A COPY OF A LETTER FROM A Principal Person in PARIS, In answer to one received from his friend in ENGLAND, touching the estate of the present affairs: And his opinion.   printer's or publisher's device 
July 17 Imprinted in the year, 1647.   

A Copy of a Letter from a principal person in Paris, in answer to one received from his friend in England, touching the estate of the present affairs, and his opinion.  
July1. 1647. 
 SIR,  
I Thank you for your advertisements of the Affairs of England by the last Post, and whereas you desire my Opinion of them, and what I conceive may be the issue; It is yet very early days to make my judgement of the success, which is like to depend upon the future management and pursuit of them; for certainly this great turn by the Army may produce great good and happiness to the Kingdom, by settling a firm and well conditioned Peace, if it be really and cordially their intentions as they profess, and I am apt to believe it is; for as they seem to be men led much by their Conscience, so there must be this right done unto them, that they have been very exact in point of their reputation, to have the Articles and Capitulations of their Treaties upon the rendering of places to be punctually performed; and have heretofore shown a great sense and dislike at the Houses violation of them, and do now insist to have them justly performed, and the former breaches of them to be repaired, which showeth them to be people of truth, and of just dealing; and likewise to have honour in recommendation: if, I say, their intentions be the same which they yet pretend, which is a settlement of the peace of the Kingdom, (which useth not to be of the Soldier's Trade) God may make them the instruments of great blessings unto their Country, even to be Deliverers of it, not only from the Sword, and War, but from the merciless Government of those, who under the shelter of their Power and Conquest, had usurped over them and the whole Kingdom an absolute Arbytrary Dominion, limited by no Laws nor bounds, but by their own wills, and at such a time when no humane prudence could tell from whence to look for deliverance, which God hath now raised up and begun by them, and probably may be effected by them, if they hold themselves to their professed integrity, set private interests in the last place, and pursue these their beginnings with that wisdom and expedition which truly by their former Actions may well be expected from them in this: But if they shall pretend one thing, and intent another, and make the usual specious shows of Liberty and Reformation, only as the approaches to their Interests, Ambition, or Faction; my fears are that they will prove a Torrent quickly dried up, and will involve this Kingdom again in many great miseries, and a new effusion of Blood, and themselves in few months be reduced to a very sad condition; whereas (if such be Gods Will) they may probably be the Instruments of settling our happiness in very few days, and without the spilling of one drop of blood; the way whereof which occurreth unto me is briefly this; That they send presently unto his Majesty honest and equitable Conditions, but such as may give unto the Kingdom good satisfaction, both in point of their ancient Liberties and Privileges, and his Majesty's new Concessions, with such inlargements as shall be thought fit; that not only an Act of Oblivion and general Pardon be agreed on, but such further security as after so great provocations understanding people will expect, by the way of the se●ling the Militia for some time, and some other necessary provisions. That the King declaring his willingness to condescend to what is propounded unto him, and giving his Royal Word for the performance thereof, they immediately carry the King to London, that he may be in the condition of a Free man, for that all that he doth under actual restraint will be of no validity. There let all particulars be debated and settled, and then let the Accusation of the Army be agitated, as likewise all other things that will require time for the debate and setling of them; As for the Laws of the Land, the King's Revenue, and the right of the Crown, all such as he doth not limit or pass away, will of course return into their wont Channel.  
The King will be (there, as well as at Newmarket) under their protection; But by this means the King's power, that of the Houses of Parliament, and City of London, being all united, will presently recover a general reverence and obedience; Whereas on the other side, if there shall be any delay made in this settlement and conjunction of Powers, and time shall be spent in particular debates, betwixt the Army and the King, or the Army and the Houses, and things remain in suspense; The Houses, which the Army must now judge their Enemies, and all that they do for their present satisfaction, is but in compliance with them, and by constraint, in regard of their present danger, and otherwise not reconcileable, having declared their Government Tyrannical; and demanded that many of their leading Members shall be called into judgement, and be sequestered (so high at breach of Privilege, that when the King only desired that some of them might be legally proceeded against by the course of Justice, they withstood it, and voted it the highest breach of Privilege that had been offered to Parliaments.) If these distractions shall hinder their conjunction, the Army will daily sink in reputation, the Presbyterian Party will have time to gather courage, and to fit those places of strength, and the Navy which hold for them, and the King and his Party perhaps confiding in neither, will susspend their choice; unto which Party it will be fit, in wisdom to adhere.  
