A DECLARATION Of the Officers and Company of seamen aboard His majfsties' Ships, The Constant Reformation, the Convertine, the Swallow, the Antelope, the Satisfaction, the hind, the roebuck, the Crescent, the pelican, the Blackmore Lady lately rescued for His majesty's service, with an Invitation to the rest of the Fleet, and their Brethren on Land to join with them in their just undertakings.  
WE have long expected with great impatience, an happy end of our wasting divisions by means of a personal Treaty, so often pressed by our Brethren of Scotland, and earnestly desired by the Generality of the kingdom, as appeareth by the late several Petitions of the respective Counties to that purpose. But we find by sad experience that the Independent party, instead of applying themselves to the settlement and composure of differences, according to their faith publicly given to the whole kingdom, (But most shamefully violated in their proposals of the Army) have seized into their hands, and Garrisoned all the strong places of the kingdom, overrunning, disarming, and plundering the Country, as if it were a Conquered Nation. And all this for no other cause: But that they in an humble way had manifested their desires of Peace, and to have an end of those heavy pressures; which lay upon them, by the arbitrary power of Committees, and the unjust continuation of the Accise and Land-taxes, after the utter defeat of the King's party; from whose fines and Compositions they drew money enough to have satisfied most part of the debts of the kingdom. And seeing likewise that the Power and affairs of the Navy, were put into such hands, as were not only enemies to the King and kingdom, but even to Monarchy itself, that the stile of Commissions at Sea were lately altered, leaving out the King's name, and mentioning only the Parliament and Army, which we understood to be a disinherison of His Majesty and His Children, that we had no settled form of Divine worship, no Communions, little or no Preaching on board but by illiterate and mechanic persons, that there was a design of introducing Land soldiers into every Ship to master and over-awe the Sea men, things so contrary to the ancient customs and orders of the Sea, that we thought ourselves bound in Conscience to do something for the recovery of our own right & restablishment of Religion according to the word of God, and the Covenant solemnly taken, the honour, preservation, and freedom of His Majesty, the privilege of Parliament, and the Liberty of the Subject, and not be made any longer the unhappy Instrument of the misery of King and kingdom, at which time God put it into our minds, and encouraged our hearts, and strengthened our hands, to remove colonel Rainsburrow from the command of the Fleet, a man of most destructive Principles both in Religion and Policy, and a known enemy to the Peace and ancient Government of this Kingdom, which we have sworn to uphold and maintain with our lives and fortunes, desiring all honest seamen not to be deluded any longer with words, but one and all, to join with us, and to put too their hands to so honest a work, the glory whereof (next under God) will be imputed to them, and the reward no question will be proportionable, both in this world, and the world to come, we have been long pressed in the King's Name though against His will and Interest, let us now do Him some real service in this time of His great affliction, which God hath wonderfully enabled Him to bear, and will doubtless in his good time restore Him to us, and us to our known Laws and Liberties, look upon the Prince of Wales heir apparent of the three crowns, and Generalissimo under His royal Father of all Forces by Sea and Land. Look upon the Duke of York Lord high admiral of England, Princes of so much hope and forwardness, that the world not the like, extracting from the highest blood in Christendom, allied to, and befriended by all foreign Potentates, invited by the Scottish Nation, and by the best part of ours to the recovering of their own, who have had no hand in the miseries of this kingdom, and consider with yourselves by what Law of God or man they can be thrust out of their just Possessions into exile there to live as it were upon the alms of strangers; Come in and join with us, and you shall want nothing, we have good Ships, good hearts, good hands, and which is worth all, God, and the Law on our side. And the Almighty searcher of all hearts so prosper us in our undertakings as we intend the advancement of his glory in the settlement of the true Protestant Religion, according to his holy word, the Honour freedom and just rights of His Majesty, the confirmation of the privileges of Parliament, and the Liberty of the Subject by an equal and well grounded Peace.   

Printed at Holland, and reprinted at London, 1648.