends of JWDAS and JOAB, and they shall finde, that for their treachery and blood; the one Hanged himself, and the other was executed in the Tabernacle of the Lord, at the horns of the Altar, whether he fled for refuge and sanctuary, 1 Kings 2. 30, 31. yea, also remember Cains treachery to his innocent brother Abel, Gen. 4, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.

Thirdly and lastly, I answer, the House of Commons sitting freely within its limitted time, in all its splendor of glory, without the awe of armed men, never in Law, nor in the intention of their chusers were not a Parliament; and therefore of themselves alone, have no pretence in Law to alter the constitution of Parliaments, especially as to free and successive Elections totally and wholly new; neither if ever it had been in the power of a true and reall House of Commons; Yet this present pretended One now sitting at Westminster is now a true House of Commons; as the Armies ancient Declarations doe notably prove; see their Book, Declar. pag. 125, 127, 134, 135, 138, 139, 140, 141, 143. For I would fain, know in Law, where Col. THOMAS PRIDE was authorised to chuse the people of England a Parliament; or to purge away at his pleasure by his sword three quarters of four of the House of Commons, (and so committed the affairs of Parliament to a few, which was never intended by the impowerers, but hath always been holden to be against the honor and dignity of a Parliment, and that no such Commission can or ought to be granted, no not by a legall Authority it self; see 4 part. Cooks Institutes, sol. 42. chap. High court of Parliament) and send whom of them he pleaseth to prison, without charge or declared crime, and to stand at the House door in a warlike posture, with Swords and Muskets to keep out whomsoever he pleased, against the Law and constitutions of Parliaments, which ought to Sit free from the force of Armed men, 4 part. Institut and let none goe into the House, but only those that he knew or did beleeve would vote AS HE AND HIS Masters WOULD HAVE THEM; For shame let no man be so audaciously and sottishly void of reason, as to call Tho. Prides pittifull Junto a Parliament, especially those that called, avowed, protested and declared again and again those to be none, that sate at Westminster the 26 and 27, &c. of July, 1647. when a few of their Members were scared away to the Army, by a few houres Tumult of a company of a few disordred Apprentices: And being no Representative of the people, no nor so much as a shadow of it, much lesse a Parliament, with pretence in Law, reason, Justice or Nature can there be for them to alter the constitution of successive and frequent Parliaments, and force upon the shew of their own wils, lusts, and pleasures, for Laws and rules of Government, made by a pretended, everlasting, nulled Parliament, a Councel of State, or Star-chamber, and a Councel of War, or rather by Fairfax, Cromwell and Ireton. And so much for my unsatisfiednesse in the present Authoritie.

But secondly, In case the Justices either in Law, or by reason of the power that now rules England, had to my understanding been a thousand times lesse unquestionable then it is, and had neither against the rules of reason ejected two parts of three to set up themselves, nor outstrip’d its Commission in sitting longer then they should, nor never had been forced once by the Apprentices, which the Army called and declared Treason, and those that remained a mock and pretended Parliament; and if so, then it was dissolved, being sine die, and could legally meet no more at all: nor once forced by the Army; and then the second time not onely forced, but pick’d and culled, and one of four left behinde, by means of which it was totally destroyed and annihilated, and none left in a manner but such as would do what those that left them would have them: I say, if none of all this had been, I could not with freenesse of my own spirit live upon the sweat of poor peoples brows, by a large Salary for my place, who are fain (now their Trades are gone, their estates spent for the intended recovering of their freedoms (of which notwithstanding they are cheated, and that by their pretended friends) and a famine come upon some parts of the Land, and thousands ready to starve) to pay taxations and Excise for the small beer they drink, and the poor clothes they wear, thousands of Families having never a penny in the world to buy bread for them, their wives and children, but what they earn with the sweat of their brows, and notwithstanding are almost as much without work, as without it: and yet out of the bowels, and pining bellies of these poor people, in this sad and deplorable condition must my salary have come, in case I had taken a publick place upon me: Therefore when I seriously consider how many men in the Parliament, and else-where of their associates (that judge themselves the onely Saints and godly men upon earth) that have considerable (and some of them vast) estates of their own inheritance, and yet take five hundred, one, two, three, four, five, six thousand pounds per annum salaries, and other comings in by their places, and that out of the too much exhausted publick Treasury of the Nation, when thousands, not onely of the people of the world, as they call them, but also of the precious and redeemed Lambs of Christ, are ready to sterve for want of bread, I cannot but wonder with my self, whether they have any conscience at all within them or no, and what they think of that saying of the Spirit of God: That whoso hath this worlds good, and seeth his brother hath need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, (which he absolutely doth, that any way takes a little of his little from him) how dwelleth the love of God in him? 1 John 3. 17. These actions and practices are so far from being like the true and reall children of the most high, that they are the highest oppression, theft and murder in the world, thus to rob the poor people in the day of their great distresse, by Excise, Taxations, &c. to maintain their pomp, superfluities, and debauchery; and many of those from whom they take it, do perish and sterve with want and hunger in the mean time; and be deaf and adamant hearted to all their Tears, Cryes, Lamentations and Mournful Howling Groans; without all doubt these pretended godly, religious men have got a degree beyond those Atheists or fools, that say in their hearts, There is no God, Psal. 14. 1. and 53. 1. And these are my reasons (with my resolvednesse of walking by a known rule amongst men, the declared Law of England) for not taking a publik place upon me, though I have often been proffered considerable ones, yea, that very fore-noon the Votes of Treason passed in the House against that honest Book or Addresse for which I am imprisoned, called, THE SECOND PART OF ENGLAND’s NEW CHAINS DISCOVERED.

In the third place, I considered with my self, that seeing I could do neither of these, then I must do one of these two; first, Either follow a Trade; or else, Go and buy, or farme some Land in the Country: and when I considered the grand oppressions there, as by Tythes, which is not onely annually the tenth part of the Husbandmans profit to the lazy, antichristian, time observing Priests; but annually the fourth part of his increase, labour, hazards, yea, and stock too; which Tythes I should sooner be hanged then pay: and not onely so, but also the Taxations and Excise, with that unfathomable gulf of free-quarter, by means of which a great Officer that bore me a spleen (amongst whom I have enemies enough) with a Regiment, or more, or fewer, in two or three nights (with free-quarter) might eat me (by force of arms) out of house and home; and so not only waste the increase, but also destroy the principall. And so for these reasons I was blockt off from going to live in the Country.

