TO THE GENERAL His ECCELLENCY THOMAS LORD FAIREFAX A servant to the high and mighty, and most Excellent GOD, and to the NATION.  
Written By Captain WILLIAM BRAY.  
From his Captivity in Windsor Castle.  
April 27 Printed in the year 1649.   

TO The General, his Excellency THOMAS Lord Fairfax, a Servant to the high and mighty, and most excellent God, and to the NATION.  
SIR,  
I need not mention to you nor unto the world that I am a Prisoner, for walking in a peaceable, lawful and warrantable way, in the claim of justice against you for the good of my Country, and for a righteous and just satisfaction for my wrongs, and indeed it is a precedent of dangerous moment to stifle the Sovereign affections, that God kindles in the people to righteousness and justice; it races the foundations of natures just liberty, and doth in a special manner as it were raise a Battery, and draws in Battalia against Christian principles. Oh Sir, let not your greatness make you forget before whom you are, and shall be though you are so fare above and beyond me (as I acknowledge in the earthly glory) yet the Lord is not, nor will be a respecter of persons in judgement. Sir, shall a man see an evil and calamity hang over the Nation after such a deluge of blood, and shall he not speak; may not you have Hamon's and Achitophel's about you, that may seduce you to unworthy acts worthy repentance? would you have a man tormented again and again, and (if God doth not bestow a miracle upon him to make him patiented) would you torment him because lie complains; Oh Sir, what just natural liberty is here? What Christian Liberty is here? Where are the fundamental laws of England? Is there any thing that is done, by you, or countenanced by you, as done by any power on your behalf, that is unnatural, that is unchristian, that is contrary to the just fundamental laws of England, the Declarations of Parliament and Army, that doth or can conduce to your Fame and Honour: Have not you struck at the very Virals of liberty and freedom; truly Sir, as poor Mordicai, said, let not the Queen think she shall escape in the King's house, more than the rest of the Jews: so all those that are or ever shall be for the Rights of the People shall not escape the Lust, Wrath, and Vengeance of Oppressors; Sir, if the Parliament of England had walked, or had power to have walked against you, or the whole Army, by the same rules and principles, you and others walk against me, than you and others had been even as I am, and in humane probability this Nation had been made a Celdama, and Golgatha, a field of blood, and a place of Dead men's skulls: You complained against the injustices of men in Parliament, as if you would have brought forth impartial righteousness. But Sir, whilst my Appeal was in the House, a Letter came from yourself, or some other, by one of your Clerks, etc. This was condemned in the King, as is mentioned in King Charles his Case, as a way to subvert Justice: Moreover, I am committed unto your jurisdiction during pleasure (and so contrary to law) against whom I have appealed without any judicial sole, supine, and impartial hearing of my Cause; would you be dealt so with? and would you think it just if a man should be set upon in the high way, and he should complain unto a Justice of Peace, and the Justice of Peace should deliver, him over to him that would have injured him: And here I am told by my Keeper or Goaler, that I neither writ to you nor to the Parliament, nor to any of my Christian friends, but what he must see, or the Governor, or tyrannical creature and head Goaler must view, who walks beyond the bonds of my commitment; and is not this hating the light? Oh horrible cruelty! contrary to the deal of the Heathen Governor with Paul, Acts 24.23. And the Governor doth commit the Tyranny that so he may be the better accepted by you and the Parliament to perpetuate his honour and Tyranny: Is it for your honour that I am 〈◊〉 prisoner in appealing on the behalf of public Right, and for particular justice and redress, the latter of which was formerly against the late King himself in the public Courts of Justice in Westminster, very common before the blood of War, and that I should be overcome by force of your influence, and committed without a lawful hearing of the Cause, would it have been just and honourable, that David should have imprisoned Nathan. because Nathan told him his evils and tyrannies in the sight of the Sun, in record to the world to all generations. And if my declaring your injustices and arbitrariness deserve more than a Prison. If a private or a public Murder, let me say as Christ said to Judas, what you do, do quickly, for I value my life no more than I value a straw in the Cause of righteousness and public Justice: How many addresses did I make in a Christian private manner unto you before I was public, as my appeal expresses. And my former silence encouraged you to go on to deal unnaturally and cruelly with me, and so I could not but imagine might encourage you against other Members in the Commonweal: And indeed one of my Enemies could say to me that he did find that you had a disaffection to me, because it was thought that I had an influence in the honest Country men's Petitions; Sir, if you strike in the Nations and my close enemies designs, I must needs appeal against you, for they themselves are not seen all the while, and they can make you bear any unrighteous burden when they please; and indeed you must bear it in the sight of the Lord and Just men if you own their designs; they walk in the dark, and make you authorise their impieties designs and cruelties; and truly Sir, if I had not the Image of a man, or of your own kind in Creation, but of another creature you might have scarce dealt so with me, with reason: And truly Sir, such men that have had the credit and power to abuse the Commonwealth and Army in and with your Person, may subvert the very ends for which this Army was declared to be raised and solemnly engaged to stand to; Sir, I was fasted out of my right, in one of my causes, and after 420. miles riding and losses, could have no hearing or trial, or Christian reference, as my Appeal express●s. And secondly, after all my labours expenses indebtements, and zealous affections to your particular Person and personal Conduct (in order and subserviency to the right of Country (as t●e Troops and myself did lately subscribe unto) which I must confess, I deem supreme to any personal honour (which is accounted by many of your favourites a dangerous, mutinous, seducing principle.) I challenge the greatest Machivilian or enemy to the people's right to tax me with the contrary Judgement, Opinion, Practice, or Expression.  
