THE INDEPENDENCY OF ENGLAND Endeavoured to be maintained By HENRY MARTEN, a Member of the Parliament there, Against the Claim of The SCOTTISH Commissioners, In their late ANSWER UPON THE Bills and Propositions SENT to the KING in the Isle of Wight.  
London, Printed for Peter Cole, at the Printing-Press in Cornhill, near the Royal-Exchange, and John Sweeting, at the Angel in Popes-head Alley. 1648.   

THE INDEPENDENCY OF ENGLAND Endeavoured to be maintained against the Claim of the Scottish Commissioners.  
TO rectify, not to upbraid you: You have for divers years together been very well entreated by us of this Nation, and that from a willingless we ever had, as upon all occasions, so particularly in your persons; to manifest the brotherly respect we bear towards them who sent you: Upon the same account many former Boldnesses and Provocations of yours have been winked at by the Parliament, as (I am confident) this last Answer would likewise be, did you not therein seem to have remained here so long, as to have quite forgotten why you came.  
You may therefore please to be remembered. That it was no part of your first business (whatever supplemental Commissions may since have been procured for a further exercise of your patience among us) to settle Religion, not to make a Peace in England; so as all those devout-like and amicable Endeavours for which you think to be thanked, were not only Intrusions into Matters unconcerning you, but so many Diversions from performing, as you aught what was properly committed to you.  
As for our Religion, since the zeal of your Countrymen would needs carry their care thereof so far from home, me thinks their Divines, now sitting with ours at Westminster, might excuse your trouble in this particular, or at least might teach you by their practice, That your Advice therein to the Parliament is to be but an Advice, and that an humble one.  
As for the other particular of Peace, it is true, that about three years ago here were Ambassadors from our Neighbours of the Low-countrieses, who having found the King almost weary of Fight, made use of their Privilege, and did his Errand (in stead of their Masters) which was with big words to beg a Peace.  
After that, when the Kings 'Cause had nothing left to lean upon, but the Treachery of our false Friends and Servants, an Ambassador from our Neighbours of France did (en passant) make a certain overture of Accord betwixt the Crown and the Head. But your employment here from our Neighbours of Scotland had so little relation to Peace, that your only work was to join Counsels with a Committee of ours, in ordering and disposing such. Auxiliary Forces as that Kingdom should send into this for carrying on the War.  
As to the Delays you charge upon the Parliament, in that they Answer your Papers sometimes late; and sometimes not at all, yet require peremptory and speedy Resolutions from you, as if their deal were unequal towards you, I hope you will give over making such Constructions, when you shall consider how much more business lies upon their hands, then upon yours; and how much flower progress the same Affairs must needs find, in passing both Houses, then if they were to be dispatched only by four or five Commissioners. Were not I conscious to this truth, and to the abundant civility they have always for you in their undelayed reading, present referring, and desire of complying with what you send them, so far as might consist with their Duty to this Commonwealth, and that they want nothing but time to say so, I should never have presumed to trust so great a Cause upon the Patronage of so rude a Pen: Neither indeed is it left there, my design being to let the world imagine, how strong a stream of Justice runs on our side, when I dare oppose the Reasons of my single barque, against all the advantages of Number, Abilicies, and Countenance that you can meet me with.  
For order's sake, I shall take the pains to set the body of your Discourse as upright as I may (its prolixity and perplexity considered) upon two feet.  
One is, The Claim you make in behalf of the Kingdom of Scotland, to the inspection of and conjunction in the matter of our Laws, and the conditions of our Peace.  
The other (mistaking the first for evinced) is, Your telling us what you think fit, and what unfit, for us to establish in our Church and State, and what way you conceive most proper for obtaining of a Peace betwixt the King and us; together with the Proofs wherewith you seek to fortify your several Opinions.  