Then secondly, for a Trade, I must either follow it in London, or in some other Corporation: and in another Corporation (although the King the root and fountain of them be destroyed, and although I am not onely a Native and free Denizen of England, and served many yeers to learn a Trade in London, yet in any considerable Corporation in England) can I not with indrustry be suffered to follow a Trade or Merchandizing to get me bread, unlesse I be a Free man thereof; yea, Newcastle, the chiefest place in my eye, being nigh the aboad of my Father and kindred, is so grand inhaunsing a Monopolizer, that it monopoliseth the River of Time, yea, and the land for seven miles distance; although it can produce neither Law nor Reason therefore, but onely a large bribing purse of the whole Corporation; which they in that Town say, is so heavie, it will break any private particular mans back: which yet I should not have feared, had there been any equall Law to have been had from the Administrators thereof in any of the Courts of Justice in England, being as well able (at least in my own thoughts) to plead my own case in Law at any Bar against an inhaunsing Corporation, or a Patentee Monopolizer (both of which are against the fundamentall Laws and Liberties of England, as is notably proved by Cook in his exposition of the Statute of Monopolies, 3 part Instit. fol. 181. 182. &c.) as any Lawer in England, it being my undoubted right both by Law (Sec. 28. Ed. 1. chap. 11. and the Statute that abolished the Star-chamber) and Reason, to plead mine own cause, or any of my friends that will chuse and trust me; as any Barristers in the Nation, which I will publickly dispute with any Lawyer any day in the week; and for the unjustnesse of Corporations and Monopolies, which are both sons of one father, read my forementioned Book, called, Innocency and Truth justified, from the 46 page to the 63. and my book called, Londons Liberties in Chains discovered, but especially pag. 21. 22. 36. 38. 41. 43. 44. 45. to 58. And my second part of it, called Londons Charters, pag. 36. 37. to 64. So being for the foregoing reason block’d off from following a Trade any where else but in or about London, where I had the choice of three things.

First, Either to set up a Shop in the City; which I was staved off from, for these Reasons:

First, Because the Court of Aldermen are so oppressive in their Government of the City, setting up their own wills, humours, and irrational ridiculous Customs above both the Law, Reason and their own Charters; which I knowing so well as I do, (and which is pretty well anatomized in my foresaid Books) I should never bear, and so be continually in broils, which was my earnest desire to avoid.

Secondly, A man cannot well keep any considerable Trade in a shop but he must trust much; which a man many times hazard the losse of; especially in these impoverishing times, or else to Law for it, which I never loved (never having had two Suits in my life, that I can remember) not onely for the jangling part of it, but also for the tedious, chargeable, intricate, hazardous uncertainty of the proceedings therein, as the Judges on purpose have made it to get money: for being often in company with an able, and a very honest man for a Lawyer, with other understanding friends, where we had notable discourses of the abuses of the Law, which were particularly instanced to be many, I took special notice of two things he often averred (to his praise I speak it) besides the proceeding for the most part in an unknown tongue, and an unlegible hand as writes, &c. which two things were these, that he would make good;

First, According to the practice in Westminster Hall, ‘If a man lent another man 100 l. 500 l. or 1000 l. &c. and had as good security as any in England can give; yet when the day of payment comes, if the party be a crafty baffling man, and have a good purse, he shall keep a man in the Courts in Westminster Hall three or four yeers in suit, let him do the worst he could, before he could get his money; nay, nor never shall get it neither, unlesse he have a purse also able in some reasonable measure to hold pace with him: but in case in any of that time (by sicknesse, losse or other casualties) he happen to fall poor, and so not able in money to pay fees, &c. its lost for ever: besides all this, the hazards he runs (are sufficient) by being betrayed, bought, and sold by his Solicitor or Atturney, &c. Besides the danger of common Knights of the post, to swear the money’s paid, &c.

Secondly, He did averre, that he would make it good before the Speaker at the Bar of the House of Commons upon his life; that for the Chancery (which trades men upon book accounts &c. are subject often to use, and there is not a decree of 100 l. from one yeares end to the other made in that Court, but jumbling all the decrees together one with another, some suits holding 10, 15, 20, 30 yeares, nay some above, but first and last it costs the Plaintief 500 l. for every hundred pound decreed one with another; O brave, honest and reforming Parliament who in three dayes might mend all this easily and plainly by a County record, by which a Suit never need to be of a months continuance, and for which they have often been Petitioned, but yet will not, but suffer it to continue worse then they found it, for all their great promises in their first Romonstances, &c. to the contrary; yea and give their Judges their places freely, and 1000 l. per annum out of the Common-wealths mony, besides all their illegall and unfadomable fees; whereas in the Kings time they had but 200 l. per annum sallery and their fees; and most commonly paid 5, 6, 7, 8, 9000 l for their places, and yet were every whit as just as these are, for any thing that ever I could hear of to to the contrary, and I think I have enquired as diligently into both as any one private man in England hath done; so for these reasons I durst not meddle with a shop in London.

And then in the next place, having multitudes of acquaintance both in City and Country, I had thoughts out of the Cities Freedom to turn Soap-boyler, being a good trade and most vendible for ready mony, and in it I met with these discouragements; viz. First, That there are new Monopolies upon some of the principall materials that makes them double prised to what they used to be, which most commonly are all imported from beyond seas, as oyl, tallow and pot-ashes, for which is paid both custome and Excise, yea and for the very coles that boyles them 4 or 5s. in a Chaldron; and scarce any thing free from Excise that belongs to it, or to the backs or bellies of the men that work it, but the very water; and yet notwithstanding when it is boyled and all hazard run, as spoyling or breaking of vessels, falling of the price of sope, or none vending of it, besides many other accidentall casualties, yet out of the very swet of his brows and the industry and labour of the very fingers ends, there must Excise be paid of so much a Barrell; and that which is worst of all is this, my House which used to be my Castle, and so it is by Law, night or day must be at the Knave Excise mans pleasure, to search and break open for unsealed soape when he pleaseth; nay, notwithstanding all this I must be had to take my oath (after they will not trust me, but have searched what they can) at the Excise Office, that I have made no more but so and so, and it may be I judge such an Oath altogether unlawfull, and therefore cannot take it, and therefore to prison without any more adoe I goe, and must be fined at the will of the chief Excisers, and pay a noble a day to the Serjeant at Armes, besides his mans fees; and if I do take my oath can forswear my self, I hazard the Pillory for perjury besides the wounding of my conscience; but if I be consciencious that I cannot set my conscience upon the tenter-hooks by forswearing of my self; then I am destroyed in my trade by others that will undersell me by this stealing Excise, and swearing soundly to the contrary too, judging it (with Cromwell, as Major Huntington in his impeachment of him declares) no sinne it may be to deceive the deceiver or oppressory and all this lyes upon us; in the first year of Englands Freedom by the Conservators of the Liberties thereof, who yet zealously and for the peoples welfare chopt of the Kings head for tyranny & oppression, although his loynes were never so heavy as their little finger is, O brave, unerring, unswerving and everlasting, nonesuch Parliament;

And therefore last of all I had thoughts towards Winter to buy of my Unkle at Sunderland to lay up some coals at my habitation in Winchester-house, to sell in January and February, and in the mean time to lay out my mony in some adventure for Holland, and there I met with these difficulties: First, although, I was as wary as any man in England could be, to see that Master Devenish title to the house was good in Law, and so I might justly and quietly expect the injoyment of my bargaine from him; And thereby I see First his deeds, and the Parliaments Ordinances thereupon, and Secondly I went and spoke with Master Iohn Cook the Lawyer, who drew up the conveyances betwixt Master Devenish and Master Young, of whom Master Devenish for his life bought all Winchester House in Southwark; by all which, but especially from Master Cooks owne mouth, I cleerly and evidently found Master Devenish had as good a right in all Winchester house, for Master Youngs life both by Law and Ordinance, as its possible for any man in England to have to the cloaths he wears, or any thing else that he possesseth, although he takes the advice of twenty Lawyers in the buying and purchasing of them; which incouraged me to strike a bargaine with him for three years, for as much of the House as I am to pay annually almost 20l. and yet since a Committee of Members with the Trustees of Bishops Lands will needs turne me and the honest man (by force of Armes) out of his Legall possession without any valuable consideration, or rendring at the least any reason wherefore, but only their Soveraigne wills and pleasures. O BRAVE PARLIAMENT JUSTICE! without all doubt this is the liberty of the people, and the Law of the Land, that we have been contesting and fighting for these seven yeers together, or at least as much as they intend (now they have conquered us with our own mony and our own hands) we shall possesse and enjoy this unrighteous molestation, which with their illegall imprisoning of me hath spoyled a coal-Merchant of me for the present.

