ENGLAND'S APPEAL TO ITS OWN ARMY.  
OR THe loud cry of an oppressed KINGDOM, Against their oppressors  
BEING A Declaration of the indirect and treacherous practices of several Members of the House of Commons, who contrary to their trust have endeavoured to enslave the King, and Kingdom under an arbitrary power, contrary to Law and Justice, and the practice of former Parliaments.  
Published at the earnest desire of some well-affected Gentry and Commons of this Kingdom   

ENGLAND'S APPEAL TO ITS OWN ARMY.  
OR THE LOUD CRY OF AN OPPRESSED KINGDOM against their oppressors.  
GAllant Soldiers, you who God hath honoured with success, to the admiration of your friends, and astonishment of your enemies: Now let us see whether you will prove faithful to England yea, or no: Whether the public peace and welfare of this poor sinking Kingdom; be of so high esteem, with you, as your own ease and particular interest or no; if you dare not trust God at Jordan, which hath wrought wonders for you in the wilderness; delivered you out of the hands of Pharaoh; and brought you through the Red-Sea; if you will say after all this Manna, but can God give us flesh also; if ye will thus dishonour God before the People; ye may come with Moses to see that good Land that shall flow with righteousness and peace; but not possess it. [Therefore be of good courage, and let us play the men for our People, and for the City of our God, and the Lord do that which seemeth him good: 2 Sam. 1. 12.]  
If ye have hitherto had confidence in your own wisdom and strength. If ye have hitherto sought your own exaltation and self interests in your actings. If ye hitherto preferred your own pay and Arrears; your own honour, and vindication; before the public peace and welfare of the Kingdom; let us know it; do not dissemble any longer with us; let us have some time to prepare ourselves to become slaves.  
But if God have hitherto been your wisdom and strength; if the Kingdom's peace and safety have been of greater value with you then our own lives; if it hath been the honour and glory of God; you hav● sought more, than your own vindication and reputation; why is it not so still? Did we ever think you would be mercenary Soldiers, you are not all French and Scotch, sure there is some of you freeborn Englishmen; we thought you had been equally interested with us in the commonwealths good. What, have you lost your interest and freedoms by fight for them? If ye had been in France sighting there for money against Spain, ye might have demanded as much there upon your disbanding, as you have requested here yet.  
Surely there is some other grievances lies upon your spirits, besides particular interest, as arrears, Indemnity, Vindication; you pretend in your Declaration you could wish other things; we hope your expectations in relation to your work, will be equal to that of your wages. Have you taken all this pain, and put us to all this cost to set up the building of a well grounded peace, and will ye leave it so slightly pinned, as the least blast of wind shall blow it over again, and so make our latter end worse than our beginning?  
But we hope you cannot, you dare not thus deal with us. The generality of your carriage and demeanour amongst us, hath promised better things; your several Declarations to your Soldiers in the behalf of the Country, as you marched along, your sincere and exemplary proceed against any of them that did us any wrong; cannot but beget better thoughts in us towards you.  
For we must confess, we never could distinguish betwixt Caveliers and Roundheads by their carriage amongst us, till you were an Army, or at least a great part of you in arms for us; and since God hath made you useful to affect many of us to the Parliament, by your fair carriage to us: Do not leave us till in some measure we be assured of our expectation; lest we have lust cause to say, you have therein been a snare to us.  
Therefore we declare to you, if you disband or lay down Arms, before we have some farther and fuller assurance of a peaceable enjoyment of our liberties and freedoms, and to live under the government and protection of our known Laws, which you have often times pretended you fought to maintain, you do as much as in you lies betray us into bondage and slavery; had we not been conquered into subjection to arbitrary government, we should never have been voted to it; therefore for your farther satisfaction concerning not dis-banding, we shall refer to your consideration these following reasons.  
