THE DECLARATION Of the Officers of The Garrison of Hull: In order to the Peace and Settlement of the KINGDOM.  
Presented to his Excellency the Lord General, and the General Council.  
Also a PETITION, presented to the Parliament of England, By the Officers and Soldiers of his Excellency the Lord General's Regiment of Horse, For the speedy calling of all public Treasurers to an Account, and for the speedy taking away of that heavy burden of FREEQUARTER.  
With the Result of the General Council upon the same.  
By the Appointment of the Officers at a general meeting,  
Signed, Jo. Hemingway.  
London, Printed for John Playford, and are to be sold at his shop in the Inner Temple. March 1. 1649.   

For his Excellency the Lord Fairfax at his Headquarters in London, These.  
My Lord,  
AMongst others, we are not the least nor last in our rejoicings, to see your Excellencies & your Armies unanimous moving (by serious considerations and real actings) towards the discharge of that great engagement which lies upon us all for the settlement of the Affairs of our Nation, the promotion whereof we have so solemnly covenanted to assert, in order to those ends of Justice and Righteousness, now no longer to be left to the fruitless and ineffectual proceed of a private and prevailing party in the Parliament, who had they proceeded to act, or your Excellency to forbear, all our former endeavours for Freedom had but infine effectuated our misery or servitude, and with fuller force than ever crowned the Temples of a conquered King, giving our Children after us cause to curse our bones for betraying their Birthrights: and leaving us like so many guilty Felons with ropes about out necks, to receive the reward of wickedness at their hands, who could have been content to sacrifice our Carcases to the Fowls of the Air, our Estates to Tyranny, and our Consciences to Turkism.  
The consideration hereof (some few weeks since) drew us of this Garrison by a Letter to your Lordship, and a Petition to the honest party in the Parliament, to devote (as now to declare) our resolution to live and die with your Excellency, & your Army in what you have so mutually remonstrated, or shall proceed upon in opposition to all those actings which we have hitherto found too narrow to comprehend, and too weak to conform those Freedoms which we still pursue.  
But it may be objected, that Counsel in the settlement of the Affairs of a State, is a work belonging rather to the long Robe then the short; few Armies having ever been trafted with such undertake; yet if providence hath put us upon it, I trust it would better become us to stand like steadfast Rocks for defence of Common Freedom, then after all our endeavours to digress for base and by-ends, to follow fortune (in her fickle flatteries) who lends her smiles, as Exactors do money, to undo the Debtor.  
But I trust we shall no longer agresse into reluctuall and turbulent times; Conscience and a good cause will keep up the depressed scale in every condition; In the Interim, we cannot over-indulge the care of our Country, whilst no other Law is left, but blotted and corrupt Commons, made forth by men of private spirits, who eye our best actions by misrepresenting prospectives. These shadows (as we may call them) have at the noontide of our distress crept behind like Dwarves, in the evening stalked by us like Giants, and (instead of helping) have hunted our honest endeavours to a sunset.  
Yet some may say: who stops the high attempts of State, let's lose the reins of Government; but to me my Lord it seems much better to perish in a good performance, then basely to prostitute the well-being of a Nation to those principles of abused Power, in the darkness of whose deeds secret accusations will suggest sad and solitary considerations.  
I could therefore wish that the great trusties of our times would rather encircle themselves in a Character not commacculate with the deserved dashes of disgrace, then spend their envy upon those faithful Agents for Common Freedom; but if otherwise, your Excellency may assure yourself the great & high God will not always allow the crafty cunning of contriving bosoms to divest this Army of that honour it hath bought with the blood of so many Princely Spirits.  
I speak not this, my Lord, to arrogate any thing to your own or your Army's actions, for we have seen enough to make us forsake ourselves in our strongest valuations; all successes are unsanctified where ambitions boast a merit; therefore in this last act of our Age, let us not as men (my Lord) but as Christians, relate our resolutions to the goodness of our cause, not the greatness of our courage. Thus let us stand (though fatally resolute) to fall under, or finish that Freedom for which your Excellency dares to be so good in these bad times, or to resolve rather to perish with your honest Officers and soldiers, than otherwise to enjoy the Genius of a temporal happiness.  
We have hitherto experienced, the power and policy of the greatest Potentates cannot divert the decrees of God against the Injustice of their actions; all concurrences fall forth to the furtherance of those fatal commutations, for the effectuating whereof, the piety of our natures are pricked forward, and the counsel of our Adversaries (like Achittophels') infatuated and confounded. Yet such is the pride of many spirits, that they will still strive to cast so much malice upon the story of our times, as cannot consist with the stile of a modest pen to reply upon, as if they intended not to forget us in their graves, or to be equally cruel to our memories: Therefore all our best actions or intentions are by their malicious Alchemy substracted into Crimes, or where (they should be honourably mentioned) either scornfully transmitted, or by injurious constructions perverted; but if hereafter their injustice suffer under a more deserved Doom, they may say, this observation hath the virtue of an Oracle in it. In the Interim, I shall leave them to their own delusions; because no argument hath virtue, nor virtue argument enough to avoid them.  
