THE SOLDIERS DEMAND.  
Showing Their PRESENT MISERY; And prescribing A PERFECT REMEDY.  
Printed at Bristol in the Year of intended Parity. 1649.   

The SOLDIERS Demand.  
Fellow Soldiers:  
IT has pleased the Lord to open our eyes, and to let us see the wretched conditions we are brought under; and our crying sins, which cry aloud in the ears of God. Oh! the Ocean of blood that we are guilty of. Oh! the intolerable oppression that we have laid upon our Brethren of England. Oh! how these deadly sins of ours do torment our consciences? Oh! how are we able to answer these pestilent acts of ours, at the dreadful bar of God's divine justice? Nay this is the most sharpest conflict to them, that we never understood a true Cause, or just reason for the shedding of so much innocent blood in our own Nation, nor why we have done such horrid oppression to our own Countrymen.  
Has not the dissembling and hypocritical Parliament gulled and deceived us by their fair pretences of reforming the Protestant Religion, of rectifying the State, and reducing of the ancient Liberties of the People of England? Have ye observed any thing less, or any thing more contrary, sit hence the Parliament hath been for these eight years past? We poor simple men did verily believe that these had been the true Causes and Reasons (all this while) for which we have fought thus eagerly one against another.  
And ever since our Army did first enter into the great City of London, what Declarations and specious promises have been set forth to the same effect? And do ye not perceive, how they walk still in the same ways, yea far worse every day than other? will you be any longer led by the noses by these delusions and mockeries, and suffer your bodies and souls to be utterly ruined? Oh, our worthy Companions, and Fellow-soldiers, be not any longer misled by the dissembling shows of our Superiors (as we must call them) and the wicked Instruments, their pretended Parliament, lest you be tortured in your Consciences as we are, and make yourselves the basest slaves in the whole world, and eternal slaves in Hell hereafter.  
Yet brave Soldiers let us give every body their due; has not brave Fa●rfax, and gallant Crumwell, and we their dependants, made the English and Scottish earth to tremble, wheresoever we have set our feet? and have not our hands convinced all our foes and opposers? and brought gallant Fairfax and Crumwell to this high pitch of honour, that they have da●●d to lay their Sovereign's head under their feet, and many of his Nobles in the dust? and there is not a Lord left, nor any of the gallantest men in the whole Kingdom, that dares to budge against them: For if they do require any thing of them, they will rather lick up the dust under their feet, than dare any manner of way to oppose them. Nay further, have not they and we brought the Royal City, the great Metropolis of this Kingdom, to that subjection and baseness, that we dare swear on hundred of us (though there be a CM. and a CM. fight men in it) would drive them out of their Town, and make them to lie down at our feet like Spannels, and suffer themselves to be bastinadoed, and give us whatsoever we would desire of them, they do so dread a soldier's face, and tremble at the very sight of one? And as for the Country poor slaves, we have so tained, awed, and domineered over them, that we can make them like setting-doggs, to come when we call, to do what we command, and to lie down when we bid them: And yet these base peasants (for we can term them no better) though they are such milksops, let any of them be entered into our society, and a little impudence put into them, and after they are hardened therein, they will presently turn Lions; such gallant spirits doth the art of Arms many times put into base and ignoble clowns. Oh, out upon these vain Fooleries; what would we give to have our troubled consciences settled in peace? Oh, this blood and oppression does more exasperate us than we are able to express: If the Lord be not pleased to show us mercy, what will become of us, the most miserable of all men?  
And will you not have discovered unto you the unworthiness of our base General, and his subordinate Officers towards us, and their small esteem of us, though we be the only means of their high advancement? Do they not now reign and rule above Kings? Is it not by our valour? Is not their own will a Law, to which every body must be subject? Or else are not we their strength and power, to force and compel all opposers to their lusts and pleasures? Who dares to affront them, that we do not presently subdue, and make obedient? Have not they likewise (by the terror of us) set up a Council of State (forsooth) as they call it, and a Parliament of Knaves, according to their own humour, to act, force, and order whatsoever our Superiors will have them to do, that under the name of a Parliament, all their villainies, oppressing and cheating of the poor people, must be overshadowed, and varnished, as Taxes, Excise, and other oppressive Acts, first ordered, and made by our Superiors, but must bear the stamp and face of a Parliament: And is it not the terror of us, that makes this base Parliament their Bawd and Pander?  