And in the second place, as my adventuring to Holland, when I came to inquire after the nature of that, I found these difficulties therin, First, A strict Monopoly, that none whatsoever shall ship any white cloth for that place but the Monopolisers themselves, and Secondly a general monopoly upon woollen commodities whatsoever, that unlesse you do as good as tell a lye; I found merchants still continued to be the chief customers, who it seems have a trick to steal whole ship loads of custome for their own use, by means of which they undersell any other merchant, yea and thereby break the backs of new beginners; for being at my first inquiring thereinto with Master William Kiffin my quondam servant, though now my profest and blood-thirsty enemy, he told me a little before, he was one day at the Custome-house, and the chief men there had catcht a poor man that had stolne some custome, for which they were about fining and punishing him, why Master saith he to one of them in Kiffins hearing as he averred to me) will you be so angry with me, and so harsh to punish me for a small toy, when I am but your own scholler, for I am sure its but the other day since by your own directions I helpt you to steal in a manner a whole ship load of uncustomed goods: and you being so well pleased with that, my thinks you should not be so angry with me for stealing a little custome for my self.

But then Fourthly, The Prince was Master of the Sea then, so that I durst not venture it in a English bottom, some of which had laid in the Thames divers weeks loaded and durst not stirre out for want of convoy, which they had sought much for then to the Parliament, but could get none; and to ship it in a Dutch bottom, it did not only give the traid of shipping to the Dutch, and so destroy our English Mariners, but also by law to ship it in Ducth bottom, it is confiscated or at least must pay the custome of Aliens or strangers as appeares by the statutes of 5 R 2. Ch. 3 & 6 R 2 cha. 8. & 4. H. 7. ch 10. & 5. & 6. E. 6 cha. 18. & 1 H. 13. But having bought some cloth and stuffs I was necessitated to run the hazard of shipping them in Dutch bottom; but English woollen commoditie; being so great a drug in Holland as they are by reason of the merchant monopolisers, alias merchant adventurers, that ingrosse the trade to themselves, and buy their cloth here at what rates they please and sell it in Holland as dear a list; and so care not how little they vend so they get mony enough by that they sell and disable all others from trayding, by meanes of which the poor people here that depend upon cloth-making, wanting work are necessitated to leave the land of their nativity and goe to Holland to make cloth for the dutchmen to get bread to keep them alive; whereby they have almost got the English cloth making traid, and our wise, just and long winded Parliament, are willing they should so do, or else almost in nine years time they would have given some satisfactory effectuall answer in those multitudes of Petitions that have year after year been preferred to them, complaining of these unsufferable and destroying grievances, and yet they can assume to themselves a stile of the Conservators of the Liberties of England in the first year of Freedom, but I wonder where it is, for my eyes can see none at all in any kind, but rather more bondage then ever, witnesse now their Treason-trap, &c.

So English cloath being so great a drugg there, that little profit could I expect by my adventure, unless I laid out in the return most of my mony in such Commodities as are monopolized by new Patents, Ordinances, against the Laws and Liberties of England, and if I so did, when they come here (if the Monopolizers catch them) they are all lost; so here is our Freedom, but yet notwithstanding, I did order my factor to lay out the most of my mony there, in such commodities only, being resolved as soon as I could here of the ships arrival in the river of Thames, to boord her with half a dozen lusty resolved blades; and with my own hand to give the chief Monopolizers a brace of pistoll bullets in his guts, or a prior with my Rapier or dager, in case he came to take away my goods from me; and then to run the hazard of a tryal at common Law, to see whether by the Law of God, and of England; I could not justifie the preservation of my self and my goods, from any that come to rob me of them, and rather kill him or them, that would assault me and them, then suffer him or them to take away by force my livelyhood, and so by consequence the life of me and my family, but the counsell of States robbing me of my liberty, by my close imprisonment in the Tower hath frustrated my marchandizing hopes, yea and it may be thereby break me to the bargin, but if they do, when they have seriously call up their gains by it, they will not be six pence the richer, though my wife and little babes may be much more the poorer: But to turn back again to my coming out of the North, besides the thoughts of my future substance, in some honest industrious calling or other, I spent some time at Westminster, to see and satisfie my own understanding how the true sail of things stood at the helm, I mean with the three great men of the Army, viz. Fairfax, Cromwell, and Ireton; and whether I could finde out they had any real thoughts to prosecute their Own Agreement, that so we might have a new, equal, and just representative, which I upon my principles (now they had laid Kingly Government aside) look’d upon as the only and alone earthly salve, to heal and cure the wounds of this distracted and dying Nation, and to make it flourish once again in peace, Trade and all kinde of outward prosperity, and without which our wounds could never be healed or cured by any other means that could be invented or continued, looking in my own thoughts upon the then final sitting remnant of the last Parliament, as a quite contrary interest to the peoples good or welfare; distributive Justice and universall righteousness, being their bane, and that which would be the unavoydable ruine by reason of that horrible guilt they have contracted by their self-seeking unjust wayes upon themselves; the great bug-bear the King being now gone, they would be necessarily led, for the supportation of themselves in the evill of their wayes, and continuance of their intended perpetual Greatnesse, to court, support, and make much of the chief Supporters of all the remaining corrupt Interest in England, as the Priests, and their robbing Tythes, the bane of industry; the Laywers, and their monopolizing pleadings, and all their old and base inslaving corruptions in the execution of the Laws, as bad in a manner as the old bondage of Egypt; and of old and illegall Charter-mongers, the inhaunsers, engrossers, and Monopolizers of Trade, and all the base bond ages thereunto belonging; the peoples freedoms and liberties being the onely thing now dreaded by them as the only engine to pull down all the steps they have long laid for their elective Kingship, and the single injoyment amongst themselves alone (and their vassals, slaves and creatures) of all the great places thereunto belonging, and thereupon depending, which yet they must not immediately do, but go about it gradually, and first get the power of seeming legall authority, into a narrower compasse then it was, in their purged House of Commons; that so that might rule, counsel and direct their mock Parliament; and the Councel of the Army might rule that; by means of which (what with the service of Ireland, &c.) they might so modulize their Army, that it in due time might totally become slavish by obeying without dispute what ever their great Officers command them, and so unanimously elect, and impose upon the people their present generall for their King, as the onely fit, able, and best deserving man in England for that soveraign Place; provided, under hand he would ingage too high and mighty Oliver, and his Son in law Henry Ireton, to be sure to do as they would have him, and in his Kingship to promote those that they would have advanced, that so one of them might not fail after his decease to succeed him; and so in time, with their long continued power and wils, keep it in their Line, as the onely deserving Family in this Nation, who saved it from its enemies (for their own ends) in the day of its distresse; whose battels it fought pretendedly for the Liberties of England, crying out Jehu. like, 1 Kings 10. 16. Come, See my zeal therefore in cutting off the Kings head, &c. and razing out his Family: And undoubtedly it is of the Lord, for he hath prospered me in it (and so he did Judas in betraying Christ) and none hath been able to stand before me, When as, alas, all this successe may be no more but the rod of God to chastise a then more wicked Family, designed by God to that destruction; for the transgressions, sin, or blood thereof; Yet for all this, the heart may be no more upright then Jehu’s was, vantingly lifted up by his great success, & took no heed at all to Walk in the Law of (Justice; Truth, and Obedience) the Lord God of Israel with all his heart, but followed after (Mans Inventions and Devices) JEROBOAM’S wickedness, to wit the golden calfs in DAN and BETHEL; for which wickedness and pride of his spirit, (after all his success in fulfilling the express will and command of God in cutting of from the earth Ahabs family, for the transcendent wickedness thereof) yet God begun to plague him, and in those daies cut Israel short ye and afterward for the pride and wickedness of his posterity (unto whom to the fourth generation God gave the Crown of Israel) for Jehu doing well in executing that which was right in his eyes, in utterly ruining of the house of Ahab for their [Editor: illegible word] wickedness, according to the heart and mind of God, vers 13. brought such plagues upon him and his people, that they became a spoil to all their neighbours, and finde their affliction very bitter; insomuch that there was not any shut up, nor any left, nor any helper for Israel chap. 14. 25. And as Jehu to the eyes of men conspired against his Master and killed him, being but a Captain in Israel; so Shalum the son of Jabesh conspired against the last of his race and smote him before the people and slew him, and raigned in his stead, Chap. 15. 10. but because those that followed after took no warning by the righteors and grievous punishment of their predecessors for their wickedness, to walk righteously and justly before the Lord;