Pardon my Lord, that I have deviated from my more immediate instruments and intentions; in pursuance whereof Major Waterhouse (as the representative of this Regiment and Garrison) is appointed to present your Excellency & your General Council with our particular concernments, and mutual concurrences, as also that by admission to your Counsels, he may administer his assistance towards the accomplishment of those remonstrated principle, whereunto we not only pray your Excellency speedily to proceed, but also (as we have accordingly declared) promise to attend those ends, which will not only render you the full honour of your Arms, but (even in these worst times) give you Characters amongst the miracles of worthiest men; in the Interim it shall be my honour to remain,  
Hull January 9 1648. Your Lordship's most obedient and Faithful Servant, R. Overton.   

From your Excellency's Garrison of Kingston upon Hull, 1648.  
SIR,  
YOu own not more to us then to your own virtue, that we make bold to request your acceptance of our compliance with your Remonstrance, as to present our Petitionary Appeal to the Parliament: in public pursuances, none are to be omitted but you in so particular a concernment (on our parts) especially to be sought unto, for that our actions have hitherto prospered under your unequalled Conduct: And (which is more) that you appearing a first mover to what we have approved and comported with, it lieth, we hope, in your power not only to accept our service, and therein to pardon our slowness, but through the goodness of Almighty God, to make this Kingdom and all Europe's Protestant party happy: If to your other Excellencies which have drawn a shade over the actions of greatest Princes, you be pleased but to add an unwearied perseverance towards the attaining of those ends, without which we had better when we struck our Enomies, have turned our swords upon our own throats; We cannot in the limits of a Letter make rehearsal of the particulars expressed in your Lordship's late Remonstrance, with every tittle whereof we totally comply; neither is it needful herein to denote how or by whom they have hitherto been made frustrate unto us and the Kingdom. We do now most cordially agree to what we could sooner have received, but we hope, what was formerly foreseen and forethought, is now more seasonably and successfully sought. We rest confident the Remonstrance will both satisfy the world, and convince our Adversaries of the Justice and necessity of our present undertake, to which if the searcher of all hearts vonchsafe his accustomed directions, your Excellency need not doubt but by his blessing on our loyal hearts, to attest unto the world your willingness to put a period to the miseries, & to perfect the peace of your oppressed Countrymen: And seeing your Lordship hath dared to be good in bad times, we are confident you will not leave us when they grow worse; and though with your Lordship's leave we might in this place with folded hands sit down with as much probable security as others, yet we cannot imitate those unworthy Champions who hoped their fish should swim f●●e when the Republic sunk. Your Excellency knows well how much herein our consciences, honours and safeties are concerned, to manifest the justice we assert, which we can never do whilst we leave greater Monsters unquelled then as yet we ever grappled with, from whom without any breach of Prerogative or Privilege, we may borrow or use that expression unfeignedly which they did hypocritically, that if men fail us herein we expect our reward in heaven. And to this end we beseech the God of Lights so to open our eyes, that in this our day of visitation we may truly understand what belongeth to our peace, since it is so much endeavoured to be hid from our eyes, and to the God of peace we recommend your Excellency, with an absolute tender of our utmost endeavours towards the restauration of this dejected, bleeding, dying State, that for the future fear may wait close on all the plotters of mischief, and that comfort may be confirmed to afflicted virtue.  
Sir, we are Your Excellencies obedient, faithful Servants and Soldiers, etc.   

The Declaration of the Officers belonging to the Garrison of Hull.  
Presented to his Excellency the Lord General Fairfax, and his General Council, in order to the Peace and settlement of the Kingdom.  
WE doubt not but the unsatisfied party of this abused Kingdom will wonder that we still renew our reiterated Declarations, as if we intended to turn State Reformers in their steads who have therewith hitherto been entrusted. It is true, we never expected to be put upon such employments; nor find we any felicity therein: but having by all means submissively showed our conformity to the old rule of Cuncta prius tentanda, etc. yet instead of redress, finding nothing but delay, we are constrained to search into the ground of this ingratitude, and to expose or display it to the view of the world.  
Herein we conceive ourselves sufficiently authorized by the practice of the best State, and the precept of the best of Orators, who in his Oration against Verres, hath taught us, that in publice crimine quilibet non debet non esse accusator, and where such practices shall appear inconsistent with the welfare of a Nation, opportunity to check them and provide for a remedy.  
Nor can we any ways doubt of a success suitable to the rest of our undertake, being assured, that our prosperous Armies were never supported by a better Cause; and therefore that you be no longer held in suspense, what it is that we (as well as others) declare against, or do desire, be pleased in the first place seriously to consider your condition before these Wars; secondly, The reason of our engaging in them; thirdly, The promises of our Public trusties in case our successes enabled them to a performance; and lastly we having rendered them such as they desire to be, how well they have acquitted themselves of their promises and trust.  
