To the Honourable, the referees of his highness' most Honourable council, in the Cause between Sir John Stowell and the Purchasers.  
The Petition of William Lawrence of Edinburgh, Esq  

Humbly showeth,  
THat whereas your Petitioner is employed in his highness' service in Scotland, which requires his personal attendance there; And he being one of the said Purchasers, as he is informed, the said Sir John Stowel in his absence, without summons or other legal notice, hath, and doth endeavour by surprise to pursue your Petitioner, and work divers things against him prejudicial to his right. And whereas your Petitioners purchase was before he left England, confirmed by Act of Parliament, and in confidence thereof, your Petitioner suspecting nothing, left no provision nor order against any suits, not doubting the same. And your Petitioner in the present condition he is in, is now deprived of all counsel, intelligence, Agents writings, evidences, proofs, and other things necessary to maintain a Title, and of all fit means to make use of them.  
Your Petitioner therefore humbly prayeth that no proceedings be suffered against him otherwise then is by Law allowable against a person not summoned, and out of the Nation, and who hath besides the warrant of an Act of Parliament, which if permitted to be questioned, there can be no end of controversy. And that for the farther security of your Petitioner, the present Petition and Reasons annexed, may be read or inspected, and rest with the papers of other Purchasers before your Honours to prevent any misinformation from the said Sir John Stowell.  
And your Petitioner shall ever pray, &c.   

Reasons that the Petitioners purchase ought not to be questioned by Sir John Stowell.  
I. Your Petitioner saith that such members of the Committee of Articles as have acted for the said Sir John Stowell, against Purchasers, are parties, and not Judges, and their Orders and Certificates ought to have no credit or authority. And your Petitioner saith they have mistated the Case, transgressed the duty of an inferior jurisdiction and presumed on Acts of sovereign power, they have wrongfully indebted the commonwealth in vast sums of money to the said Sir John Stowel, they have occasioned false scandal on it of infringing his Articles, and have not been indifferent or equal in their proceedings, either as to public or private rights, all which your Petitioner will be ready to prove.  
II. Your Petitioner saith, that divers Purchasers, some through fear, and others by conspiracy with the said Sir John Stowell, have, and do put in divers feigned and feeble Petitions and pleas, part of which the said Sir John Stowell to delude the vulgar, hath put in print, and the same purchasers have and do endeavour to betray the Cause of the commonwealth, and are companions, your Petitioner therefore desireth that no proceeding be made against him in gross, but his cause heard patiently and particularly.  
III. Your Petitioner saith that it hath been already decided and adjudged by Parliament, that the said Sir John Stowell hath forfeited his Articles. And thereupon the Act of sale of his estate was made, and that judgement being given by Parliament, to whose proceedings Purchasers neither could or aught to be privy, and so much time since past, That though the Evidence and proofs were then never so clear, yet the memory may be now lost; The Members witnesses proofs dead, removed, unknown, or taken off. It would be unreasonable to put Purchasers now to prove over again what hath been adjudged, and would not only question Sir John Stowels, but most part of all the lands the Parliament ever sold or shall sell.  
IV. Your Petitioner saith, notwithstanding that if he shall be enforced, he will prove that the said Sir John Stowell never submitted to composition according to Articles, and that he hath both omitted & committed divers Acts then and since which have clearly forfeited them.  
V. There is sufficient publicly and vulgarly known of the said Sir John Stowell, as none needs admire at the judgement passed against him, for he offered nothing but insolences and affronts to the Parliament itself, when brought before them, he reviled the Committee for compounding, charging them to be delinquents themselves. He charged the Judges at the Upper Bench that they sat by a counterfeit seal, and that they were mock-Judges, and the Jury a pack of Knaves; he openly denied and defied the Supreme authority, and charged the Court and Attorney-General with high Treason for acting by it, publicly, and to their faces. He declared for the Scots in arms against this commonwealth, & till all was lost; he made only a show and pretence to desire to compound, but really resolved and declared against it, and derided and scorned all those who submitted to it. All which was besides many others.  
1. No fit language or behaviour to demand a Composition with.  
2. A breach of the peace within the Parliaments quarters.  
3. An incensing of the people to rebel, and adhere to the enemy.  
4 The highest prejudice to the Parliaments quarters a prisoner could do, though he knew by his Articles he was not to prejudice the same, and had given security to that end.  
5. Divers of the same Acts have been made treasonable by Ordinance of Parliament.  
6. If any innocent person had presumed on half so much, it had been his ruin.  
VI. The said Sir John Stowell refused to acknowledge himself a Delinquent, and thereby wilfully refused his Composition.  
1. It was the command of the Parliament, and the Commissioners for compounding could not justify composition on any other terms.  
2. The house of Lords being part of the Parliament, had not then confirmed his Articles.  
3. The Parliament had considerately designed that all Delinquency should remain of Record, that both in the disposing of offices of trust and power, and other future Acts relating to the commonwealth, they might the more readily guide themselves.  
4. A dishonour might have been aspersed upon them, That it had been Latrocinium, and not Bellum, a robbery, and no just war, if together with the penalties a confession or trial of the offence had not likewise appeared.  
5. Both Commissioners and Sequestrators might have been otherwise liable to future actions and suits from the said Sir John Stowell and his heirs.  