It would give your first foot too much ground, to hold Dispure with you upon the second; therefore since a man may see by your forwardness in printing and publishing both these and other your Transactions with the Houses, that your Arguments (like the Kings in His Messages) are not framed so much to satisfy the Parliament, as to beget in the People a dis-satisfaction towards the Parliament. I will (God enabling me) take a time apart to undeceive my Countrymen concerning both the King and you, by laying the Hook as open as the Bait in all your lines; And for the present apply myself only to the showing you, That when you shall have offered your Counsel to the Parliament of England (as for aught I know any one man may do unto another) in matters concerning this Kingdom only, though the most wholesome Counsel that ever was or can be given, and the Parliament shall not approve it, not so much as a Conference upon it, it is no more manners in you, than it would be in the same number of Spaniards, Indians, or of the most remote Region of the Earth, to press it again, to insist upon it, and to proclaim your unsatisfaction in it.  
Let us (with your favour) consider your pretences: You do not aim (as yourselves profess in the second Paragraff of your fourth page) at sharing in our Rights, Laws nor Liberties, but in other Matters, viz. such as either in their own Nature, or by Compact, are common to both Kingdoms; which I take the more notice of, because one would suppose you to be grown kinder now than you were the other day, when you went about to make us believe, that nothing in our Laws did properly belong to us, but the form and manner of proceeding therein, the matter of them being held in common with the Kingdom of Scotland; and therefore, and for their possibility of containing something prejudicial to that Kingdom, to be revised by you before they receive their perfection.  
But the truth is, you are still where you were; only the People's ears are by this time so habituated to the Doctrines you frequently sow among them, those Doctrines so improved by your Seminaties, who find their own Interest interwoven with yours, and the Parliament seeming but a looker on, that you persuade yourselves any thing will pass that you shall set your Stamp on, otherwise you would certainly have been ashamed to disavow the busying yourselves with our RIGHTS, LAWS and LIBERTIES, and with the same breath to dispute our Rights, correct our Laws, and infringe our Liberties.  
Nay, contrary to that moderate concession of yours, you do in this Answer entrench upon the very form and manner of our Bills and Propositions; and as if the marshalling them, the putting them into rank and file, were to be by your order, you take upon you to appoint which of our Desires shall have the Van, and which the Rear in this Expedition.  
And (which is the most pleasant part of the Story, if it would take, as truly such a thing might have done, when you and we were first acquainted) though the Parliament of England (as I told you even now) would not order the motions of the Scottish Army that served us in our Country, and for our Pay, but by Conjunction of Counsels with Commissioners of that Kingdom; yet you (as you could not forbear meddling with our Army when it was in modelling, so) do in this Paper continue the Office (you put yourselves into) of Disposing, Disbanding, Dismembering, Catechising and Reviling this Army of ours, the greatest Bulwark, under God, of our Liberties, that yet had proved ineffectual, if your Counsels had been followed, or your Importunities regarded.  
Since than your way of advising us is not in a modest or submitting manner, but as if you meant to pin your advice upon us whether we will or no; give me leave, I pray you, to examine quâ fiduciâ, promising you faithfully for my part, that whensoeever you shall bring the matters contested for, within the rules of your own setting down, that is, either in nature, or by Covenant, or by Treaty to be of a mixed concernment; I will either not deny you a joint interest in them, or acknowledge myself to have no more honour nor conscience in me, than he may be said to have, who being entrusted for his Country, gives up their dearest Rights to the next stranger that demands them without so much as arguing the point.  
Your arguments (by my computation) are five, and (if I understand them) speak thus.  
Arg. 1. The same common interest upon which Scotland was invited and engaged in the war ought to be [continued] (so I read you, and not improved, that being a wild expression, and reaching neither you nor I know whether) in making the peace.  
