A DECLARATION of the freeborn people of ENGLAND, now in arms against the tyranny and Oppression of OLIVER CROMWELL Esq.  
BEing satisfied in our Judgements and Consciences of the present necessity to take up arms for the defence of our Native Rights and Freedoms, which are wholly invaded and swallowed up in the Pride and Ambition of OLIVER Cromwell Esq who calls himself Lord Protector of ENGLAND, and hath rendered all Englishmen no better than his Vassals: We expect to be branded with the infamous name of Rebels and traitors, or to be misrepresented both to the Army, City, and Country, as Common Enemies, Disturbers of the public Peace, Arbitrary Cavaliers, or under some other odious notion, that may provoke the Army and People to endeavour our destruction: But if we may prevail to be heard before we be Condemned and Executed, We shall submit our cause, and the righteous end we seek, to the judgement of the Army, and every honest English Man, and if the Army itself (according to their many engagements) will undertake (and their strength be sufficient) to redeem Us from Our present slavery, and settle that Right and freedom, unto which Our birth gave Us title, we shall readily lay down our present arms.  
The whole Christian world knows that our English Earth hath been drunk with Blood these twelve years, through the great contest for Right and Freedom, and the whole Treasure of the Nation exhausted in that quarrel. How then can any Man, whose Hand or Heart hath been engaged in that Bloody contest, either acquit himself to God, his Conscience, or his country, in yielding up tamely and silently all the laws, Rights and Liberties of England, into an Usurpers hand? We have for many years patiently borne all kinds of Oppression, arbitrariness and tyranny, and suffered under such heavy burdens of Excise and Taxes, as England never knew in former ages, having been fed by him that now calls himself Lord Protector, and his Army, with specious pretences, and most alluring promises (seconded with many appeals to God for their integrity of heart in them) that true English Liberty, should be settled and secured, impartial Justice provided for, Arbitrary Power abolished, and every yoke of Oppression broken, and every burden eased: And we did believe, as they told us, that our present sufferings, were only like a rough stormy passage, to the Haven of Justice, Right, and freedom: We could not suspect these ambitious designs in Cromwell, and his Confederates, that are now proclaimed to the World: We could not think it possible, that a Man of such mean Quality and Estate as he, should aspire to make himself an absolute Lord and Tyrant over three potent Nations: But above all, his pretended zeal for God and his People, his high professions of godliness, Simplicity, and Integrity, his hypocritical Prayers, and days of Fasting to seek the Lord, his dissembled humility and meekness, and his frequent compassionate tears upon every occasion, We say, These things, together with his engagements public and private, his most solemn Protestations, with Imprecations of Vengeance upon himself and Family, if he dissembled, and his most frequent appeals to God for the truth of his Professions and Declarations; That he designed nothing but the securing the Liberty of God's people, and the administration of impartial justice, and sought no Power, Honour, Riches or greatness to himself or any particular Party or Interest: We say, these things rocked us asleep, with the pleasant dreams of Liberty and Justice, until he hath made a Sacrifice of all our laws, Liberties, and Properties, unto his own Ambition. And now he is not afraid to own what he before disclaimed, and Declared against; He that formerly Protested before the dreadful God, and to the Long Parliament, That He and his Army should be wholly subject to their civil Authority, and that whosoever should attempt any violence against them should make their way through his Blood, He now owns the breaking them in pieces with scorn and contempt. He that declared so much Humility and self-denial, claims and owns a Power supreme to Parliaments, and exerciseth an Absolute Dominion over the laws and Estates of Three Nations: He that seemed so zealous for Liberty, now dares own every private English Man his vassal, and their Parliaments his Slaves: He publisheth in Print in his own Speeches to his Parliaments, that the benefit that all English Men have in the execution of any laws amongst them is from Him, and that the Authority which their Parliaments have, and shall have, is only derived from Him: He hath published in the whole world, that he hath dissolved all civil Government, and that He had in himself alone, an absolute unlimited Arbitrary power, without check or control, until He put some limits upon himself (if he may be believed in his paper of Government.) Now what Patroon in Algiers, ever claimed more Mastery over his Slaves bought in the Market, than this claim of Cromwell's extends unto over Us: If We have the benefit of the execution of no Laws but from Him, than all the Rights, privileges, and Estates we have, are enjoyed by his mercy only, and without the execution of laws, no man hath more right to Lands, or Goods, than another, nor is any man's life under any security, if another be stronger than he. So that Cromwell owns and professeth, that the bread that every man eats is by his Mercy: And if his Power was without limit (as he saith) until he had put some bounds, then 'tis of his Grace and Favour only, that all English Men have now a seeming right in their Wives, Children, Servants, Lives, and Estates, if his own limits of his Power gives any such right: And if he please to throw away, (or burn by the hand of the Hangman) his Limits in his paper of Government, who can trouble him? He may do what he list with things of his own making; 'Tis the old English proverb, he that can bind can lose; And he may do what he list also with the Authority of Parliaments, if it be as he says, of his own giving: Now wherein doth a Patroon's Power over his purchased Slave, exceed this which Cromwell owns over Us? The patroon can but give the Slave his laws, his clothes, his Meat, his Life, and all this Cromwell owns to have given us, only he speaks it in such language as sounds not so harshly.  