In the mean time the Kingdom of Scotland, with those specious Arguments which they will have of upholding their Covenant which both ●ingdomes are sworn unto, and the freeing of the person of their Native King, surprised by a mutinous Army, and held prisoner by them, as is publicly declared, without his former consent, or present approbation, will arm to a man, to return into England, where they have been so well paid for their coming in, and their return bought at so high a price. And to this purpose (if we be not here misinformed in Paris) they have already voted the whole strength of their Kingdom to be put presently in a readiness, which they here affirm shall be of twenty thousand Foot, and six thousand Horse, within a short time to be ready to march. And in this quarrel they are there very confident, that my Lord of Mentrosse, and all the King's Party in Scotland, will most readily join with them; insomuch that it is in debate, if it be not further proceeded in, That the Prince be invited to come into Scotland, and to be General of their Army, to rescue his father out of the hands of the Army that have surprised him, and holdeth him under restraint, and have forced the Parliament. And if you will have my opinion, it is, That if the Army proceed not speedily to unite the King and the City, and the Parliament (being purged or renewed in such sort as the Scots may not be invited in, and then the Counties may unitedly join against the Scots, if they shall invade this Kingdom, the Scots will prevail, or at least a more bloody War will be revived, then that which we hoped had been ended. So that laying aside whatsoever may be said against the Army, for the seizing of the King's Person, and declaring against the House, or against the Houses, for their assuming of absolute power, and using of it arbitrarily against all Law, without any Limits but their own will; or against the King's stiffness, in not yielding to those things which he judgeth against his Honour and Conscience. If the Army (in whom the means is only now to do it,) shall not presently establish the King, moderate the Houses, cause the City entirely to join; The united power of the Kingdom of Scotland, with the adherent party of their Covenanters, will bring in speedily more miseries upon the Kingdom of England, than what it hath hitherto suffered. As for the Shires and Provinces of England, if the abovesaid union be once settled, there shall not need any great industry to unite them against the coming in of the Scots.  
Thus (to satisfy your request) I have (in more haste than such a business requireth) set down my opinion, or rather conjecture, of the estate of the present affairs, which is, That if the Army proceed prudently, moderately, and speedily, in the settlement of them, they will procure a great deliverance to their Country; But if they go staggeringly to work, and spend the time in particular debates, or matters of interest, before they have settled the general, they will be but additions to our former miseries, and the causers of their own ruin in the end, specially if this present Parliament remain in being. For if it recover Power and Authority, the Army can never be secured; for whatsoever the Houses shall do by Ordinances for their indemnity, which is the highest security they can give, will by them be revocable every morning, and they will judge all promises or policies that have been used for the dispersing of a mutinous Army very justifiable for them to do, and punish afterward. So that the safety of the Army can consist in nothing but in the dissolving of the Parliament. Besides for the firm settling of all things that shall be agreed with the King, there will be a necessity of having a new and unquestionable Parliament: For certainly the wisdom of a State, for the confirmation of so great advantages and immunities as they hope to obtain from the King, will not rely upon the security of a Parliament, against which so much hath been objected, as that the King and Peers have been driven away by force and Tumults, and the Tumults and other proceed have caused the freedom of it to be often questioned, which is the very essence and being of Parliaments. That the Members of the lower House do fit by two several sorts of Writs inconsistent together, some by the King's Great Seal which is Voted down, the other by their new Great Seal, which some of the former Judges and great Lawyers have heretofore, affirmed to be Treason to make, by the Statute of the 25. of Edw. 3. And now the Army having so declared against them for breach of Trust, and usurping an Arbitrary and Tyrannical power; All which suggestions, although they should not amount to the making of an invalidity in their proceeding; yet certainly that which doth so highly concern the Kingdom in point of Peace, and the firm settlement for all future times of so many important things betwixt the King and Subject, as Pardon and Indemnity, and many other immunities ought to be by so clear, and so unquestionable security, that neither for the present, nor in future times any scruple or doubt could be raised concerning it, which made our wise Brethren the Scots not admit that the great advantages and liberties which they obtained of the King should be settled in that Parliament, when the King first agreed unto them, because they conceived in regard of the Army, and some other distractions, that Parliament might in future times be held dubious and questionable; and therefore having agreed the Articles, and gotten them signed by the King, they dissolved that questionable Parliament, and obtained of the King that a new Parliament (against whose validity no doubt or scruple could be raised) should (within few days after the dissolution of the former) be assembled, as it was; and all their Privileges, and the Acts which they desired, were passed in that new Parliament. And it is to be conceived, that it will be likewise held necessary for England in this occasion to follow their example. And so, etc.  
Paris, July 1. 11. 1647.  
FINIS.