For answer thereunto, should I admit it, the word [invited] puts you in mind that your Countrymen came not to the war before they were called, keep you the same method in accedendo ad consilium, and we shall still be friends. But I cannot subscribe to this position, for I believe it was a duty that the people of Scotland did own unto themselves to give us their assistance in the late war, though they had not been invited; yet doth it not follow from thence that when the war is ended (as you often say it is, and yet most riddlingly take huge pains for Peace) they are bound to mingle with us in our Counsels, nor help us to settle our own Kingdom, which we think ourselves able to settle well enough without them, at least without their prejudice to whom a good Peace or a bad, so as it be a Peace is the same thing. For instance, the Law of this Land that gives me leave to pull down my neighbour's house when it is on fire, in order to the quenching of it for the securing of my own, will not authorise me against his will, to set my foot within his threshold, when the fire is out, though I make it my errand to direct him in the rebuilding of his house, and pretend the teaching him so to contrive his Chimneys as may in all probability prevent for the future a like loss to him, a like danger to myself.  
Arg. 2. You demand the same conjunction of interests to be given you, that was had of you. There I join issue with you, and profess, that if ever the Parliament of England or any authority derived therefrom did offer to put a finger into the proper affairs of Scotland, or into the Government, Civil, Ecclesiastical, or Military of that Kingdom, and being once required to desist, did notwithstanding prosecute their title of advising volentibus nolentibus, I shall readily so fare as in me lies, grant you to have a hand with us in the managing of this Kingdom, and the government thereof.  
Arg. 3. You affirm that the Covenant entered into betwixt us makes you copartners with us in every thing there mentioned, by which reckoning neither this Nation, nor that of Scotland hath any right law or liberty which either can properly and distinctly call its own, but both interests are jumbled together, and the two Kingdoms are not confederate, but incorporated Concerning the Covenant therefore (which myself, among others considering it first as well as I could) have taken) I shall shortly give you my sense in relation to the point before us.  
First, I do not conceive the parties to that League intended thereby to be everlastingly bound each to other, the grounds of striking it being merely occasional for the joining in a war to suppress a common enemy, accordingly we did join, the enemy is (if we be wise) suppressed, and the war (as you say) ended, what should the Covenant do, but like an Almanak of the last year show us rather what we have already done, than what we be now to do.  
Secondly, what would it do, were it renewed and made perpetual? Thus much it saith in my opinion, and no more. Whensoever you shall be violently hindered in the execution of that Religion you had amongst you at the time of the engagement, and shall require our assistance, we must afford it you, for the removal of that violence. In like manner, whensoever we shall be so hindered in the exercise of that Religion which we according to that Covenant shall establish here, upon request to you made for that effect, you are tied to assist us. And so throughout all the other clauses respectively and equally, carrying this along with you; we are hereby obliged to the reciprocal defence of one another according to the Declaration of the party wronged in any of the particulars there comprised, without being cavilled at, or scrupled by the party invoked, whether your Religion be the same it was, or ours the same it should be, whether the bounds of your liberties or ours be not enlarged beyond their then-line, whether your Delinquents or ours be justly so or no. For, the native rights of both people's being the principal, if not the only thing we looked on, when we swore; we do not keep our oath in preserving those rights, if we do not allow this master-right, to each several people, namely, to be sole judges within themselves, what Religion they will set up, what kind of Laws they will have, what size, what number of Magistrates they hold fit to execute those Laws, and what offenders to be tried by them. Hereupon you know we did not inquire at all how Orthodox your Religion was before we vowed to maintain you in it, that is, in the quiet professing of it, (not in the Theological truth of it, a business for a University perhaps, not for a Kingdom) being well assured, it was established by them who had all the authority that is visible to choose for themselves, and could not without apparent breach of order, and injury to fundamentals be disturbed in the exercise of what they had so chosen.  
So fare is the plain text of this Covenant from confounding interests that it clearly settles and confirms them upon the several bases where it found them. And it would not be unworthy of you to take heed lest this Covenant upon which you seem to set so high a rate, be not as easily violated as slandered, since the most deadly wars have been said at least to begin with misunderstandings.  
