The additional Plea of Lievt. Col. john Lilburne, prerogative prisoner in the Tower of London, the 28. of October, 1647. which he sent unto the Committee of the House of Commons, where Mr. john Maynard the Lawyer hath the Chair, with a letter, which letter thus followeth.  
To his honoured friend, Mr. john Maynard Chairman to the Committee, for revuing of Lievt. Col. john Lilburnes business against the Lords, at his Chamber in the Temple, or at the House of Common, this deliver with speed.  
Mr. Maynard,  
I Cannot but in civility, return you many thanks for your readiness and freeness to hear me at large make my grand Plea against the Lords unto you upon Wednesday the 20. present, hoping upon Tuesday last according to your own Order I should have been heard out to have said unto you what I had behind, and so have left it to your judgements and consciences what to have reported to your house; but truly Sir, the Committees not coming together, I look not upon as an accident, but a real design upon me, that so I should not have a period put to my business, about the Lords, for which I have (almost to my utter ruin) waited upon you about 17. months, nor reap no present benefit for all my most barbarous sufferings, from the Bishops and the Star Chamber, for which I have earnestly followed you for justice and right now almost full seven years, to the expense of many hundred pounds; and that upon the motion of Mr. Henry Martin in your House this day, for the further and effectual ordering of a speedy care to be taken to put a period to my long since just Appeal, (the trial of which you have so often taken upon you, that you now cannot well evade the judging of it) took no effect at all, which I also look upon as a mere design of the Lords sons, and Lords would be in your house, with the powerful influence of my grand adversaries, the grandees of the Army, that have of late eagerly and visibly (for my honesty) sought my ruin. And truly Sir, being that I have not a penny inheritance in all the world, nor any trade going to bring me in a penny to buy me bread, nor a penny allowed me either from you or the Lords to buy me food, and all my friends strongly endeavoured to be scared away from me by the strictness of the present Lievt. of the Tower, the mere creature of my now grand adversary Lieut. G. Cromwell, in causing all their names at the gate to be taken that come to see me, contraoy to all law, reason, equity, justice, and conscience, in which condition if I continue a little longer, I must of necessity perish. And therefore that I may not be guilty of my own ruin by any delay on my part, I have inclosedly sent you my additional Plea under my hand and seal (which on Tuesday (if the Committee had sat) I intended to have delivered both by word of mouth and writing unto you, as the conclusion of all I have to say against the Lords (unless they give in an answer) and now I earnestly desire you to call your Committee together, and trouble yourselves no further to send for me, but draw your conclusions of the whole matter as it is before you, and then I entreat you without any further delay to quit your hands of it, by making a speedy report to your house, that so I may by your long expected justice be preserved from a speedy and unavoidable ruin, which I cannot willingly suffer to come upon me, without the attempting of the effectuallest means that reason and compelled necessity can dictate unto me for my preservation, though I run the hazard of being cut in ten thousand pieces thereby, and if I perish the ruin and blood of me and mine must be (both by God and man) requied of your adamant and flinty hearted house. Sir this I have writ unto you on purpose to communicate it to your house (before I print it) as my last in tended addresses, to leave both you and them before God and the whole world without excuse, so with my service presented unto you, I commit you to God and rest.  
From my most illegal Captivity in the Tower of London, this 28. of October. 1647. Sir, your true friend to serve you, (if you will effectually acquit yourself as a true servant of the Common wealth) that dare attempt the effecting of the the desperatest design in the world, that appears to his understanding just and honest, if compelled thereunto by necessity. John Lilburne.  
The Plea itself thus followeth.  