Therefore he made their Raignes very short, and full of blood and bitter affliction; and brought their hands to their faces most commonly by Conspiracy, and that many times of their Servants & Captains; as the sequel of the Story shews.

And in my Observations and private discources at Westminster, I apparently found it to be as I feared, their main endevours being closely carryed on to perpetnate this Parliament for ever, and by it, a new (and then) endevoured to be erected Councell of State, and the Councell of Warr, for the future (by the rules of their wills) to govern this declared Free Nation arbitrarily; and to make some Grand examples of terror, as that none for time to come should dare to stir, Which I there clearly saw, to my vexation and trouble, but was inwardly forced to bite my lip and be silent: but that which perplexed me most was that I found promotion and promised hopes of honour and gain had very much changed the principles, and cool’d the zeal of three or four of my familiar acquaintance and bosome friends, that not long before had been visibly and frequently the valiantest, stoutest, ablest Champions for Englands Liberties and Freedomes that I know in the Nation; some of whom very fairly and smoothly dealt often with my self; to be as prudent and wise in acceptation of the favours, and familiar respects of great men, as they had done; and at my coming to town Duke Hamilton, and the stout Lord Capel &c. had newly entred upon the stage for the tryal of their lives, and I confess, I was exceeding curious, in satisfiing my self about the manner of dealing with them, and so up into the court I got and heard the begining of their defence, and afterwards went and spoke with them, looking upon them as part of the people of England unto whom if any injustice was done, it became a president to destroy me, or the most righteous man in England, if the swaying faction pleased, and seeing these men acknowledg themselves subject to the penal part of the Law, as well as the directive part (which the King never did but to his dying hour maintained, those two most ABOMINABLE AND ALL HUMAINE SOCIETY-destroying maximes viz. that he was accountable to no power on earth, (but God alone) as to punishment for any of his actions, though never so wicked: And secondly that the people have no share in Government, I thought my self and the liberties of my native Country concerned in the manner of their trial, though I neither then nor now liked the cause in which they ingaged) as knowing and seeing very well when the hedges and freedoms of our liberties and freedoms have but a gape broken downe in them, it is likely in time not only to become a path, but a high road way, to let in such an inundation of illegalities and arbitraries as shall overflow all and tread downe all underfoot, which is plainly to be read in Sir Walter Rawleys remarkable History of the Thirty grand Tyrants of Athens, in his History of the World, lib. chap. 9. sect. 2. fiol. And which in time might become a meanes to pervert all the whole Fabricke of the whole English Government, of which my mind being full, I argued thus with my selfe.

If it be these mens lives they would have right or wrong, then they should have killed them in the heat of bloud and not have given them quarter, or after quarter given should notwithstanding broke, and so have dispatched them by shooting or otherwise killing them in their Chambers or the like; but to reserve them many months, together alive, and bring them out in the face of the Sunne, pretending to take away their lives by the rules of Justice and Law. Well then what is done unto them in this case, must be just in the meanes and method of Justice as well as in the end, and the Law of England being their birthright and inheritance in every punctitio of it as well as mine or any mans in the Nation, and indeed the end of the making of the Law is for transgressors, by the rule of which their actions ought to be measured, the priviledges and benefit of which all their claime ought not to be denied (nay if they be ignorant of their legall priviledges, the Judge ought to instruct and inform them thereof) nay or any stander by else that is present at the tryal, and the law renders this reason, lest the prisoner at the Bar should unjustly lose his life by the errors of the proceedings of the Court, 3 par. insti. fol. 29. 137. Alasse, for a righteous man the Law was never made for him, neither hath he any need to claime the benefit of the severall priviledges of it, because he doth not transgresse it; but because so much malice and wickednesse is in the hearts of the sons of men, that many times the wicked and guilty accuseth the righteous and innocent, therefore the wisdom of our fore-fathers, and the righteousnesse of the Laws they made for us and have left unto us is such ‘that no man though never so notorious in publick fame, is to be esteemed or judged a guilty man or transgressor (in the eye of the law) till he be legally and duly convicted of the crime laid unto his charge by the rules and methods of the Law: the law of England is as much to be magnified, as Sir Edward Cock often stiles it, being a Law of mercy, ‘2 par. insti. fol. 315. favours much the life of man, because of all things in the world it is most precious, fol. ibid 30 see his exposition of magna charta in 2 par. inst. but especially fol. 42, 43. 46, 47. 51. 56. but above all read that most excellentest of all his discourses upon the righteousnesse, equity, safety, and justnesse of the tryall by Juries of 12, (Liber & legalis homo) free and legall men (NEXT) of the neighbourhood in his 1 par. Insti. lib. 2 chap. 12 Sect. 234. which Parliaments cannot destroy nor change, because it is impossible for them to find out a juster or better way of tryall and they are appointed to provide for our weale, but not for our woe, 1 par. book. Dec. p. 150. and not to doe what they list, but what they ought, 1 par. book. dec. p. 172. 206. 214. 266. 267. 383. 494. 497. 499. 656. 660. 666. 696. 706. 707. & 2 par. fol. 95. & Declarat. 17 March 1648. p. 6. 21, 28, 27. For all the idle pratings of any new upstart SONS OF BELIAL amongst us, such as the Author of the late abominable Book called the DISCOVERER [Editor: illegible word] which is commonly reported to be partly Master Frosts Secretary to the thing called the Councell of State, and principally that Apostate IOHN CAN late of Amsterdam, and now of the Parish of Bow, whose conscience by that appeares so broad that it will without doubt lead him to worship with the Turks Alkeron if it were in fashion, and fat livings to be got by so doing; But let all men in Authority and great places that ‘value their own heads and lives; Remember Dudly and Epsons punishments Privy Councellors to Henry the Seventh, for proceeding by the rules of their discretion in trials of causes, laying aside the tryals by Juries of twelve men, the ancient and undoubted birthright of the Subject 4 part inst. foli 41. for which they lost their heads as Traytors for subverting the fundamentall Liberties of the people, although they had an Act of Parliament (viz. 11 Hen. 7. ch. 3. recorded 4 par. inst. fol. 40) made by as unquestionable power in Law as ever was in being in England, in a free and full Parliament, consisting of King, Lords Spirituall and Temporall, and Commons; to authorise and bear them out in what they did, of whom you may read most excellently in Cooks inst. viz. 2 par. fol. 51 & 4 par. fol. 41. 197, 198. 199.