Arg. 4. Your entituling your selus to a conusance in the conditions of our Peace, and consequently in the matter of our Laws (when they relate to an agreement, as I confess the four Bills do which were sent) is grounded upon a very great mistake of the eighth article in the treaty, the words whereof are indeed very rightly incited by you, and the article itself so rational, so ordinary, so necessary in all wars joined in by two States, that I do almost wonder as much what need there was to have inserted it, as I do how it is possible for you to mistake it. It stands briefly thus. One of you (for the purpose) & I (pardon if you please the familiarity of the instance) have solemnly engaged ourselves each to other for our mutual aid against a third person, because we conceived him too strong for either of us single, or because one of us doubted he might have drawn the other of us to his party, if not pre-engaged against him, but which soever of us was first in the quarrel, or what ever was the reason of the others coming in, we are engaged, & though there were nowritings drawn betwixt us, no terms expressed, were not I the veriest Schelm that ever looked man in the face if I should shake hands with the common adversary and leave you fight? against such a piece of baseness (supposing it belike to be in nature) this Article provides, and says that since these two Kingdoms were content to join in a war which without God's great mercy might have proved fatal to them both, neither of them shall be suffered to make its peace apart; so as if the Parlianent of Scotland upon consideration of reasons occurring to themselves should offer to readmit the King into that Kingdom (I say not with honour, freedom, and safety but) in peace, the Parliament of England might step in and forbid the banes, telling them we are not satisfied that an agreement should yet be made, similiter, if this Parliament would come to any Peace with him by Bills or Propositions, or by what other name soever they call their plasters, you may (being so authorized) in name of that Kingdom or the Parliament, thereof intervene, and oppose, telling us that you who are our fellow-Chirurgions, merely in lancing of the sore, are not satisfied in the time for the healing of it up. But for you to read a lecture to us upon our medicaments and their ingredients, to take measure of our wounds, and to prefer your measure before that of our own taking was never dreamt on by the Framers of this article.  
Here it may perhaps be demanded though not by you, whether (according to my sense of the treaty, tying up both Kingdoms to a consent in the Fiat, not in the Qualis fuerit of Peace) if one should be obstinately bend to hang off, the other be necessitated to welter everlastingly in blood for want of such a concurrence. I answer, yes, for these reasons.  
First, a wise man will fore see inconveniences, before he make his bargain, and an honest man will stand to his bargain notwithstanding all inconveniences.  
Secondly, there will be no great encouragement for any obstinacy of that kind when it shall be remembered that the party obstructing the peace must continue to join in the war, and is liable to all the consequences thereof.  
Thirdly, there is another and a more natural way to peace and to the ending of a war then by agreement, namely by conquest. I think he that plays out his set at Tennis till he win it, makes as sure an end of it, and more fair, than he that throws up his Racket when he wants but a stroke of up, having no other way to rook those of their money that bet of his side. If I am trusted to follow a suit in Law for friends concerned therein, together with myself, and daub up a rotten compromise with my adversary, my fellows not consulted, but desiring the suit should still go on, it is not fit they should be bound thereby; but if I continue to do my duty and bring the cause to hearing to a verdict thereupon, and to judgement upon that; such an end of the quarrel I hope I may make without their leave, and if the trial went with me, certainly without their offence.  
To return to the nature of confederacies, Is the war wherein we are joined an invasion from without? any one man of either side if he have strength enough, hath authority enough to end it by repelling the invader, is it a rebellion from within? it were strange to think that any Law or engagement should hinder a single man from ending it, if he be able by suppressing of the rebels. The unworthy friend in the fable, when his companion and he met a bear in the wood, might have been allowed to kill her himself, but he should not have sought his safety in a tree, without taking his friend along with him.  
One thing more I shall add to justify the reason of this 8. Article, such as might (for its clearness of being employed) have excused its being listed among the rest. Never did any people that joined in arms with a neighbour-nation patch up a peace apart, with more dishonour to itself, then either of us should do, if we could imagine ourselves to be so vile; for the common enemy in this war is not a stranger unto either Kingdom, but the King of both, so as which soever of the two closeth with him by itself, before consent, that there shall be at all a closure, doth not only withdraw from the other those aides it should contribute, but of a sworn Brother becomes an open enemy.  