In several Declarations, especially in that of December, 1640. they have represented to us the state of this Kingdom, groaning under the arbitrary pressures of an unlimited Sovereignty by Ship-monies, Monopolies, innovations of Prelates in Church-Discipline, interruptions of Parliamentary proceed by the Regal dissolving Vote, with the other illegal Tazes and tyrannies, which we only point at in this place.  
For these no cure was held out so catholic as a Parliament, though even General Counsels have foully erred in matters of Faith, and that of the highest nature, yet we hoped better things from our Nationall Convention, insomuch that never any people so thirsted for a free Parliament as we; never any people so assisted a Parliament in theirs and the public necessity. Have we not rendered their Counsels successful, and (through God's assistance) enabled them to restore us to all those benefits of safety in person, propriety in goods, and purity in profession, which they so frequently declared to assert?  
And though we are not ignorant how remote our condition is from those ends, or how little our pressures are abated, yet can they not deny but that we have discharged our parts in the field; which if gainsaid, Pulpits and printed Gratulations would convince them: Had they in their sedentary devoirs been so successful in the service of the State, by whose authority they act, out pressures had by this time been abated, reformation settled, debts paid, Ireland relieved, and the stream of the public disbursements reduced to its proper and ancient channel.  
But on the contrary, to our great grief we see, our distractions grow greater, and our wounds wider, by the unrestrained appetites of selfseeking parties both in Church and State, as if the enemy of mankind did despair to accomplish his designs against Christianity by the Romish Jesuit, without a Protestant Priest and pestilential Politician; the little fingers of whose insolency and avarice are grown heavi●●hen the loins of Sovereignty or Episcopacy. For, besides what our State-mongers have perverted to private ends, some of the Long Robe, who have preached against Pluralities, have annual salaries amounting almost to 1000 l. per annum. If we inquire what their employments are to answer such incomes, we shall find amongst many little besides the preaching of themselves and their own authority over their fleeced flocks: yet whatsoever some of them decree in the Church, or the Parliament in the State; must (as if infallible) be received with an implicit obedience, no dispute, no Petition, no Remonstrance, unless it speak the sense of a prevailing party in the Parliament, and be ushered in by a total resignation of ourselves, can be accepted.  
To this tameness have we suffered ourselves to be brought, and might so perhaps have continued, had not the late actings of our trusties sufficiently informed us, that war cannot be too much suspected which is obtruded upon terms not to be looked into. And therefore if the attempts of such lawless usurpers run so high whilst we have a faithful Army on foot, what will they do when we are disbanded, and they backed with an indisputable power! If they once dare to declare us enemies for but intending to Petition for due pay and deserved indemnity, how boundless would they be (if under private and popular Notions) they could without control pursue their own interests and appetites!  
Is not therefore the present actings of our Officers and Army proper to settle Peace, as to disappoint the pursuances and plots of private spirits? would it not better become us to die with our swords in our hands, than (after we have vindicated the public Liberty against the power and pride of Princes) to succumb under the servitude of our fellow-subjects, how great soever? for which of our good deeds do we deserve to be destroyed? are they angry because we are about to expedite the people's Peace and preservation? are we not therefore properly provoked to snatch the wreath from off their brows, which (by the mercies of the Almighty) our late conquering swords have crowned them with! is this the requital and income of all our difficulties undergone, perils past, lives lost? Is this the fruit of our victory acquired? have we for this so frequently removed their foes and fears, secured their safety, or rendered them capable of the full execution of due, but deferred Justice? Was it not for this cause we covenanted, hazarding our lives to preserve our Liberties? yet after all must we sit still to see oppressions unsupprest, Justcie perverted, grievances augmented, and Tyranny Re-inthroned?  
In this so sad a condition may we not with Adrian the Emperor cry out, Multitudo Medicorum me perdidit? may it not properly be applied to the late prevailing party in our present Parliament, whose apparent declinations from their honoured undertake (whether we eye their private leterests, or unparliamentary proceed) look with so foul a face upon us, as we may justly question, whether there be not as great a necessity of transferring that Trust from its abusers, as erst to make use of their undertake? Nay, we may boldly assert their carryings on for pretended preservations, have been so costly to us, and so commodious to themselves, that there is no capacity so weak, but too aptly apprehends it for a truth, that it is better to be stung with one Hornet, than a whole nest; better one Pope, or one Tyrant then a multitude: may never so malignant a Genius possess a Parliament as to render our endeavours to regain true liberty useless.  
Yet how is the State of England altered, and from the pity of its enemies become the envy of her false and feigned friends, for whom our care and conscience gave us courage to engage; our courage begot their present power, their power our servitude and calamity. A strange kind of requital some will say, that those heads should cut off these hands, by which they have climbed to that dezelling greatness, from whence they but giddily discern either themselves or us, whom they still strive to thrust even with the hazard of the Nation and their own ruin, beneath the honour of our Arms into a condition of servitude, beggary and baseness; witness the contemptible price of blood paid to some, whilst other impoverished Petitioners are constrained to stand perpetual Sentinels to want and wrong, whilst some of their own endeared darlings lie stowed in plenty and secure reposes, being in as deep Arrears for service to be done, as others are for pay that's due.  
