A DECLARATION OF THE MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT, Lately Dissolved by Oliver Cromwell, Esquire:  
ALthough we are turned out of doors, and threatened for endeavouring to put some limitations upon the power of our mighty Conqueror, OLIVER CROMWELL, Esquire, for the freedom, ease and settlement of our native Country, according to our duties, and the Trust reposed in us, yet we cannot acquit ourselves to God and Man, without a protestation against the Usurpation, Oppression, Cruelty and Falsehood of the Tyrant, and an information of all the well-affected People of the three Nations, of their (too manifest) present miseries, and future dangers, with our sense of the duty and necessity that lies upon them for the prevention of the same.  
And to pass over his Cruelties and Oppressions of particular persons, of all sorts and factions, with his frequent transgressions of the Law, (for which more eminent persons than himself have lost their heads, of late years;) We cannot but with grief and horror remember his unparallelled striking at the root of all our Laws and Freedoms together, by the frequent violencrs offered to the Lawgivers, and the reasons that moved him unto it.  
And to begin with the long Parliament: We know no other reason why the Army was brought to Town, to drive away the major part of the Members then Sitting, but because they inclined to a settlement of the Nation upon our excellent old Foundation of King, Lords and Commons, which would totally have excluded his Ambition, Rapine and Cruelty: For the King was reduced to the Parliaments Terms, and if he were not Fit to be trusted, we know no reason why one of his Sons might not; nor can all the world show a better Government, then that of King, Lords and Commons, where we look upon the Lords as Mediators between the King, and Commons, to hinder the encroachments of either upon other, if the King should incline to tyranny, or the House of Commons to perpetuate itself, and meddle with the distribution of justice, in a corrupt and factious way, when they should only make Laws and punish evil Ministers; And for the MILITIA, to secure all this, if it be only trusted in persons hands of such known integrity, as all the three Estates shall agree upon, We should be as certain of a continual and secure enjoyment of our Liberties, as God will permit us to be of any worldly thing, who by his providence overthrows our best Conceptions whensoever he pleaseth to punish Us.  
And the wisdom of that Parliament foresaw that we could never long be secure from civil wars, and the danger of invasions, in behalf of the Family of the Stewarts, considering their right, and the affections of the people to them, if any other family or Government were settled, though it were a better: And for that reason were they to be hunted away as enemies to his sinister aims, and the worse and smaller number left, whom he hoped to have made as servile as he could wish them: but he found some English Spirits still amongst them, who would not be brought to offer one of their equals the throne he so wrongfully aimed at, and therefore he forced them out of the  by his Soldiers, with many insolent reproaches, as men not worthy to be his slaves any longer, and so fell the last remainders of our well built Government; Laws, and Liberties, into the hands of our Infidel Grand Signior and his janissaries, after all his hypocritical vows and protestations to live and die a faithful Servant of the Parliaments.  
And to make it the more manifest, That this Conquered Nation had utterly forfeited all its rights, he took away the Liberty of Election from the People, and imposed a thing called a Parliament upon them that was to choose succeeding Parliaments, like itself to act those things for him that he was ashamed then to own, though now his impudence is well increased; but to say truth, was sufficient then to take away that Fundamental Privilege of Election, which none of our Conquerors ever durst think of before him.  
But even those beasts of his own breed disdained such a rider, but when they could not throw him, they let him alight and turn them to grass; and then he had again (by his own confession, in his second Speech to this Parliament) an unlimited power to do what he pleased with his poor slaves of the three Nations; and he tells us that some Gentlemen whom he names not (but we suppose he means his great officers, whom he only fears) did srame the instrument of Government, and put limits to his power: else he good man could have been as well contented to have been an unlimited General, as a limited Protector; and this is evident by his well observing the limits they set him, and that he swore to; for though they restored to the people the freedom of the Election of their Members which he had taken from them, yet he struck out many of those chosen that he thought were not like to be his vassals. but when we met, he told us we were a truly free Parliament, that he assumed no dominion over us, but intended to be a fellow Servant with us, and he often called God to witness of his desire to divest himself of all power, and yet (after a second purge of us) he hath devested us of all our power, for questioning his in those particulars that are more intolerably burdensome and unlimited, than ever any Conqueror imposed upon the Nation: but we know not what the world will think of us for ●o tedious a compliance with the unjustest Usurper, and the greatest Murderer and Robber, that ever England had, but we shall only answer, that we were desirous to give our Country some ease of their burthons since it was so difficult to restore them to their liberty and security: but the Tyrant's heart is hardened, and out Ta●es must be again increased, according to his Lawless will, upon pretence of the providing for the Army, which (he says) we have neglected, when it is well known that the very customs and excize, without any other imposition, would pay the Army, were it not for his excessive avarice, and the chargeable pomp of his Family, but he will found another way of providing for the honest party in the Army, if he be let alone: for since Scotland and Ireland will not consume them, there must be more honourable pretences found to send them to some part of the Indies, there to perish through want, or the intemper●… 〈◊〉 of the air: and if any survive, they must there end their days in a perpetual banishment, as the sour thousand already sent under Venables are like to do, wh●… were so disposed of before he was so angry with them as now he is, and they were the only people he was invective against, in his fyrst speech to this Parliamen●… Page 7. by the name of Levellers, though he knew nothing of their design then; the truth is, he will do any thing for his interest, and that will lead him to destroy them by whole Sale, since their Spirits are not embased by his former murdering of them in parcels: there is no doubt, but he fears them the most of any people and it is as unquestionable that those he fears most, he will hate most; and for the Cavaleere and Presby●erian, let them judge of him by what they have 〈◊〉 from him, both in England and Scotland, the truth is, his demerits make him fear and hate all people of any principles, and therefore he imprisoneth them upon bare suspicions contrary to Law, and threatneth to force out their very thoughts, to make them accuse themselves and other innocent people, that they may lose their lives by no better a rule than his High-Courts of injustice, and it is certain, notwithstanding his hypocrisy that he must suppress all sorts of people but Atheists, because no others will cut throats for him, if they think nor themselves obliged to his destruction, which for our parts we think the whole Nation hath the most conscientious Obligation to, that ever mortal men had for their Religion and Liberties; if then out oppressions & dangers are still g●…ing upon us as fast as he can invent occasions both at home and abroad to increase them for his interest, what should deter us (since we can have nothing worse) from joining with our Country men of any principles, common interest, in the destruction of this devourer of all our security and happiness,