1. Because we cnoceive you did not take up arms to defend either boundless prerogative, or unlimited privileges, but to maintain the common liberties of all the freeborn People of England, against all tyrannical usurpations, and unjust oppressions by whomsoever exercised; and since by the blessing of God, you have delivered yourselves and Kingdom from the former; we conceive it's your duty to do your utmost to preserve us from the latter, at lest to let us know where the cause lies we are not eased of our unsupportable burdens, and settled in the enjoyment of our Jus● Liberties and freedoms.  
2. Because (we conceive) you are not engaged in this war by any mercenary considerations, of profits or preferments, but as men equally interested in the things ye fought for. And many of you chosen and entrusted by the Kingdom as members of the Parliament; and you thereby are as equally concerned in the proceed of the Parliament, be they good or bad, as you are in the actings of the Army; and what you have done or declared to do for the Kingdom as Parliament men, you ought to do your utmost to maintain and make good as you are Soldiers: and considering that the late proceed of the Parliament have been absolute contrary to their former Declarations, and Protestations, whereby they will not only bring upon themselves, but you, the guilt of all the blood which hath been shed in pretence of opposing tyranny and oppression; when at this present there is more arbitrary tyranny and oppression, upon the poor Commons, than ever there was since man can remember; which we hope you will not be the authors of.  
3. Because this present Parliament is not a free Parliament, there being many of the late elections have had undue proceed in the choice of new members, they having not been left to the free choice of the People, but have been first chose by particular Parliament men, and then recommended by insinuating Letters to the several Counties and Corporations they are chosen by; which by reason of that influence some Committees and some others, had over the said Counties and places, they durst not do other but choose them: many of the same members which thus chooseth others, are themselves guilty of high misdemeanour, some of them having long, lain under the charge of betraying their trust, others of engrossing the public stock into their own hands, and so have cheated the Commonwealth of vast sums of money; and for their own security of being accountable to the Kingdom for what they have done, have they procured by those unjust elections such men as are either interested with themselves in some guilt to the public as they have been Country Committees; or else such as they have had particular interest in, and relation to, and so might corrupt and sway them at their pleasure; by which means you had of late the mayor part of the House carried on to such contradictory proceed to their former Declarations, and Protestations; they having been more mindful of deviding the Commonwealth's money among themselves, than they have been of paying the Commonwealth's just debts; as if they were resolved never to leave raising of money as long as the Commons of England's be worth a penny.  
4. Because the end of your dis-banding, is not to ease us of the charge of an Army, there being already provision made to continve an Army every whit as chargeable, and to be feared will be more oppressive, and abusive to us then ever you have been: but their design is (as fast as they can accomplish it) to new modelize the Army and Parliament too; and to intrust none but such, as are equally guilty with themselves, or in some kind interested in their design, which is to dis-throne the King, and enslave the People, and set themselves up as Lords and Kings in his room, and so in stead of having an Army to protect us, we shall have an Army in our own bowels, paid by us, to enslave us; but we hope since you expect your due in point of wages from us, you will give us leave to tell you we expect the performance of your duty in point of faithfulness from you hardly thinking you can in honesty or conscience demand all your areares or wages till you have brought your work to some fuller perfection, for if you leave us thus, you leave us in a worse condition than you found us.  
5. Because we have found more Justice and benefit from our trusties in Parliament, within these ten days, since you have stood up and declared for us, than we had formerly received in ten months, when you stood as it were Neuters to us: as witness those selfe-denying Votes; The taking off the Excise from flesh and Salt, except their desires to hasten the Propositions to the King: their approving your Petition, and answering your grievances; their relieving the necessities of several reformado Officers which formerly were out of hopes; all which makes us confident, that if according to your declaring there were a period set to this Parliament, and provision made for further Parliaments to succeed one another, whereby Parliaments might know they were questionable, for their actions at such a period of time, and should then expect to find an impartial communicating of Justice to all the freeborn People of this Kingdom: and we cannot expect it before. Therefore we declare to you, if you will stand by us in those just and impartial things you have declared to us, we are resolved to stand by you, and own you in them, to the utmost of our abilities and last drop of our blood.   
FINIS.