Certainly, the free and faithful Commoners of England did not intrust them thus to act their own ends, or to accumalate and divide such vast proportions of treasure amongst themselves and Sycophants, whilst worthier Members, and more public spirited persons are famished and defrauded: this is so clear a truth, as he that runs may read. Have we any thing desirable here more than the care of our consciences, the freedom of our persons, community of friends, and propriety of goods? In all which should we declare how much both our Country and we have suffered in a patiented expectance of a happy issue, we should add to our calamities one vexation more than ever our trusties intended us; for had they believed that any durst have been so bold us to arraign their actions, we may charitably think they would have been more wary in disobliging those for whom they are and aught to act.  
For those last six years, what hath been the constant cry of the prime Potentiaties in our great Council, but the Liberty of the Subject, and the Privilege of Parliament; the former whereof we now see is almost swallowed up of the latter, witness the Goale-books of Newgate, the Tower, the Gatehouse, and other places of Purgatory, where public spirited persons lie impoverished and imprisoned in a hopeless and helpless condition, languishing after a legal trial: Be assured all ye native noble English, that the same contrivance which provides manacles for their hands, would in time see that no fetters should be wanting for your feet.  
But must the Medium whereby we are conveyed into this pretended blessedness, and by which so many millions have been serewed forth of seduced purses, be no other than that old and ancient Qualepipe, public necessity; Oh invincible argument! endless necessity, which perhaps our abusers did never resolve to have done withal whilst we had either juice to squeeze, or tameness to suffer it: Is any Art either ancient or modern omitted to exhaust the treasure of these times? witness the reported dividend of some hundred thousand pounds amongst some select Members, to recruit not so much perhaps their pretended losses, as their cracked estates, whilst the public debts of the Kingdom with our dearly earned Arrears, are thrown in amongst things most fit to be forgotten.  
Surely strangers might think the Parliamentary Revenues were at a low ebb, when they are seen, and seem compelled to shuffle off their friends and the people's supporters; but were some of the Receipts accounted for, it would happily strike amazement into all that have but slightly considered it; for setting aside all the rooking Committees both in City and Country, whose names and natures might almost call the profession of Christianity itself in question, do but consider the vast Contributions of Associated and reduced Counties, Deans and Chapter Lands, Pole-moneyes, Sequestrations, old and new loans on Public Faith, Seizures on the whole Revenue of the Crown and Mitre, fifty Subfidies at once, fifth and twentieth part, Adventures, free gifts, Taxes for British monies for almost ruinated, and (if some say true) cheated Ireland, besides the vast accumulations of treasure by Compositions and Pardons, there being, as we are informed, at the end of the first War about or above 8000. Compounders, whose Compositions if computed but at 200. l. a man one with another, which in the general is much undervalved, and their pardons at 36. l. a piece, the total when levied, which undoubtedly was long since done, according to the exactest Computation, would almost amount to eighteen Millions, to which the Customs and Excize throughout the Kingdom adds many thousands more weekly: And yet some of our Stewards have been pleased to put on such a vizard of poverty, that two hundred thousand pounds could not be paid to our Brethren the Scots, without the sale of Bishop's Lands; thus a new device and tax must always do the work in hand, still to secure and increase the sacred heap; a bank doubtless were it brought together into one bulk, which some of them have courteously carved to one another, would vie the treasure of all the Jews in Spain or Italy.  
Can we then believe that these our friendly Feoffees after the contraction of so much guilt would ever patiently return to their private fortunes? or give up their accounts to their fellow-Commoners of England, whose Stewards they are, and erst had the modesty to acknowledge, that the power was ours by which they acted? which if true, as undoubtedly it is then are we certain that the last appeal and resolution must be to and from us. Notwithstanding this they would become our gront Lords, some of them having besides the corrupt acquiring of their Burgesseships, sat so long as to bring in their children to sit at the Stern of State, meaning no doubt to transmit this new principality from Generation to Generation. But have we in the interim any assurance of either Law or Liberty, save what proceeds from their arbitrary breathe? What did ever any Nation undergo by a foreign conquest, which hath not in this last eight years been practised upon this?  
Tacitus the wisest of the Roman Historians sew forth, that the times were so base and bad under Nero and Domitian, that none durst complain of them, the people being grown so tame with sufferance, that they had almost lost their memories. But it may be objected, there was never any Government which pleased all, or hath not upon trial and experience had its inconveniences. The several States of Sparta, Athens, and Rome itself, thought they had well provided against the Tyranny of their Princes by their Ephori, Decemviri, etc. yet these found such a venery in exercising their several powers on those that gave them, as in fine a new public necessity was discovered which way to put those down, who had deserved no better whilst they were up.  