But Sir, I delivered a second appeal unto the house to show the illegality and unchristianesse of their commitment I could not have it read. The world cannot but in common reason see this vile in the presence of God and just men, And truly Sir you need not ask who shall be Judge Mr. Solicitor Cook showeth in King Charles his case there are indemonstrable principles, principles of nature engraven in any man's heart and written in such legible Characters that he that runs may read, and there is nothing but Corruption and interests is the bloody interposer and obstructer thereof or of an equal distribution of righteousness, And as for my just principles (confessed indeed also by the Parliament so that I am not left without witnesses) in its primtite and masculine constitution and divers times in their necessities of the people and also by the Army in their declarations: I had rather be torn limb from limb by wild Horses and chopped as Herbs for the Pot as the Tyrants of old did, then lay the Testimonies of God, principles of righteousness (the glory of any nation) at the foot of any flesh alive; And if I must be butchered masiacred or destroyed, be kept from a legal hearing be kept from the free and uninterrupted society of my friends and the free declaring of myself in order to my cause which is the depth of Tyranny the will of the most high be done, and if possible I could (if I must be forceibly murdered by any of my fellow Soldiers) I would stand and see the blood run forth with delight for my Country till I had none left to support my Carcase, and if I may not have impartial judgement, and righteousness amongst men I shall leave my cause to him who will not be satisfied with this answer that you are in the head of an Army and have power to tyrannize over me obstruct, my right, and destroy me in my tender years and liberties, and before whom when he enters into judgement with all flesh this will not justify you, that you shall say that such particular persons had a private influence upon you to abuse you, or be an occasion of your destroying any man, in life, liberty, or estate contrary unto reason or righteousness.  
And now I address unto you in more particular manner from the Lord of Hosts, the God of Armies, the God of Justice and righteousness, the King, the Governor of the world, the everlasting God, the Judge, the Lawgiver, who hath told me perfectly in the Conscience by his spiritual and certain testimony, that fithence you have overturned the face of all authorities, under a notion of righteousness and Justice, that the Lord will require all the innocent blood oppressions and cruelties from the day of the death of the late King, at your hands and at the hands of Lieutenant General Cromwell and and Commissary General Ireton in an especial manner, and others that have pretended to Impartial righteousness in the House of Commons; and the Lord hath enforced my spirit to tell you so and declare it to you divers times in my enjoyments of my God in my bonds, and the Lord hath engaged himself to me in my Cause, and will stand by me, and hath commanded me to tell you, that I am in his name and for this his Nations sake, to demand reparations to for my unrighteous imprisonment, and freedom for it, and that I may have a freespeedy and judicial hearing of my cause, and that I may have the liberty of the choice of half of those men of the House that I shall deem are impartial and unbrased and not corrupt men for the hearing and trial of the business; and that the hearing may be open and public in the sight of the Sun, and that the obligation of impartial righteousness may be upon them according to the nature of just judgement, and that there be writers on both sides to take exactly what is said on the behalf of the Commonweal, the Army and my own right, and every one in one another; And the Lord hath engaged himself for me and I know the Lord will support me and carry me forth to make it appear, against you, or any of those that have seduced you to destroy me, and under me, even him that was the chief author of the Declarations of the Army, and the Lord will assist me to make it appear that the actions and deal with me are contrary to the law of nature in creation; The fundamental Laws of England, the solemn Declarations of the Parliament and Army, the Scriptures, and contrary to the glorious light of the most high in the Spirit; so I leave you to the Lord of righteousness, justice, goodness, and mercy, (who hath professed a care of Sparrows and the hairs of a man's head) and do subscribe myself in faithfulness and truth.  
From my captivity, slavery, and arbitrary imprisonment, as to men, though I have freedom, joy, and abundance of consolation as to God, in Windsor Castle. Your Excellencies real Servant if you are faithful to the most excellent just and impartial God in the Nations freedoms. WILLIAM BRAY.