6. The Parliament had appointed other Courts, as namely the Commissioners of Appeals, and those of the Common-Law for relief of persons sequestered, being not Delinquents, which were open unto him for trial, if he would stand on that point: But by standing on it with the Commissioners for compounding, 'tis clear he ousted them of jurisdiction to meddle with him  
7. His refusal was not out of error, or mistake, but advisedly, and obstinately, and after he was told of it.  
8. Both before, and at time of making his Articles, it was known that by the usual course of submitting to composition; the first point was acknowledgement of Delinquency, and therefore if the said Sir John Stowell had not liked it, he might have chosen whether he would have taken Articles without an express dispensation of that very point.  
VII. Your Petitioner saith that the interest of the land in question doth not totally belong to the said Sir John Stowell; But there are divers charges upon it, and divers transactions have been made touching the same to other persons, making no pretence to Articles, who never made claim, and therefore bound by the sale which your Petitioner ought to have liberty to examine, as well by the oath of the said Sir John Stowell, as other persons, and to have a Production of the Deeds, Titles, and Evidences of the said land in Court, if there be cause.  
VIII. Your Petitioner saith that Purchasers were commanded to pay in their second moieties by act of council at Whitehall, and their Estates were thereupon confirmed by Act of Parliament called by his highness, which is the deepest fundamental of property can be laid, and the highest assurance the Law can give, and ought not to be questioned.  
Ix.. His highness hath been pleased likewise by his oath in the Instrument Government, to confirm the securing property, and to govern therein according to the Laws, and Statutes, the benefit whereof your Petitioner doth claim.  
X. Your Petitioner acknowledgeth laws may be repealled, Judgements reversed, and Authorities countermanded, but humbly saith, That buying and selling binds supreme power itself: And that in the particular sale the full price, both of money and blood hath been received. And therefore neither God nor man can revoke their own bargain, and sales, and the whole Christian Religion itself hath no other foundation but a bargain and sale.  
XI. Your Petitioner saith, his Purchase being a reversion, he was necessitated to drown, and extinguish his old Lease, for which old Lease the said Sir John Stowel received of this Petitioners father far more than the whole Inheritance was worth. And your Petitioners occasions have likewise since his Purchase compelled him to commit acts of forfeiture of his said old Lease by Feoffments, and otherwise, and to charge the mixed interest of old and new Purchase, part with a jointure, part in tail to an infant, part with debts, part orphan's money, part others. And upon such transacting and charging, the same hath bound himself in many penal Covenants, and Bonds, to warranty, so that if Justice be not done to your Petitioner in maintenance of his Right, your Petitioner is utterly destroyed and made incapable of other Indemnity or Reperation.  
XII. Your petitioner was totally ignorant of the Articles of Exeter, or any pretence of the said Sir John Stowel to the same, and the same Sir John Stowel might and aught to have given him notice of the same, and was earnestly requested and solicited to give your petitioner notice and directions of his desires touching his intended purchase. And the said Sir John Stowel did notwithstanding purposely and fraudulently conceal the same from your petitioner, which point, though your petitioner had nothing else to say is unanswerable both in the laws of peace and war.  
XIII. Your petitioner saith, that the said Sir John Stowel might, and ought further to have given notice to the trusties for sale, the Committee of obstructions, the Terretenants of the Land, who had preemption, as it is the course, and other persons have done, though enacted to be sold, and their claims taken away; as the said Sir John Stowel's was, but he did not; And therefore by his own wilful defaults he lost the benefit of stopping sales which others in the like condition obtained.  
Your petitioner saith, that the said Sir John Stowel is a subject, and the Land in question English Land, and the said Sir John Stowel neither doth nor can claim by his Articles to be in better condition than the residue of the Subjects of England. And they, if their Estates happen to be sold by mistake in Parliament or erroneous Judgement at Common-law, or their claims have been unjustly refused, or there be a trust or title of Equity in Chancery on the Land whereof Purchasers have no notice, must take in lieu thereof that expedient which the Law allows, namely reparation in value as far as is proper. And for the residue damage by way of Action, which legal expedient is made good by the said Articles, and without them he can have no benefit of the same.  
By the Act for settlement of Ireland, the Parliament declared in a far stronger case, and though no sale were made to necessitate it; that persons there might be transplanted from their own Estates of equal value, notwithstanding they had been adjudged comprised within Articles.  
Sir John Stowel hath measured the same, and far worse measure to others; For the whole Parish of Cothelstone in Somerset hath been by him miserably and totally depopulated. And not awaiting the expiring of their Estates, he by force, fraud, and terror expelled them, their wife's children, and families to swim through their own tears to new Plantations. Here therefore as the Law warrants, and necessity commands; so the Finger of God seems to direct, and Justice itself to cry aloud for Retaliation.  
It would be a very great cruelty and injustice by not making good public sales to sacrifice to his rage and revenge all the well-affected people of fifteen or sixteen great manors, who have incurred his hatred merely out of service to the public, and have the faith and honour, both of military and civil power engaged to protect them: which if not performed unto them, he will in point of Estate neither give quarter to man, woman, or child, but will totally extirpate and destroy them.  
The said Sir John Stowel himself is in no such case as he pretends. For as your petitioner is informed, his principal place of Residence being a Magnificent seat is purchased by his Lady for his use, and besides he hath left him unsold and purchased by his Lady's assigns, and friends, fifteen hundred pounds per annum more. And if he hath the residue of his Rents filled up with Rents of State Land, the money whereof is as good as his own; he hath nothing to object but that he scorns the title, and desires only to deal in merchandise, will swim best if the ship of the commonwealth, and Government sink together. But certainly cannot say, but as touching his poor depopulated Tenants, whom he t●rn'd out like snails from their only houses, to which their lives were tied. But he is far better dealt with, than he dealt with them, or intends to deal with the residue, if ever delivered into his hands.