We might draw the Parallel nearer to our times, should we examine whether some of our Representators have not transcended in their tyrannies, whatsoever hath been acted by those forementioned names of infamy: or secondly, whether the injured Freemen of England may not justly reassume their misemployed power, and call the Authors to account for acting contrary to common trust, safety, and satisfaction: but it will be more beneficial to pitch upon expedients for Peace and Freedom, or for the future to secure ourselves against all arbitrary Powers, whether Regal or Parliamentary.  
But by the way, peradventure some may object and say, suppose this ill compacted body of Parliamentary power, be by the present moving of the Army either extinguished or reduced to a better temper, and that the disposal of the Supreme Power suffer under the Sword, what assurance is there that the soldier will not mis-imploy the power which we have entrusted with those whom you are about to take it from?  
This is Argumentum ad hominem, and seeing that the intentions of men cannot be looked into, our best conjectural light must arise from precedent actions, and in this particular we dare stand the attest of our most crying adversaries; we neither have nor desire better witnesses touching our deportment, than yourselves, we wanted neither precedents nor opportunities to have enriched ourselves by secret fraud or open violence ever after our Army appeared so considerable at Naseby; what might we not have done when we marched from New-market through London, or what can hinder us now that we are in it from making ourselves Masters of that whereby others become both wretched and miserable? but we trust, that power which hath hither to given us so many testimonies of Mercy, will to the end actompany us in all our deportments, which if compared with the tyrannical fleecing of several trusties or their substituted Committees, we doubt not but reason will promp you rather to embrace a protection from those for the present, whose civilties have o'erdone expectation, then longer to lie under their insultings which have hitherto so foully falsified.  
Besides, if we had been so base as to chaffer for your Freedom, temptations to take us off have not been wanting, even by some of those who have formerly been foe fierce against us; we speak not this to kindle a firebrand to tie Sampson's foxes together by the tails; but rather to stir you up to take notice in time what danger you are in to be undone: let Westmimter witness it by the many red eyes and wet handkerchiefs of poor Widows waiting for the wages of their deceased husbands, besides halfe-starved Officers attending the Returns to their Petitions, with charges great as the success is little, whilst kindred and creatures have their suggested services rewarded, and their pretended losses plentifully repaid; the account whereof is frequently cast up false by kindred, airy Courtiers, and oily mouths, and formal flatterers; yet in the mean time those of more weighty and substantial worth have neither Orators nor Advocates to mention their merits, or to write Narratives of their neglected necessities.  
Oh! whether is Astrea fled? what is become of Common Justice, that most essential part of Magistracy! have our politic Bodies lost all the lifeblood of Love? can these Philistines put forth Sampson's eyes, and not expect that a free people enraged by the less of their dear purchased Liberties should pull down the Pillars of their abused power? When Magistracy degenerates into Tyranny, are we not disobliged from our obedience, and put upon the freedom of natural endeavours for preservation? Surely the Sword of Justice was not committed to their keeping to cut our throats: He is highly ignorant and blind, who thinks humane obedience binds us to slight a public preservation. In this respect a free people never want a full power. Tyranny is Tyranny in whomsoever, and wheresoever resistable. Nature in the inferior creatures fortifies herself defensively, and hath her nobler peace of wonder a less privilege?  
Their own Deciarations have taught us, that all power 〈…〉 ●●…stive and conditional on our part; therefore King Jan●●s 〈…〉 he had as great an itch of Monarchy upon him as other 〈◊〉 proclaimed in open Parliament, that, Nihil aliud patest Rex quám quad jure potest. And Bracton de Corona tells us, Quande Rex 〈◊〉 per Legem r●git, non ampliùs Rex est, sed Tyrannus. The best of Primces ever kept their bounds, acting to God's greatest glory, knowing the Soveraigue power to be the People's, from whence they derive their Principalities, next that great Lawgiver, who assures u●▪ That the service due from man to man is not coercive, or distinguished from equal nature, save for safety sake. It is but the overflowings of Fancy, or an Optic mistake that lets lose the reins to the sense of a lawless Sovereignty, provoking Princes to suppose themselves greater than their Maker ever meant. Surely Parliaments cease to be Parliaments, when they cease to be just Powers; as Kings cease to be Kings, when by overstretching the reints of Government, they forget to be good and just: therefore Justice defines Magistracy, as law lesnesse doth tyranny and arbitrary usurpation.  
How much then are we concerned to oppose all illegal proceed? how much more as Soldiers obliged, who have been more desperately engaged, and (for aught we yet find) so dangerously deluded, in being made the unhappy instruments of advancing private interests with public spirits. Seeing therefore we have hitherto been perverted, as to promote their private projects, who care not if we died like dogs, so they might live like princes, who give us cause to despair of any good ever to proceed from them. And in as much as none can merit the title of true Patriot, who endeavour not to deliver their country from all her calamities; we do therefore see how necessary it is we be no longer blinded in our obedience, or shackled by our Fellow-subjects, in subordination to their lawless lusts, who in the nature of their employments are the Kingdoms Servants to manage its Interest, not their own, further than conjoined with ours, which they have hitherto too much contemned or trampled upon.  