Here I must observe, that as you put an interpretation upon this Article, which it will not bear, and from the power you have thereby of hindering us from agreeing with the King at all, would enable yourselves to pry into the particulars of our Agreement, so you do not once glance at the point which was the true genuine scope of the Article: You do not protest against our making peace with this man; and give such reasons as Jehu did, upon a less occasion: You do not wonder what confidence we can repose in him, after all this experience of him, and before so much as a promise of any amendment from him; you do not warn us, by the example of your Country men, what a broken reed we shall lean upon when we make a pacification with him: You do not remember us with what horror the Assembly of your Church did look upon his misdoings; nor what sense both Kingdoms had (not of a reconcilement with him, but) of suffering him to come near the Parliament of England, until satisfaction were given for the blood which he had then caused to be shed in the three Kingdoms. In fine, You do not say (for you need not give us your reasons) that you will make no peace with the King; therefore we ought not, but you do as bad as say that you have made your peace already, and that not only without our consent (in despite of the Article which you urge against us) but without our privity, that you are come a degree beyond being friends with him, to be advocates for him, not in mediating that his submission might be accepted, his crimes obliterated, and their salary remitted, but in asserting the same cause which we have been all this while confuting with our swords, the same cause, which, what Englishman or Scotish-man soever shall have endeavoured to maintain in Arms, is a declared Traitor to his Country, if by his tongue or pen in that Kingdom of the two where he is no Native, a manifest incendiary. But there will be time enough to do your errand into Scotland after I have proved England to be a Noun Substantive, against which you have the shadow of one Argument left still.  
Ar. 5. The strength of your last Reason is this. Our Parliament hath formerly communicated unto you the matter of their Propositions, and of their Bills, in order to Peace, and generally indeed whatever hath passed betwixt the King and us, since the conjunction of the two Kingdoms against him. Thereupon you have offered us your Advice concerning the Particulars so communicated, and we have reconsidered them upon your Advice, sometimes complying therewith, other times making it appear to you why we could not; that communication of counsels, say you, we would never have suffered, if we had not been bound to it, which if we ever were, we still are.  
Custom and constant usage (I acknowledge) doth commonly obtain the name of Law: but the late practice of some four or five years, hath not an aspect reverend enough to deserve the name of Custom; it is as old (you will say) as an usage can be that is grounded upon a treaty of the same age, and shall be sufficient to signify how the parties to the Treaty did understand their own meaning. I should not deny this pretence of yours to be more than colourable, if you could prove that our transactions with the King were imparted to you in relation to that Engagement, nay if I could not show you upon what other ground we did it, and that we could not reasonably be imagined to do it upon that.  
First, to prove, what the Parliament had in their intentions, when they advised with you, I believe you will not undertake, especially this being the first time, to my remembrance, that this point came in question betwixt us. I shall therefore endeavour to tell you, as near as I can, (having been an attentive witness to most of their Debates upon that subject) what it was that moved them to give your challenge so much probability of advantage as this amounts unto. You ask that now, without being answered, which you were wont to have without ask. You were so; and that from these two Roots: One was the extraordinary care the Parliament had to omit no act, no circumstance, of civility towards you, which might express or preserve the amity and correspondence betwixt them and your Masters, though they were not ignorant what extreme prejudice courteous and good natured men have often drawn upon themselves in their dealing with persons of a contrary disposition. Another was, since both Kingdoms have been embarked in the same cause, as men of War, and were afterwards resolved to trade for peace, since the commodities of both were to be stowed in the same bottom, and bound for the same Port; we thought it but an ordinary piece of friendship, for us who could make no markets, when we should be arrived without your allowance to open and let you see before we launched our several parcels and instructions concerning what we would export and what bring home; not that we meant to consult you what kind of Merchandise you thought fittest for us to deal in, which questionless is better known at the Exchange then at Edinburgh, nor to follow such advice therein as you should give us without ask any further than we liked it; and so far the best Merchant in London is content to be ruled by the Swabber of his ship: but merely to the end, you might (if you pleased) from our example, and from your aprobation of the ware we were resolved to deal in, furnish that Kingdom (whose Factors you were) with Merchandise of the same kind, and for evidence that the Freedom we used towards you was not otherwise understood by you, you did actually under write divers of our Bills of Lading in these syllables: The like for the Kingdom of Scotland.  