And now Sir, I desire to speak a few words to that which I have conceived as essential to my good & benefit, as any thing that yet I have said, & that is this, in some of my late letters to M. Martin, I have declared, that I cannot own the judgement of the present mixed house of Commons, being compounded of two Anty-parties, the one of which must of necessity upon their own public declared principles be guilty of the highest of crimes, upon which some of the active agents of my close and heavy adversaries of the Army, have taken occasion thereby to do the utmost they can to blast my reputation, endeavouring to make honest conscientious men in London believe, and report me to be a man fallen from the principles I formerly went upon, and from the Parliament, and the interest of the Commons of England, and am totally become a Gavialeere, and solely captivated, or degenerated to their principles and interest, and act what they in their desperate Counsels put me upon, when they have distempered me with drink, etc. And at the Head quarters, and in other quarters of the Army, I am by the foresaid wicked and Lordly agents, rendered a man that would destroy the King and kingly government, the Parliament, and most of the chief men in the Army, and that I am the head and chief of a generation or faction of men that are altogether for Anarchy and confusion, and would have no government at all in the Kingdom, but have every man to do what he list, and have all things common, and so destroy all law and property, and that I might have my liberty and freedom if I would, which say they I have by all the ways and means I could invent declined, being a gainer by my imprisonment; and fully hearing of these things, and how dissignedly, maliciously, lyingly, and confidently from one company to another, they were blasted abroad by the Agents and instruments of no mean ones. And although my principles, and the constant, visible, and public Declarations thereof fully declares (as my late Plea before you also witnesseth) that I am for meum & tuum; liberty and property, continually professing, that I had rather live under a very harsh law, whereby I may know by what rule to walk, then live under the moderatest arbitrary government in the world, begun to be exercised by the godlyest, justest, or choicest men that ever the earth bred, in regard I am not then under law, (which all men that ever God created aught to be) but under will and power, by which (by reason of man's corruption, who here hath no perfection, but are subject to actual backsliding, and degenerating) I am liable and in danger every hour to be destroyed at the pleasure of him that is stronger in power than I. And although I had often proffered Bail for my liberty to the General and his Lieutenant of the Tower, and offered to put any difference betwixt me and any in the Army, to the full and final determination of honest men, equally chosen, and in case they could not agree in their judgement I was willing the General himself (to whom I am but a stranger) should be Umpire and finally determine them, but finding myself no whit secured or preserved for all this, from their designed, blasted calumniations.  
I was in no small straits in my own spirit, being sensible of my great and urgent necessities in my present condition, the continuance of which but for a small time longer, must needs in reason be the ruin and destruction of me, my wife and children, and having offered all (time after time to those I look upon as my present Gaolers) that in my thoughts it was impossible for a man of brains and honesty to invent, and stoop too, to obtain his long longed liberty, but all in vain; I was necessitated, seeing I could not own the present mixed House of Common, nor willingly submit unto their sentence in that condition I was necessitated I say, to publish in print my Proposition of the 2. of October, 1647. Which in private I had made unto Lieu. Gen. Cromwell some weeks before, face to face, with divers other things as fair in themselves as it, And I caused it under my hand Seal to be delivered unto the Speaker of your House, that so all the Kingdom might know my readiness and willingness to stoop to any thing in the world that was rational and just to obtain my thirsted for liberty and freedom.  
Which paper your Speaker communicated to your house, and caused it to read and debated, which as I am told hath procured this Committee, unto whose desires so fare as with a good conscience, and the preservation of my principles, and integrity I am willing to stoop (that so I might stop the mouths of my calumniators, and bring my business to no issue, being rather willing to hazard (if I had them) a million of lives, then much longer remain under my present tyranny and imprisonment) and therefore it is that I have obeyed your summons, and gone thus far with you as I have done, knowing by your order, you are not difinitively to judge my cause.  
And therefore before your house finally judge my cause, I desire you from me to acquaint them that Sir Thomas Fairfax and the Army under his command, upon the 18 August 1647. hath published a Remonstrance printed twice by two special Orders of the present House of Peers, to the view of the whole kingdom, and approved of by all the Members of the House of Commons, that went to the Army for protection. In which Remonstrance they utterly disclaim and renounce Mr. Pellam, and all those that sat and voted with him, as Usurpers of Parliament authority, forfiters of their trust, and Traitors to their Country, for actually by their Votes, Orders, and Ordinances, levying of a new war in the kingdom, against the peace and the power thereof, which Sir Thomas Fairfax is since by this present House of Commons owned by them for their General, and the Army under him for their Army, and yet the most of these very Members thus declared against, sit in the house, being in this condition, by reason of their crimes declared in that Declaration under the power, lash, and awe of those of that Army, that have the power of that Army at their beck and command.  
Wherefore I desire, that seeing Lieut. Gen, Cromwell is the man that engaged we originally in my contest against the Lords, and particularly against the Earl of Manchester, who then in his discourse to me, was the greatest Anti Lord (I aver it) that I conversed with in England.  