Since therefore to their Papal predominance, they would have added a Popish infallibility, whose Decrees admit no dispute or rejection, but resolved so remain the everlasting Land Marks of out dre●d, in reference to their own ●●●●●●eries and our blind obedience. It will behoove us now at last to pray Almighty God to restore us to our wits, for if he make us wise (through his goodness and merey) we may make ourselves happy.  
Now that the world may know we strike only at the persom of offenders, not at the Parliament, but the corrupted party in it; we do therefore in the presence of Almighty God whose presence we expect, according to the sincerity of our souls) publish and declare to the whole Kingdom, That upon serious thoughts and due can mination, we have found and do believe a prevailing party in the Patliament to be the propagators of many miseries and calumities which now sit heavy on this Kingdum, and that their long continuance in this usurped Sovereignty is litterly inconsistent with all our sufeties; not that we are ignorant of, or unwilling to acknowledge the special power of Parliaments, or that we believe all the Members to have deserved this so severe a centure, for we are confident of the contrary: Yet inasmuch as it is rather frequency of Parliaments than perpentity, that must make us happy, the latter being too great a temptation to Tyranny; we with the rest of our fellow subjects and foldiers (who by the confession of our trusties, have within ourselves the supreme and original power to provide for the Common Safety, when we find, as now we do, our trust abused and betrayed,) do therefore declare;  
1. That, together with the King and his Capital Creatures, the evil Members of both Houses have justly forfeited their Power and Privilege; and to the end therefore that others who shall succeed in the managements of this Trust, may know that they act not only their own business, but ours; therefore that this Kingdom may at last acquire its banished peace and welfare, we do in the first place, with the rest of the Army, desire the speedy execution of due and distributive Justice to all and every Capital Offender.  
2. That all inferior Delinquents do submit to the present judicial Power.  
3. That a speedy period be put to this present Parliament, and a new Election of faithful Members made.  
4. That there be a succession of free and future Parliaments, with secure provissions for their meeting, sitting and ending; such neither electing, not to be elected, as were in Arms or other ways pre-engaged against us.  
5. That so many of the old Members as have not crept in by corruption, (and against whom there shall not appear crimes sufficiently scandalous to make them incapable,) may be encouraged and continued, until the dissolution of this present Parliament.  
6. That all Elections may be according to due and equal distributions.  
7. That by an universal and mutual Agreement, it be enacted and decreed, in perpetuam rei memoriam, that the power of all future Representatives may be inferior only to that of the people, in order to the preservation of them in their just and proper Rights, and that the observation thereof be added to the oath administered to every Member upon his admission into the Parliament.  
8. That henceforth the things of Common Right and Justice be left to the Laws well Regulated, and proper Officers being appointed for ordinary matters, a Council of State may more aptly apply themselves to those extraordinary administrations of Parliamentary Power.  
9 That the public Petitions of the people may be more seasonably considered, and speedily dispatched (as is forementioned in the large Remonstrance) it will be requisite to afford Liberty of entering dissents against such Representatives as appear either unfaithful or unpliant to the Trust of the People.  
10. That all future Kings be hereafter elected by the People's Representatives upon conditional trust, or without claiming any negative voice against, or beyond the power of Parliaments.  
11. That the succeeding Parliament may remember the self-deing Ordinance, and speedily pursue an impartial account of the Kingdoms embezzled treasure, which being discovered we doubt not but sufficient will be found to discharge the public debts of the Kingdom, and speedily to make Ireland pay the price of that blood which it hath so inhumanly shed.  
12. That the matters of general Settlement be proposed by the Parliament, and agreed unto with the subscriptions of the People, the like Award may be made, and in the same case required to be performed by all succeeding Kings, and other public Officers of State or Trust.  
13. That no future Convention of Parliamentary Power be above Biennial, or do henceforth presume to exempt their persons from being liable to discharge their debts, or to satisfy their Creditors by this means. if hereafter we should be so unhappy as not to be acquainted with Parliamentary Justice, or if future Parliaments should prove like this, yet their domination being circumscribed within a limited time, they will (as it is well observed) be afraid to commit those insolences, which will be avenged them at their return into a private condition.  
14. And foreseeing the dis-joynedness of the times, and the opposition we stand in to Ireland, and other domestic and foreign enemies; it will be requisite that a standing Militia be continued in experienced and approved hands.  
15. That in order to the removal of jealousies and fears, it is further by us desired, (as more conducing to a speedy and perfect Peace) that an Act of Oblivion may be passed for inferior offenders, from the benefit whereof we only exclude those whose Crimes are Capital, of which number we put in the forefront the corrupt Members of this present Parliament, with their deputed Creatures and Committees, who either cannot or will not give account of the public treasure by them purloined; these in the first pla●e we desire may be driven to Restitution, or to make their persons satisfy, if they shall not discover upon their own oaths, or of any other whom they shall be required to bring in for the further discovery of their estates, in order to the intended satisfaction: though our professions do not qualify us to new-mold a State, yet necessity having cast it upon our care, providence puts us to point at these general conducements towards so necessary a work, which we cast in as our mite with the more full and effectual Remonstrance of the Army.  