And in my musing with my self of their conditionn, my thoughts were something to this purpose, the actions done and acted by them, were either crimes or no crimes, crimes as to men they could not be, unlesse they were transgressions of a knowne and declared law in being in the Nation before their acts were done, (for saith the Spirit of Truth, Where there is no Law there can be no transgression, Rom. 4.15.) and if so then to punish them for their acts (or facts) any other wayes, or by any other rules, manner or methods then is by those Laws against which they had transgressed, is expressed and prescibed, is very grand injustice, and the most righteous and justest men in the world, (under such practises) can never be safe or secure, but are alwayes liable in liberty, estate and life, to be levelled and destroyed by the will, mallice and pleasure, of the present swaying grand faction, in which condition a man differs nothing from a brutebeast, but in shape; But the High Court of Justice, erected to try them, was a pretended Court of Justice, not knowne to the visible and declared law of England (being in its constitution altogether against all the English-Rules of justice, No nor in being when their facts were committed; And therefore had no pretence at all being but a new constitution to meddle with Judging of their facts committed before it had a being or was brought forth into the world. ‘Besides the erection of it (I mean a High Court of Justice) to try men for siding with the King in the late warrs against the Parliament is a meer and cleer giving away, and surrendring up the legallity of their cause into the Kings hands, telling the people in effect hereby, its true we have waged warre against the King, but if his sword had been as long as ours he might easily if he had pleased have hanged us all by the rules of Justice for transgressing a law in being.

But we having by the chance of war prevailed against him alass, we have no law of our sides; by the rules of which we can hang any of his party, but must be forced to take away their lives by the rules of our own wills and power; by rules of pretended Law made after their facts committed, and for the demonstrating of this unto all that have adhered unto us, we Erect a New High Court of Justice by new rules never known in England to try them, that so our friends that have adhered (to us, may see where they are, and betimes provide for their own safety, and never trust or beleeve OUR DECLARATIONS AND REMONSTRANCES ANY MORE; for though we formerly told you we had the Law of our sides; yet by our setting up this High Court of Justice, to be both parties Jury and Judges, we plainly tel you there was no such thing, but that then what we told you was lyes and falshoods, and that you should beleeve its no more: for though then we told you we would maintaine the Law, especially of Liberty and Propriety, and that it was transcendent wickednesse in us to destroy it and by our votes at our wills and pleasures to despose or levell all the peoples estates, liberties and properties; yet now we tell you, we never in our heart intended any such thing, but that our designe was totally (if we did overcome) never to keep any of our promises : but absolutely to destroy all Law, and by our absolute will, by all manner of new erected engins, to debase and breake the peoples Spirits, and to dispose of their liberties, estates and lives by the absolute rule of their own wills, and as a clear demonstration to your understanding that we never intended otherwise we erect this HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE, composed of such persons, as we know will obey and execute the absolute dictats of our wills, be they right or wrong, without ever examining whether our commands be consonant to law, reason, equity, justice or conscience, being of as absolute implicite faith in beleleeving of us (because we have promised they shall raign with us or under us) as ever any papish in the world were believing the Pope.

Thirdly, Admit this had been an unquestionable (representative of the people) Parliament, who by vertue thereof hath had a power to levy what mony they had judged convenient upon the people by general tax for the common safety of the Nation, which act both by law, and reason they may do; yet they cannot in law, equity or reason, lay all that tax upon three or four men alone, and make them bear all the charges of the publick; even so, although the Parliament may erect Courts of Justice, for the good of the people, to administer Law indefinitely to all the people of England alike without exception of persons; yet they can neither by Law, nor Reason, erect a Court of Justice on purpose to try three or four individual persons, and no more because it is against common equity, all Englishmen or people being all born free alike, and the liberties thereof equally intailed to all alike; and therefore in common equity and justice, three or four individual persons ought not to be burthened with an iron yoake, when the universal are only burthened with a wooden one; and therefore in this sence is my judgment, that that high Court of Justice was altogether unlawfull in case those that set it up had been an unquestionable representative of the people, or a legall Parliament, neither of which they are not in the least; but as they have managed their business in opposing all their primitive declared just ends, a pack of trayterous, self seeking tyranical men, usurpers of the name and power of a Parliament. I say considering with my self some such things as these are, I was something diligent at the beginning of their tryal to see and hear all; yea and often conversed with themselves but when I came to hear stout Capel make his defence for himself, (which was before he had any counsel assigned) and so Gallantly and accutely to plead the Law, and demand the benefit of it; which he did as acutely in my judgment, as ever I did hear any man in his own case in my life, alledging fiftly the Statute of 25. Ed. 3. chap. [Editor: illegible word] and cited the very word of those 2 notable Statuts for his benefit, of the 1. Hen. 4. chap. 10. and 11. Hen. 7. chap. 1. the last of which indemnifies the Kings followers in wars, and also cited the first and second of P and M. chap. 10. and pressed therefrom that all treasons should be tryed by the rules of the common Law and not by extraordinary ways and means according to the declared Laws in being citing the petition of right for the proof of that, looking round about him, and saying I am an English man, and the Law is my inheritance, and the benefit of the petition of right my birth-right, if for then saith he looking upon the president, wheres my Jury, I see none of my Jury, that is to pass upon me, I demand the right of my Jury legally pannelled, as my right by Law, without the verdict of whom I cannot in Law he condemned, and when it was replyed upon him by the president, that the members of the Court was the Jury; he most gallantly and resolutely answered to this effect, I hope you will not deny me the benefit of the Law, which you pretend you have fought this Seven years to maintain: I hope, Sir, You will not deny me the benefit of the Declarations of those by whose power you sit. And producing the Declaration (of the pretended House) made the 9th Febr. 1648. To maintain the Fundamentall Lavves of the Nation; he held it forth, and desired it to be read, which was refused by the President, telling him, They knew it well enough: Well then saith he, Here’s a Declaration made but the other day, wherein the Parliament declared: That they are fully resolved “to maintain, and shall and will uphold, preserve and keep the Fundamental Lawes of this Nation; for, and concerning the preservation of the Lives, Properties; and Liberties of the People, with all things incident thereunto; with the alterations touching Kings, and House of Lords already resolved in this present Parliament, FOR THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE: And saith he, It is one of the Fundamentall Liberties of the Subjects of this Kingdom, to be tryed by Juries; and I hope you wil not deny me the benefit of the Parliaments Declaration, and so break it as soon as it is made: but all was to no purpose he must have no Jury, but Councell, if he would; at the denyall of which unto him, I confesse my heart was ready to sink within me, and my spirit was inwardly fill’d full of fire at these wretched men, whose now declared designe was cleer to tread under their feet all the Liberties of England, notwithstanding all their oathes and promises to the contrary; and then in that day in my own thoughts I clearly bid adieu unto all Englands glorious (amongst men) Liberties and dear-bought Freedoms, and much adoe had I in the open Court to containe my self from an avowed detestation of their ABOMINABLE WICKEDNES, my heart was so full; but being withdrawne I was something free in my discourse in all companies I came in but yet upon the principles of the Law and their own Declarations, as being almost overwhelmed to see what I then saw; and severall discourses I had with the prisoners, and divers of my books and law pleas, with Sir Iohn Maynards and the foure Impeached Aldermen I sent them, and much pressed some of them to put their lives upon the hazard of a Plea and protestation against the Jurisdiction of the Court, telling them if they dyed upon that score they would not only dy as lovers of the King their principall, but also of their Country, as brave Englishmen in the eyes of the people; where is if they stooped finally to their Jurisdiction, they might easily perceive they were resolved to sacrifice them, and if they so died they dyed upon a poor and beggarly score; yea in a manner upon the deniall of their own principals; but the Gentlemen having as to me appeared large promises of their lives upon conformity to the Jurisdiction of the Court were meerly gulled thereby of their lives, and could scarce ever beleeve the should dye till the house of death came upon them.