And seeing that now of late, (as I have too much cause to judge) he is apostatised from his principles, and the people's liberties, and hath visibly shake hands with those he accused and judged to be enemies to the peace and liberties of England, and is now, as I have too much cause to judge, become a patron, approver, and protector of them in all their Arbitrary, illegal, and tyrannical usurpations, with all his interest, with the conductive power of the Army, which now he hath at his beck, and by means of which he holds a rod of fear and terror over the heads of all those Members of the House of Commons, that they shall not dare (for their own safety and preservation) to give their Votes freely against the Lords, seeing that he in interest and design is now so nearly conjoined unto the present House of Lords, who I may now justly call his creatures at his beck to execute his will and mind, and therefore desiring to stoop as low as in justice and honesty I can, to put a period one way or another to my present contest with the Lords, I earnestly desire that the House of Commons will publicly declare against the foresaid Remonstrance (if Mr. Pellam and those that sat with him, were a true house of Commons) that so all the said Members therein concerned, may effectually be instated in the full condition and capacity of free and innocent men, that so without fear of Lieu. Gen. Cromwell, or his power in the Army, they may vote freely according to their consciences, and then I shall freely submit to their judgement. Or else secondly that according to the tenor of the said Remonstrance, they may either be totally expelled (or else pro tempore in my cause) and I shall freely put myself upon the judgement of the remaining part of the House of Commons, let it be what it will, I value it not, so I may come to an issue, & thereby fully know what I have to trust to. Or if neither of these can at present without further delay of time be done, then in the third place I earnestly desire to put myself upon the issue of my foresaid proposition, which I desire verbatum to read unto you, but seeing this Committeee hath dealt so fairly, justly, and honourably with me, in granting me so free open, and public hearing, as I had before you upon Wednesday last and hearing me with so much patience, without interrupting of me, and seeing the calumny is so strong upon me, that I have no mind to come out of prison, I am resolved in this particular, wholly and solly to put myself upon the judgement & conscience of this Committee, & that if you amongst yourselves judge it fit that I should wholly put myself upon the present judgement & conscience of the final judgement and determination of the present mixed house of Commons. I do here before you all freely & voluntaryly declare I am willing to do it, and in testimony whereof I give it you under my hand and seal, and desire you, that upon all that this day, and upon Wednesday last I have said and declared to you, that you would immediately consult amongst yourselves, and give your sense and opinions as fare in it as your present power will enable you, and thereupon withal speed make your report unto the House, that so without any more delay, I may receive their long expected judgement and final determination, and so I leave you, desiring the Lord to direct you, now at last to acquit yourselves towards me and the kingdom like men of honesty and honour, and so rest yours in your faithful serving of the kingdom.  
Tuesday this 26. October, 1647. john Lilburne.   
I cannot but acquaint the Reader, that a grand objection against me, wherefore I should not have my liberty and justice, is because, if I were at liberty, it is said I would go down to the Army, and make new hurly bulyes there, but to take of this ungrounded fallacy, and falsehood I proffered Lieut. Gen. Cromwell face to face in the Tower, the beginning of September last, (that I was so far from intending to trouble either the Army, Parliament, or Kingdom) that upon that condition the house of Commons would forthwith do me but a reasonable proportion of justice, I would immediately leave the Kingdom, and voluntarily engage not to come into it again so long as the present troubles lasted. And for a prevention of any clashing betwixt the present Lords and Commons about me, in regard he apprehended it of extraordinary prejudice to the kingdom I proffered him so my Appeal might be adjudged by the House of Commons, and the kingdom's liberties secured for future against the Lords usurpations, out of that affection I bear to the peace and quietness of my native Country, I would willingly wave all things concerning my particular individual self (in reference to the present House of Peers illegal and tyrannical dealing with me) till the next Parliament, and if that never came, I would never seek for reparations of them, nor from them. And I had then divers very fair promises from him, but I never enjoyed from him, the least performance in the world, although my business was moved in the house by Col. Henry Martin the next day (being Tuesday) after my discourse with L. G. Cromwell, but nothing was done in it, although L. G. Cromwell was then sitting in the House, and although it was 14. days before by special order of the House ordered to be debated that day, the next being Tuesday, Mr. Martin moved, it again, and then it was put of till Friday after, upon which day Mr. Martin moved it again, but it was put of till Tuesday, and upon Tuesday it was reported to the House, but nothing was done then in it, saving to turn it back to the Committee, there to be delayed 15. months longer, and power given them to search for precedents, for no other end as I conceive, but to see whether the Lords injustice to me, could not easily be justified by their former injustice to others, and so because to several men they have done injustice, their tyrannical, illegal deal towards me must pass for good law, and with much ado that day, my wife in the afternoon got the Committee together, where Mr. Knightly (as I was informed) played the learned Proctor for the Lords, and L. G Cromwell came not very short of him, for though it were to gross for him (especially having been such a grand Antagonist to the Lords) to plead down right for the Lords and their apparent encroachments upon the Commons rights yet (as very good intilligence tells me) he made a zealous and earnest motion, that because the cause was so knotty and of so great concernment, that they might get a company of Lawyers in their House to debate it pro and con; although he himself last year being one of my Committtee, and often times at it when I was before them, declared himself them as free from scruples, (that by law the Lords had no jurisdiction at all over me in the case in controversy) as Mr. Henry Martin did; but the wind being now changed, and the Lords being now become his white boys, he must become their faithful servant against his own interest (as a Commoner,) yea & his conscience & the interest of all the Commons of Eng: of which when I heard, my soul was in an agony and perplexity, that I should be so dealt with by him, that originally brought me into my contest with the Lords, and who but the other day had promised me face to face so fairly.  