16. That such of the Assembly as claim their Authority in the Assembly Jure Divino, may be speedily abrogated Jure Humano, unless they can make it appear they have not illegally intruded upon their place and power; And that we may hereafter (by all their great expense of time and treasure) be as much satisfied as themselves. Amongst some of whom the Church Revenues have been parcelled forth into such large portions as might enable them to maintain the pride and luxury of Cardinals, whilst their forsaken and fleeced Flocks are forced to attend the Alms of others, perhaps more precious for parts and piety, and yet but pensioners to their pride and pluralities, though exceeding them as far in grace as they do others in good live: Such Lackwings are the Cankerworms of our souls, as corrupt Committees are the Horsleeches of our Estates, the 〈◊〉 devours our goods, the other our good names: The Tenants of 〈◊〉 one (in matter of Regal Supremacy) are inconsistent with the known Laws of the Land, and the other, in point of traitorous practices, for profits sake, are perfectly principled against them.  
17. Now, to the end we may live at unity amongst ourselves, the stronger not insulting over, but bearing with the weaker, and both glorifying God by an unblameable conversation; there is another sort of public persons that deserve to pass under as strict a Reformation as any we have yet had to do with, they are such as receive their name from the Law, which they make a nose of wax; these are the great and close suckers of our State, and such as have contributed so much to the honour of Christianity; that the pens of men of honour and quality have delivered to the world, that the grand Signior of Constantinople hath more Justice done his Subjects in one month's time, than all the Christian Princes in seven years: These are the men for whom (if they may be suffered) our swords have cut out pleading work for generation to come. And therefore since their abstruse sense in a barbarous Dialect, which they expound as they list, carries with it the monumental badge of our Normane servitude, and the profit the Kingdom receives by it, no way countervails the mischief that is doth enact: It is our earnest desire, that all the Constitutions of this Kingdom, both penal and others be abreviated, and clad in the homespun language of our native Nation, that every man might in some sort be able to understand and plead his own Cause.  
18. That some strict course may be taken for preventing that horrid practice of Attorneys in putting men out of the protection of the Law, by out-lawing, before notice be given them of the Suit, though never so causeless: And that all such undue proceed may make the Suit null, etc. that the Remedy be not worse than the Disease.  
19 That to avoid corruption of Lawyers or their adherents, and to take off men's minds from litigious contentions, some Expedient of determination of differences may be provided, by the appointment of men of known integrity; and parties authorized in every considerable Town or Hundred to decide ordinary Controversies, so that no man be admitted to commence a Suit (save in grand Causes) without their concession.  
20. As also that both Judges and Pleaders may have their respective Salaries from the Public, upon penalty of 〈◊〉 all b●●●es o● understand obligations Whereupon that example of Cambices 〈◊〉 happily be renewed, and put into execution: We need not doubt then but every Tribunal in England will have something to hang over it, that shall better instruct its several Judges than all the Letters of Princes or Potentates, or all the Dividends betwixt them and their purse-bearing Brokers at the end of the Term.  
But in case we now are in, what Justice can we expect from any civil Judicature, where the Members of Parliament, who should be Lawmakers, descend for gain so far as to be Pleaders in each common Court? and seeing no Judge standeth but by their Vote, what dares any of them do in asserting the old known Laws, when upon every Appeal to the Parliament their Pleaders become their Judges? And how valiant such Justices have been in acqui●●ing themselves whe●e they feared their sitting besides their Cushions, their behaviour in the case of Shipmoney sufficiently ded●●●. The several abuses throughout the Kingdom for want of faithful Magistrates and for lack of 〈◊〉 execution of Justice and Judgement, doth not only distrust the Army, but also very much discourage and disaffect our best friends; for ●●●●by differences are undecided, because good and godly County-Commissioners are not chosen, nor according to our legal Custom and Constitutions impowered to impeach persons peccant, of to present the Parliament with the occasions of their County. Wherein, 〈◊〉 Courts of Judicature were established throughout the several Hundreds, and Lawyers appointed to plead at a set allowance, Causes might be 〈◊〉 justly and speedily determined, and all opp●sitions 〈◊〉 lessened or prevented.  
We might in this sense enlarge ourselves in several respects, wherein the condition of this Kingdom is so uncomfortable: But, though we take no pleasure to take in the kennel of so much confusion, yet would we take the pains to clear and cleanse it, that at the last we may attain the true eaj●●…●●…nt of what we have purchased at so dear a price; that so the Authors of our Calamities may receive their wages according to that Justice which their Actions do make them fear. But we hope, by what hath been already said against others, that we have innocence in our hearts and hands towards the Peace of this Nation, for whose freedom we will both fight and pray. We intent not in any kind to continue our Countays Misery, but to pursue its Peace and preservation, in prevention of those oppressions sit to be repealed, in regard of those great Engagements which are given by us all, rather to make good the happy issue of the old, than the beginnings of another new and wasteful War.  