And yet not withstanding this, some of them sent to me, to desire me to be one of their Councell, to plead for them in matter of Law; unto whose friends I returned an Answer to this effect, that I could not be so unworthy in my own estimation, as to plead any plea they could plead for a justification of their actions (though I confessed there were much in law to be said for them; if [Editor: illegible word] as the case stood with them) unlesse it were a plea and protestatian against their Jurisdiction; and so procrastinate their tryall, if it were a possible till a new Parliament; upon which plea, I could willingly have ventred my heart blood for them, because my interest, and the interest of all the free and honest men in England was as much concerned in that fatall president of that abhominable and wicked Court, as Capell or Hambletons life; &c. was but they would not venter there, and so I declined them: And when Holland came to it, a Lady, and some other of his friends came to me, to my house about him; but I was still upon the same string, yet sent him word of severall particulars, in reference to my Tryall and arraignment at Oxford, that was very materiall to his present cause, and if he would call me in the open Court, as a Witnesse; he should see I would speak my minde freely and effectually, although I smarted for so doing; and he appointed a day to call me; whereupon; I went into the Court, and conveyed word so him, I was there, but whether his heart failed him or no, I know not, but he never called me; so when I understood they were all in the way of condemnation I took the third part of Cooks Institutes under my arme to the house doore, and made severall Applications to some of their Judges, and some Parliament men for them, and particularly with Colonel Temple Governour of the Fort near Graves End, and delt with him upon their own Principals, as the most probablest to doe the Prisoners good; and to save their lives, which I confeste I much laboured for, and my Discourse with him was to this effect at the House doore:

Sir, I beseech you, let me ask you one question, What’s that saith he? It is whether you think your House intend in good earnest to take away the lives of the Lord Capel &c? or whether they have only caused them to be condemned in terrorum? without all controversie said he, they intend to take away their lives, and it is but just they should, and doe not you believe so, No indeed Sir doe I not, and if you please, I will give you some part of my Reasons therefore; I pray let me have them, Well then Sir said I, to say nothing of the Jurisdiction of the Court by which they were tryed (which is very questionable to me) nor of the power of a Parliament to erect such a one, nor yet of the questionablenesse of the legality of your single House, nor of the clearness of the letter of the Law of their sides; which now the King being gone, might put you out of feare of the future power of these men, and make you now they are at your mercy, and you out of fear of present hurt by them; seriously to weigh the Quarrell betwixt you and them in an equall and just balance; which if you do, I am sure you will finde it very disputeable in Law, and something in Reason too, considering many of your late actions; especially if you consider, you never avowedly nor throughly stated your Cause; but begun it upon Commissions for King and Parliament, forced people to take the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy, Protestation, and two Covenants, in all which you force the people to swear to maintain the Kings Person, Crown and Greatnesse: and this after the Wars begun, letting all Writs and Processe of Law run in his Name, and thereby your selves make him as it were Alpha and Omega to the people; yea, and in severall of your Declarations since the quarrell, you call him the fountain of Honour, and averr he can do no wrong: See 1 part Book Decl. pag. 199. 304. All which doings of yours are enough to make men side with the King, especially those that have great Estates, if it be for nothing but safetie’s sake alone: But I will lay all these aside, and argue with you more closely, upon principles that you cannot dispute against.

1. And therefore in the first place, The Law of England published by your selves; saith expresly, ‘No man of England in things concerning life shall be judged twice for one fact; but if once judicially tryed and acquitted, he never more by Law can be questioned again for that crime, though indeed and in truth he be never so guilty or it, and though it be never so criminous in it self; otherwise there would never be end nor safety: And for the proof thereof I then cited SYERS Case, at the Sessions of the Peace holden at Norwich in the 32 yeer of Queen Elizabeth, and the Judges opinions thereupon, which is notably recorded in Cooks 3 part Institutes chap. 104. of falsifying of Attainders, fol. 230. And my own Case at Oxford, which was to this effect: Being at the Fight at Brainford (which was upon the 12 of Novemb. 1642) taken prisoner in Arms against the King and his party, I was carried captive to Oxford Castle; where not long after my arrivall, the Lord Dunsmore, the Lord Matrevers, the Lord Newark, and the Lord Andover came to the Castle to me from the King, as they said, and proffered me from himself great matters, so I would crave his pardon for the treason I had committed against him, in being in arms against him, and for sake the traitorous Parliament, and return to my obedience (as they called it) to the King: but being then as able in my own thoughts, as any private man in England to argue the equity and Justice of the Parliaments Cause, I was then knowingly ingaged in by the hopes of the performance of their many gallant promises to make people of England free and happy (their then only declared aim and end) and in whose quarrell I would then have laid down a thousand lives, (if I had had them) and for the greatest part of an hour together, by dint of Argument, grounded upon Law and Reason; scorning and contemning all their great proffers of Honour, Riches, and Greatnesse, I held them in play so hotly, that they fell ragingly out with me, and gave up their disputing bucklers; threatning to hang me speedily for a grand Traitor, without any more adoe. At which I laughed, and desired their Lordships to tell me which way they would go to work to take away my life, now they had given me quarter.