And looking upon this motion of his, as devilish and mischievous a motion as ever was made against me by any of my adversaries, (for having writ so bitterly against the Lawyer's corruptions as I had done, and especially against those of the House of Commons; for pleading causes at inferior bars, before Judges of their own making, and so out of fear over awing them, and thereby as it were compelling them to do injustice for fear of losing their favour, who are able to turn them out of their places) I therefore judged it impossible by all the interest I had in the world, in half seven years) to get a company of Lawyers of the House of Commons to come to a Committee to do me or my present cause a courtesy, and this is all the good I have received by L. G. Cromwell's, serious promises made to me in the Tower, saving his dear and bosom friend, and creature, stout and valiant Nathaniel Fines, made, I will not say as the mouth of L. G Cromwell, as I am from good hands told, a most fiery, fierce, and bitter speech against me, and my cause in the open house of Commons. Whereupon, my pen and tongue hath been very free since in discovering L G. Cromwell's Hocus Pocus dealing with me and the Kingdom, who appears to be one of the notablest Jugglers, that ever I was familiar wchih in the kingdom, with freeness giving no small distaste to some of my near friends, who coming to see me, fell upon me sound & told me I would not only undo myself but all that had any relatition unto me, or familiarity with me, and pressed me to do something that was reasonable and moderate to get my liberty, assuring me that if I would do so and so, he knew I might have my liberty etc. whereupon I drew him up these following lines which pleased him very well.  

For my particular in England were I at liberty, I could not live to follow any employment, except Oaths or Tithes were abolished, for either I must follow my traid which hear I cannot do without taking oaths, which I cannot take, or else I must live in the Country, and there I neither can nor would pay Tithes, in which regard if I were at liberty I must of necessity go beyond seas, and do hereby promise that upon that condition the house of Commons will pass their judgement upon my protest against the Lords and my Appeal to them for justice and protection, and evacuate and annihilate my sentence, and immediately help me to the 2000 l. the Lords adjudged me from my Starchamber judges, and give me but in ready money one half of my Arrers for the whole, being about 6. or 700. l. audited before a Committee of their own house, and I will immediately lay out my money in cloth or other commodities, and if I can pass with them, I will forthwith leave the Kingdom, to which I will promise without licence I will not return for the space of 12. months after the receipt of the money, and so shall leave this Parliament to the management of their own affairs amongst themselves, witness my hand and seal this sixth of October, 1647.  
John Lilburne.   
But in stead of obtaining my liberty, etc. hereby, as I was confidently made believe I should, this my own moderate & fair proffer served my adversaries, to no other end but to upbraid and calumniate me behind my back, though made by their own procurement, and to render me contemptible, as a man that neither cared for England nor the liberties thereof, but merely and only sought for my money and my own ends, whose juggling dealing with me I shall more largely in some marginal notes, etc. discover, when I print my letter to subtle Mr. Allen the Agitator, which by God's assistance shall speedily follow, and then my Appeal next to that, wherein I shall cry out aloud, murder, oppression, and cruelty, to the whole kingdom, and with strong cries press all that have honest, english hearts, vigarously to press the house of Commons to judge my Appeal, which I judge is now hindered by the grandees of the Army, who I may say are body and soul the Lords creatures, and as great lovers of tyranny, oppression, injustice, and dissimulation as they,  
and so I rest, John Lilburn that neither love's baseness, nor fears greatness.  
FINIS.