We have fought for Justice and Freedom, the inheritance left us from our forefathers, and it is now become our purchase and price of our blood, spilt in opposition of tyrannical attempts, wherein supremacy of power cannot legitimate scorn or cruelty. And though greatness may make injuries more great, Power too much improved sometimes provokes the Peasant to brave the Prince. Indeed it is easy for boundless ambition to aspire, but not ever to continue uppermost. Love and Justice are the lasting Conquerors, the truest Supporters of a State, without which the most transcendent Acts of Magistracy stand tottering, and do either by the wounds of separation bleed to death, or very rarely perpetuate a power to posterity. But if, by God's blessing upon our loyal hearts and endeavours, this Kingdom shall receive its wont Peace and Vigour in the condign punishment and suppression of all our opposers, and the Arch enemies of our common Safety; we shall no sooner see Peace and Truth established, the Liberty of our Consciences, according to the Word of God, in Doctrine and Discipline, secured (for we abhor an universal Teleration:) but we shall be willing immediately to acquit the happy Management of our hitherto successful Arms, and betake us to such other employments as the great Creator shall call us to.  
All we shall in the Interim desire, is, That the great and wise God may be ever more glorified, for working the deliverance of his people by such poor despised persons; and that they my receive such fair acceptance and acknowledgement, for all their faithful performances, that no age hereafter (looking over their neglects) receive discouragement to sacrifice their lives in vindication of the public Liberty.  
HULL, January 1648. By the Appointment of the Officers at a General Meeting. Signed, JO: HAMINGWAY.   


To the Right Honourable the Supreme Authority of the Nation, the Commons assembled in Parliament. The humble Petition of the Officers and Soldiers of his Excellency's Regiment of Horse.  
Humbly showeth,  
THat your Petitioners, out of a tender respect to the work, they have been employed in, and ever since this War entrusted withal, (by Authority derived from you) have been very cautious of offering any thing that might have the least appearance of seeking out selves (though sufficiently known to be our rights) by several Engagements, Promises and Declarations of this Honourable House, fearing least by that means we should impead that service, (the preservation whereof was more dear to us then our lives,) upon which consideration we have waded through all difficulties and dangers we have met withal, resolving, that whatsoever might seem of nearest relation to ourselves, should bring up the rear of our desires to your honours, nor should we at this present have troubled you, had we not been constions that the neglect thereof would have been of very ill confequence. And now seeing it hath pleased God so to own our endeavours, (with the rest of the Army,) giving testimony thereunto by many wonderful successes, bringing down all power whatsoever that lifted up itself against those just and righteous things you declared for; and that you, being the supreme Authority, having now a seasonable opportunity put into your hands, to answer our expectations more fully, although we cannot but acknowledge that God hath inclined your hearts to accomplish many of those just things which we have long time waited for, some things yet retraining undone, which we humbly take boldness to be your Petitioners for.  

1. That all persons that have been employed in public Treasuries may be speedily brought to an account, and that approved persons may be impowered for that purpose.  
2. That our Accounts, in the several Commands we have been under, may be presently stated, and debenters given us, which debenters may be allowed of as others that have lent many upon the Public Faith of the Kingdom.  
3. That our Accounts so stated, visible security may be speedily given out of Deans and Chapters Lands, or otherways.  
4. That where as divers Soldiers have, through the tediousness of the late Services, lost and spoiled their horses, that therefore care may be taken for their satisfaction; some having dishurst more many in buying horses to serve the State in this last Expedition, than their pay hath amounted to, and that there may be provision made for their future supply with horses.  
5. That Free Quarter may be wholly taken off, and that 〈◊〉 effectual course may be taken for a constant supply of pay to enable us to discharge our Quarters, and that the intelerable abuses we suffer in eclipse money may be prevented.   
The Premises we earnestly desire may be tak●n into your speedy and serious Consideration, and effectual care had for our satisfaction herein.  
And your Petitioners shall pray, etc.   

THis Petition was presented to the General Councal of the Army, sitting at Whitehall on Thursday the 22. instant, (his Excellency the Lord Fairfax present,) read and approval of by the whole Council, and it was agreed, That several Officers should consider of the particulars of the said Petition, and prepare a Draught against next Council of such things as might be presented from them to the Parliament, both for easing the burdens of the Commonwealth, as to Free Quarter, etc. and for provision of such things as are due to the Army.  
Some Officers were also appointed to desire such others as were Members of the Parliament to present an Act which is drawn for taking the Accounts of the Commonwealth, and that it may pass the Parliament as soon as may be, in respect of the great consequence of it, and the many Expectations that are upon it: And besides, that it will raise several sums of money hither to concealed or not accounted for.    
FINIS.