It remains to be showed how little reason there is you should fancy to yourselves such a ground of the Parliaments former openness to you, as you strive to father upon them. For, first, If they had communicated their Propositions to you as conceiving the word [Agreement] in the eighth Article to comprehend all the preparations to, materials of, and circumstances in an Agreement, they would not have adhered (as many times they did) unto their own resolutions notwithstanding your reiterated dissatisfaction. Again, If they had conceived themselves bound to any such thing by this Article, would they not have thought the Kingdom of Scotland as much bound for their parts; Should we not have been as diligent inspectors and castigators of your Propositions as you have made yourselves of ours?  
When you shall ask me, setting the point of duty aside, and granting all that hath been done by us in this kind to have been voluntary; Why we do not observe the same forwardness in communicating our matters to you, the same patience in expecting your concurrence with us, and the same easiness of admitting your Harangues and Disputations amongst us, which you have heretofore tasted at our hands, and how we are become less friendly than we were. I have this to say. There is some alteration in the condition of affairs: So long as we needed the assistance of your Countrymen in the Field, we might have occasion to give you meetings at Derby House, and now and then in the Painted Chamber, it being likely that the Kingdom of Scotland might then have a fellow-feeling with us of the wholesomeness or perniciousness of your counsels; whereas now since we are able (by God's blessing) to protect ourselves, we may surely (with his holy direction) be sufficient to teach ourselves how to go about our own business, at least without your tutor, who have nothing in your considerations to look upon, but either your particular advantage, or that of the Kingdom whence you are. And as there is some alteration in affairs, so there is very much in persons, I mean in yourselves, unless being indeed the same at first which now we find you, you only wanted an opportunity to appear; but whether you be changed or discovered, what Englishman soever shall peruse the Papers that you have shot into both Houses of Parliament, especially into the House of Commons these two last years had as lief take advice from the King as from you, & if a stranger should read them, he would little suspect the writers for Friends, or Counsellors, but for Pleaders, for Expostulators, for Seekers of a quarrel, and that (which is the most bitter weed in the pot) in the behalf, not so much of them who did employ you, as of him against whom you were employed, and against whom, if you were Scottish-men, nature would teach you to employ yourselves.  
By this time I hope you see we have greater cause to repent, that we have kept such thorns thus long in our sides, then to return with the dog to the same vomit, and with the lazy Sow, scarce cleansed of herformer wallowing to bemire ourselves again. I bestow a little the more ink upon this point, because I would prevent the like claim hereafter, and have it left to the liberty of this nation, next time they shall be invaded or oppressed, though they did once call in their Brethren of Scotland to their aid, whether they will do so any more or no.  