Well, say they, We have two strings to our bow, And in the first place, we will arraigne you for a Traytor, for being the chief or Generall of the Prentices, that came down to Westminster and White Hall, and forced the House of Peers, and drove away the King from his Parliament; and so begun the Warrs. Unto which I replyed, Alasse; my Lords, you will be far mistaken there. And I cannot but wonder, that your Lordships should so undervalue your own Honours and Reputations, as so much as once now to mention this. Why Sirrair? said one of them. Why, my Lord? Because your Lordships may remember that the 3 of May, 1641. the King caused Warrants to issue out to apprehend me as a Traytor for this very thing, and others depending upon it; and as a traytor I was apprehended by his Messengers, one of which that night kept me prisoner as a Traitor: and the next morning being 4 of May 1641, as a Traytor I was brought by him to White Hall, where, (as I remember) old Sir Henry Vane and Mr. Nicholas were appointed by the King himself to carry my Impeachment to the House of Peers, at whose Bar I that day appeared (not then understanding their Jurisdiction) and was there that day in your way arraigned for my life, and one Littleton the Lord Keepers Kinsman, swore most bitterly against me: but upon further examination of witnesses, and hearing with patience my own Defence for my self, I was by your whole House (who look’d upon themselves as the highest Judicatory in England) honourably and nobly acquitted, as a person innocent and free of the Kings accusation: of which, my Lords, (said I then) let me plainly tell you, if I were guilty, you were a company of unrighteous and unjust Judges for freeing me from that Accusation: but, my Lords, being judicially tryed therefore, and acquitted by your selves, (who, if my memory fail me not, I saw all at that Tryall) and by your whole House (then extraordinary full as ever I saw it) who judge your selves the highest Judicature in England, I am acquitted thereby (my Lords) by the Law of England, from any more question about that businesse, although it should be granted, I was never so guilty of it. Unto which they replyed (to my remembrance) in these words, A pox on you, for a cunning subtill Rogue, are you so cunning in the Law, that we cannot lay hold of you here? but yet for all your parts, we will have you to the gallows, for leavying Warr upon the traiterous commands of the Parliament against the King: And here (said they) wee are sure the Law will reach you. Whereupon I was immediately after laid in irons, and brought to the Bar before the Lord Chief Justice Heath, Sir Thomas Gardned Recorder of London, &c. and by Indictment, according to the rules of the Common Law, arraigned for a traytor for levying War in Oxfordshire against the King. But my Plea to the businesse of Westminster and the Prentices was admitted for good law, That being once judicially tryed and acquitted, I could no more be troubled therefore: neither indeed was I. But according to the punctilioes of the Law, they gave me all the fair play in the world that the Law would allow me, suffering me to say for my self at the Bar what I pleased, releasing me of my close imprisonment and irons, and allowed me pen, ink and paper (which the Jaylor kept from me) upon my pleading before the Judge; such usages being altogether contrary to law: and that no such usages ought to be exercised in the least upon any prisoner whatsoever, that was not beastly rude in his imprisonment; and that no supposed Traitor or Felon by law could be put to any pain or torment before conviction.

And truly, Colonel Temple, I should be very sorry, and blush for shame, especially considering my strong zeal in the Parliaments cause, to see the day that the Parliament of England (at least those that so still themselves) that hath pretended so much righteousnesse and justice, should be no more just to the Cavaliers (against whom they have fought for injustice and and oppression) in denying them the benefit of the Law when they are in their power and mercy, then the Kings Judges were to me, and other of your prisoners, when their lives were in their power and mercy; in the hight of War, and of their ranting prosperity, and yet granted us the benefit of Law in all things we claimed it in, as Capt. Vivers of Bansury, arraigned with me, can witnesse as well as myself.

Now Sir, to make application: the Parliament not long since, when in its power it was more abundantly unquestionable then now it is, (after its new force) condemned Capel Hambleton, Holland, &c. to banishment, for the very crimes laid now to their charge; and therefore in Justice, and Law cannot a second time cause them to be adjudged to die for the very same things. Its nothing to me, nor to the Kingdom, for you to say, that when that Judgment pass’d they had so many friends sitting in the House as over-voted the honest Common-wealth’s-men to the prejudice thereof; for the major part is Parliament, or else there is no parliament: Therefore Sir, I reason thus: Either that wherein that Judgment pass’d was a parliament, or no Parliament; if a Parliament, then their judgment (is to themselves especially) was binding, and the benefit of it they ought not to deny to them whose lives are conserved in it; although it were unjust in it self as to the Nation: But if you, or any other man shall say, it was no Parliament, as having forfeited their trust in treating with the King again, and so their Judgment not valid, then with much more confidence say I, this that now sits is no Parliament, and so by consequence, the High Court of Justice no Court of Justice at all? and if so, then to execute them upon their Judgment, is absolute Murder. But I would fain see that honest and valiant man in your House that durst protest against them for no Parliament.

But Sir, besides this, mark the consequence of it to all we Parliamenteers that have acted under you, and by vertue of your commands, by these Proceedings:

First, You have sold the Bishops Lands, and given them that bought them, as they suppose, good security for their quiet enjoyment of their Purchases: I, but within a little while after, part of the very same Parliament alters their mindes, and being become the major part by forcible Purgations, illegall new Recruits, or by any other tricks or devices, and they vote, all those bargains are unjust, and the Purchasers ought to lose both their Land and Money: where is then that stable security of Parliaments? And yet such doings would be as just as your present dealings with CAPEL, &c. whose precedent creates a precedent for that, and much more of the same nature.

But secondly, The same Parliament that condemded Capel &c. to Banishment, pass’d multitudes of Compositions with severall Cavaliers, as guilty of Treason in the true naure of it, as they: And by the same rule you now condemn CAPEL, &c. to die; after you have judged them to banishment, you may adjudge all the compounding Cavileers to be hanged, after you have adjudged them to composition, and so put the Kingdom (by making people desperate) in an everlasting flame that never will have end, because there is no certainty in any of your proceedings, but are as changeable as the mind that bloweth.

Again, Thirdly, and most principally it is a common maxime in Law and Reason, both, and so declared by your selves, 1 part Book Declarar. page 281. “That those that shall guide themselves by the judgment of Parliament, ought (what-ever happen) to be secure and free from all account and penalties. But divers honest men (as you now judge them) have acted and guided themselves by the judgment of Parliament, as they account you, in taking away the King’s life; and yet by your dealings with CAPEL, &c. they are liable to be hanged as Traytors therefore, if a major part of your very House, by force, or other illegal Tricks, shall vote that act Treason, and all the Actors therein Traitors: So that, Sir, if I have any judgment in me, by this very single act towards them, you shake the very foundation of the validity of all the Parliaments Decrees and Judgments at once, and “make invalid all the Security and Indemnity that those (in equity) ought to enjoy, that have acted by your commands, and guided themselves by the judgment of Parliament: By means of which you will finde in time, you have demolished your own Bulwarks, and destroyed your own Fences. And for time to come, for my part, I shall be a thousand times more wary how I obey all your Commands, then ever I was in my life; seeing you are so fickle and unstable, that no man knows rationally where to find you, or fixedly to what to hold you.

But if you shall object (as some do) That that judgment of Banishment was onely in reference to the peace with the King, and that being broke, you are absolved from that judgment, and not bound by it.

To which I answer no more but this; That was a Judgment upon seirous and solid debate, of long continuance, at the passing of which you acted as individually, and as independently from the King, as ever you did before or since: and therefore in Law, Justice and Conscience you ought to stand to it, and make it good to the Prisoners concerned in it; especially, considering they desire it.