Now after the expense of so much Christian blood, for the settling the Rights and Liberties due unto Us, as Men and Christians; when he that was trusted with an Army for that purpose, hath so unworthily betrayed his trust, spilled Innocent Blood like Water, falsified all his Declarations, Promises, Protestations and Oaths, and assumed to himself such a dominion over our country, as is destructive to all Right and Liberty, and renders Us and Our Posterities, Slaves to him and his Successors, with a payment of a Fifth (or thereabouts) of our Estates certain in Taxes to be entailed upon our Posterities, besides other burdens We appeal to the Conscience of every honest Man, whether a present Necessity, and an incumbent Duty be not upon us to Arm ourselves in defence of our ancient laws, and dearest birthrights, against the present Impostor and usurper: And we hope most of the present Army have not extinguished their Love to their country's freedom (although Cromwell's hypocritical professions, Prayers and tears, have much deluded them) but that they will readily concur with us, and other honest English men in our present attempt, by force of arms to redeem our country out of the usurper's bonds, and to seek those righteous ends, which we do hereby declare to be those, for which we now hazard our Lives, and with which we shall rest satisfied, and return to our homes in peace: And they are these following. viz.  

I. That all Assumed and usurped Powers and Authorities over our Country may be utterly abolished.  
II. That the Government may be settled upon a just Basis, with the due Bounds and Limits to every Magistrate.  
III. That the Ancient Liberties of ENGLAND settled by Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, and other laws, may be secured inviolably: That no man's person may be molested, imprisoned, restrained or touched, without a legal cause shown in the Warrant, whereby he is molested or restrained, (and that also in a due course of the Laws known proceedings, without countermands from the will of any man) whereas now men's Persons are troubled and restrained at will, and destroyed by long Imprisonments, no man knows for what: And also that no man's Estate may be liable to any disposal or prejudice, but by the known Laws of the Land, and the lawful judgement of his Equals.  
IV. That Free Successive Parliaments may be settled, with times of their Beginning and Ending, and with their Ancient Power and privileges: And that the Jurisdictive Power which Parliaments have taken upon them to exercise in these times of war and Distraction, (by taking upon them the judgement of particular Causes concerning men's Persons and Estates, sometimes by their Committees, and sometimes by themselves, contrary to the known proceedings of the Law) That such Power (we say) may be Declared against, and secure Provision made against the same: That thereby Parliaments may be free from the temptations of Profit, Friendship, and all private Interests, by which only they can be corrupted.  
V. That the Militia of the Nation may be so disposed, that no man may be able to be Absolute Master of Parliaments; And also that secure provision may be made, That no Parliament shall make itself perpetual, and enslave the People to them.   
And that such a Settlement may be made of Right and freedom, and these our ends obtained, and a Peace firmly established, we know no means, under God, but a truly FREE PARLIAMENT.  
Now for the defence of these our Rights and Liberties, we are resolved to expose our Lives to the utmost hazards; And we shall neither wrong nor oppose any man who doth not join himself to the present usurper to destroy or prevent these our righteous ends: And though we have reason to believe, That no person fearing GOD, or of Conscience, Honour, or Reason, can satisfy himself to shed our innocent blood for seeking these things, yet however we shall commit ourselves and our just cause to the tuition of the righteous God, and hope in his mercy, That our endeavours may procure Justice, freedom, Peace, and Settlement unto this distracted Nation.  
FINIS.