Having gone through your 5 Arguments, at the end of your dozen Commandments (so I call desires that must not be slighted ou pain of incurring the guilt of violating Engagements, and of such dangers as may ensue thereupon) I observe one engine you use, whereon you lay more weight then upon all you say beside; It gins with a flourish of oratory bespeaking a fair Interpretation of your meaning, though your motion be to take the right eye out of every one of our heads; than you think to make your desires legitimate with fathering them upon a Kingdom, and put us in mind how well that Kingdom hath deserved to reign over this. For to the offering of desires, as desires, there needs no merit, sure, but since your opinion, (that the advantages of honour lie all on that side, and that Obligations of this sort have not been as reciprocal between both Nation, as those of Leagues and Treaties,) will force my pen upon this Subject. I shall let you know that some what may be said (when modesty gives leave) on this side too; and yet all the kindnesses we have received from Scotland, shall (by my consent) not only be paid for, but acknowledged: and I can be content to believe, that our Neighbours did not know how ill we were, till we were almost past cure, and therefore came slowly to us; that they did not know how well we were in a year after we had nothing for them to do, and therefore went slowly from us. Only I would have it confessed, that the fire we talk of, was of your countryman's kindling, began to burn at your house, to be quenched at ours and by our hands. But admit this Nation had been merely passive in this War, and did owe their deliverance out of the King's Talons wholly to the Scottish Nation, if the rescuer become a ravisher, if they have protected their own prey, they have merited only from themselves, and have their reward in their hands. What have we gotten by the bargain? What have we saved? What have we not lost? For if once you come to fetch away my Liberty from me, I shall not ask you what other thing you will leave me: and the Liberty of a people governed by Laws consists in living under such Laws as themselves or those whom they depute for that purpose shall make choice of: To give out orders is the part of a Commander; to give the Law, of a Conqueror; although our Norman did not think sit so to exercise his right of Conquest; Nay our condition would be lower and more contemptible, if we should suffer you to have your will of us in this particular, then if we had let the King have his.  
1. A King is but one Master, and therefore likely to sit lighter upon our shoulders then a whole Kingdom, and if he should grow so heavy as cannot well be born, he may be sooner gotten off then they. You shall see a Mounsiours' horse go very proudly under a single man, but 
* To carry double  to be Charge en crouppe, is that which nature made a mule for, if nature made a mule at all.  
2. The King never pretended to the framing and imposing of Laws upon us as you do; he would have been content with such a negative voice therein, as we allow you in the making of our peace with him; did we fight rather than afford him so much, though seemingly derived unto him from his Predecessors; and shall we tamely give you more? Give you that which your Ancestors never yet durst ask of ours?  
3. Lastly, it had been far more tolerable for the King, then for any Foreign Nation to have a share in the making of our Laws, because he was likely to partake, and that largely in the benefit of them, if good; in the inconveniences, if bad; which strangers are not: nay contrarily, it is matter of envy and jealousy betwixt neighbours to see each other in a flourishing estate. So as the proper end of Laws, being to advance the people, for whom they are made in wealth and strength, to the uttermost; they are the most incompetent Judges of those Laws in the world, whose interest it is to hinder that people from growing extremely rich or strong.  
By what hath been already said, and by a word or two of close, it will (I hope) appear, that the claim you make to the voting with us in the matter of our Laws, and the conditions of our peace as a thing whereunto we should be obliged by agreement, is;  
1. Mistaken in matter of Fact, there being no such engagement on either side.  
2. Unreasonable for the considerations above mentioned and for being destructive to the very principles of property.  
3. Unequal (notwithstanding the reciprocation) more than Cyrus, his childish judgement was, in making the little boy change coats with the great one, because his was long and the others short: For our coats are not only longer than yours, but as fit for us that do wear them, as for you that would.  
4. Unusual, there being no precedent for it, that I could ever read or hear of; and yet there have been leagues betwixt states of a stricter Union than this betwixt us, as offensive and defensive, ours only defensive.  
5. Unsafe, for the keeping up of hedges, boundaries and distinctions (I mean real and jurisdictive ones, not personal and titulary) is a surer way to preserve peace among neighbours, than the throwing all open. And if every man be not admitted wise enough to do his own business, whoever hath the longest sword will quickly be the wisest man, and disinherit all his neighbours for Fools.  
6. Impossible to be made good to you, if it had been agreed: For the Parliament itself, from whom you claim, hath not in my humble opinion authority enough to erect another authority equal to itself.  
As for your exhortations to piety and loyalty, wherewith you conclude. When you have a mind to offer Sacrifice to your God, and Tribute to your Emperor (since the one will not be mocked, and the other should not) you may do well to do it of your own, and to remember, that the late unnatural war with all the Calamities that have ensued thereon, took its rise from unnatural enchroachments upon the several Rights and Liberties of two Nations, resolved it seems to hold their own with the hazard of a war, and all the Calamities that can ensue thereon.  
Henry Marten.   
FINIS.