But having in length outstriped an ordinary epistle, and having much matter remaining, judging it more then time this that I have here writen to you, should come to publick view, (although I perish for so doing) I am forced and necessitated abruptly here to break of; and leave the remaining part for a second part to the same tune, if God spare me life and health, and give opportunity, although I be cut in ten thousand peeces therefore; for if every hair of CROMWEL, FAIRFAX, IRETON, HASLERIG, BRADSHAW, and HARRISONS head, were a Regiment or Legion of armed men, I would by Gods assistance in the present righteous cause in which they have deeply imbarqued me, (by their lawless Cruelty and Tyranny) fear them no more then so many butterflyes or motes in the sun; for behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord JEHOVAH is my strength, and my song, he also is (long since) become my Salvation, Isa. 12. 2. Therefore will I sing rejoyce and be merry, for he hath fitted me for all manner of deaths; in inabling me through his strength power and presence, any time this twelve years together to carry my life in my hand, and to be always ever since in readiness at a quarter of an hours warning to lay it down; which I shall as freely doe (as eat) in this just and righteous quarrel; viz. The LIBERTIES Of The Land Of MY Nativities AGAINST The APOSTACIES And Tyrannies Of Her Most PERFIDIOUS And TREACHEROUS Professed FRIENDS, and the holding out of Gods Soveraignty amongst the son of men, as being that one, single, individual alone (either in heaven or earth) that is to raign, rule, govern, and give a law by his will and pleasure to the sons of men; the absolute workmanship of his hands or power; And therefore to thee O CROMWEL, O FAIRFAX, O IRETON, O HASLERIG, &c. in the power, might and strength of the Lord God Omnipotent and Almighty, that Raigns and shall Rule for ever and ever; before whom the stoutest Devils in Hell doe quake and tremble; and before whom You are all of you as inconsiderable as motes in the Sun, as the dust of the ballance, on the smallest drop of the bucket: To you, I say, in my present condition, as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in their great distresse, (as to the outward man, Dan 3.) said once to your brother Tyrant Nebuchadnezzar; Be it known unto you, that for all your power and worldly greatnesse (with all your armed Jannisaries) that I fear you not, nor am carefull to answer you in the matter in Controveroversie betwixt us; for the God whom (with my soul and body) I serve (with uprightness of heart) is able to deliver me, from the burning fiery fornace, (your cruell close Imprisonment, Banishment, Dungeons, or Death it self) yea, and he will deliver me out of your cruell hands, O (persidious cruel) Tyrants.

But if he will not, Be it known unto you, O (apostatised) Tyrants, that I will not serve you (stoop or submit unto you) nor worship your Idoll or golden Image that you have set up (your Arbitrary power and unlimited greatnesse.)

But least God should give or permit you a larger power over me then he did the Devil over Job to murther me before I can write the second part hereof; therefore I shal now give you the heads of my intentions, and so conclude.

First, From the perplexitie of my spirit with the unjust dealings with Capel, &c. I left Westminster and retired home, resolved in solitarinesse there to abide, where I was grievously tormented with the cryes of poor people who came to me in multitudes for advice in their tedious suits of Law, whose complaints without any hopes of remedy that I could give them, made my house a place of torment to me, which forced me to visit Westminster againe, where

2ly, I heard the certainty of Husons, Whaleys and Major Bartons desperat height at their Councel of War at Whitehall, at or neer upon the 22 of Feb. 1648. to ingage that Councel (vi & armis) to procure by Cromwels means a Law at their pleasure to dispatch me and my honest friends the Whalboneers; which when I examined from friend to friend, and found it to be very true by the attestation of plurality of their own Officers, my spirit was all on fire, (and no Lyon of the Army to me then so full of dread, but I durst incounter with) to consider with my self that all our Liberties and large expectations must Center in this, “That now our lives must be at the absolute wil and pleasure of a company of BLOUDY and INHUMANE Butcherers of men, that had served seven yeers apprentiship to that bloudy and wicked trade of cutting of mens throats for money, and nothing else; who never had kept faith or truth with any sorts of men they dealt with, and yet must now become our Accusers, Prosecuters, Witnesses, Parties, Jury, Judges, and Executioners: At the very thoughts of which I was even confounded in my spirit, and which justly and throughly ingaged me in the chief mannaging of the first and second part of Englands new Chains discovered: The first of which I presented at the Commons Barre, with a speech to it, the 26 Febr. 1648. the second part of which I, &c. had got divers thousands of hands to: the truth of every line of which, (for all its declared treasonable) I will seal with my heart blood; and undertake before a new Representative (TO WHOM I HEREBY AGAIN APPEAL) to prove every charge in it upon my Life. I shall also give the Reasons wherefore I have flown so high, as I have done, which is, because they have thought it just in them to accuse the King, the supreme Magistrate, of Treason; and yet have thought and declared it Treason in me, &c. to goe about the doing of any such thing to Mr. Oliver, that I will maintain it upon my life, more (comperatis comperandis) legally deserves it then ever the King did; And yet though I, &c. trode in the very path that they themselves (I mean both Parliament and Army) chalked out unto us: viz. by Petition, (1 part Book Declar. pag. 123, 201, 202, 548, 720. and Armies Book, Declar. page 17, 33, 35, 44, 60, 61. yea, see page 83. and you shall there finde in the fifth Article, they impeached Mr. Hollis, Sir Philip Stapleton, and Mr. Glynn for Traytors, For obstructing and prejudging of publique Petitions to the Parliament; and yet they adjudged and condemned me, &c. for a Traytor therefore, without so much as ever hearing me to speak for my self; and then after they had condemned me, went about at the Kings-Bench-Bar to try me for my life; unto whom, if I stooped, I was sure to be gone, being already prejudged: Again, I shall also acquaint you with the severall Discourses Mr. Holland, Mr. Hunt. &c. had with me about these Businesses, and the large proffers I had from them, yea, and from Mr. Alexander Rigby as the mouth of Sir Henry Mildmay the Grandees Agent, who had Commission (as he said) to proffer Me and my Comrades large places and preferments; so we would sit still, and let the Grandees goe on with their work: Which I with detestation refused at the house doore, the very FORENOON, I was adjudged a Traytor, and thereupon the same day in the Afternoon, the Votes of Treason past against me, &c. and my Second part of Englands New-chains discovered.

And seeing the Businesse of Scroop’s men is wrongfully father’d upon me, who never will incite Souldiers not others to declare upon any thing else but our printed Agreement of the 1. May 1649. and that when they do draw their Swords against their General, &c. they shall throw away their Scabbards, and rather fight with him, then treat with him, without either resolving to give or take Quarter; yet I say, seeing this is put upon my score, I hope I shall evidently make it appear (comparatis comparandis)” That I am able to give 99 in the hundred to any Champion the Generall hath in England, and from Scripture, Law, Reason, and their own Declarations, to make their action appear more just then the Generals severall Rebellions against the Parliament, his Creators, and extraordinary good Benefactors; or his Rebellion and the Parliaments against the King in the late Warrs.

And lastly, I shall shew the falseness and malignity of the late Discoverers designe, of fathering upon me, &c. all the erronious tenents of the poor Diggers at George hill in Surrey, laid down in their late two avowed Books, called, The true Levellers Standard, and The new law of Righteousnesse, to which they have have annexed their names: The Reader; taking notice of which alone, may be an answer to all that abominable lying late Book, called, The Discoverer. And so, Mr. SPEAKER, thanking you for some late kindnesses in your House, I received from you, I take leave to subscribe my self

The Printer to the Reader.

REader, As thou the faults herein dost spy, I pray thee to correct them with thy Pen: The Author is Close-Prisoner, knows not why; And shall have Liberty, but knows not when.

But if he Falls; as he hath Liv’d, he Dies
A faithfull Maryr for Our Liberties.