And will you give leave to set forth unto you our base and vile usage from these Caterpillars, and ungrateful villains, that very well know how they dare not show their heads in any honest place but for us; it is our valour that supports them, and if we decline from them, they will fall and consume like smoke: And yet if we run not like slaves to fulfil their lusts, are we not scorned and abused, and kicked like dogs by them, as if we were the very scum of the world in their esteem? Are we not unpaid our wages and hire by them, by which we should live, and for want of it, are we not forced to get our bread by force and rapine (else we must starve) from our poor Countrymen? Have we any clothing but at their pleasure? so that for want many of us sundry times are constrained to go to a hedge, or break into a house, or else to the Highway; and if any of us be but taken in this misdemeanour, on what an high offence is it? up we must to the gallows, and be condemned, or censured by our Commanders, who are the only reason, by their unhonest and unjust retaining of our wages in their own fingers, for want whereof we are many of us forced to do that we ought not to do. Do they not upon any occasion quarrel against us? if we be but absent, or do not instantly what they will have us, are we not cudgeled, horsed, our Arms broken over our heads to our disgrace? Are we not threatened upon every slight occasion to be cashiered, our Arrears to be stopped? Have not many of us been hanged and shot at their pleasure? Must we not go and run when they will have us, and whither they will send us? Must we not lie at their doors day and night like dogs to watch and guard them; else, are we not accounted mutinous, and Rebels, and that is a mighty thing with them, and a great care they have to suppress it? Do they not make us worse than the very Janissaries to the Great Turk? For are not they the greatest enemies to their own Parents, to their own Religion, to their own Country? so are not we their slaves to persecute our own Country, by killing and fight with our own brethren, against our natural Parents, and setting up false Religions; by quartering upon them, in eating them up, and famishing of many Families these hard times, by our wasteful charge and ●yot: when alas, they like miscreants, withhold our pay from us, and force us thus cruelly to devour them and their children? Are not we their instruments to fetch in their oppressive Taxes from the poor Country men? If any poor man has it not to pay, yet we violently take it from him, with much advantage over besides to ourselves. Oh the bitter curses the poor people lay to our charge, anti our Superiors that set us a-work: We are afraid they reach up into the ears of God against us; and for these unjust extortions upon his Children, we shall one day receive a sharp censure. Are we not tossed too and fro over the earth at their pleasure, or else we are Rebels against their Greatnesses, and so liable to what punishment they will please to inflict upon us? Sometimes we must march to London, by and by down to Berwick to the West, to the North, to Scotland, to Ireland, even whither they will; and if they do but hear of any of the poor people but murmur against their oppression and cruelty, do they not presently send us to see the matter, and to quail them? peradventure, if they be resolute we must kill them, or be killed by them. Do we not expose ourselves to all danger and misery, to uphold these domineering Rascals in their pomp and luxury? Do they not most insolently invassall us? Do they not vilify us? How base and mean are we (in their conceit) to themselves? Do they not keep our pay and hire from us, and thrust us upon the poor people to shift for ourselves? Do not they themselves pamper and feast their bodies wheresoever they come with the best and choicest refreshments, at other men's Tables? incouch themselves in the sumptuous lodgings and furniture? Do they not live in all delicateness? Do they not oppress, and violently take away every bodies Right, Inheritance, Possession goods, money, treasure, where and from whom they please, under the colour of Taxes, Assize, and opposition against the State (as they call it?) Was there ever such a pack of Knaves in the world, and such villainy acted as is by them, and all under such fair pretences? It is for the good of State, and the maintaining of the Army, yet the Army must be paid as they in their discretion shall hold fit: For their policy is to pay us short, that so we must depend upon their courtesy, and crouch and bow down to them to pray for our own right, and out of our necessity to impoverish the State, that we may make them as poor and base as they do strive to make us to themselves; and we being all poor, and they having gotten all into their own possession, we must repair to them as the young Crows fly to the old ones for food, or else we must starve. This is their drift and intent to bring us all to, that they may insult, and rule us at their pleasure; and when they have it thus, than we must come at their beck, and go when they send, or else cashiered, our Arrears confiscated, and then what shall we do when we are turned out of their service? Is there any such slavery as ours? You Fellow-soldiers do very well know these base affronts continually, and always, have been put upon us, and you very well may perceive how we have been requited for all our gallant service done for these our ingrateful Masters. One thing more of their baseness towards us, let me put you in mind of before I have done with them: Can they put a greater dishonour upon a Soldier, than to make him a hangman, or an Executioner of his Fellow-soldier, as they have done many times, and nor very long since, to the perpetual infamy of men of our noble Profession, that we should be hangmen or executioners of one another, or Gaoller. That man whosoever has been an actor in any of these courses, let us abhor and detest him, and count him not worthy to be associated in our honourable Society, but cashier him out of the Army for a base infamous person, that would be the executioner of a noble Soldier: Let him be shunned as a man of blood, and hateful to all men of our Profession, and be a vagabond all his days. We need call but your own experience, to bring these wrongs and indignities cast upon us into your memories, by those that aught most to have honoured us; we have undergone the servitude of these hard Masters for these many years, yet hitherto we find no amends, but rather worse and more insolency and tyranny every day than other. But if you desire to be free from this base servitude (as gallant soldiers) we lie under, and clear your Country from these oppressive villains, who by their craft and treachery have mounted themselves into the Seats of Regality, by our only fortitude and prowess, and gain the love of your native Nation, be persuaded and ruled by us, and we will present you a way how to vindicate ourselves from these our inthrallers; so you will be constant and firm one to another, and resolved in heart and unity of affections one with another, we shall not only set ourselves free from our cruel Taskmasters, but also enrich ourselves out of them, and make them our slaves, and the most basest abjects upon the earth, howsoever they slant it now. Yet we have not done with our Superiors (they do so hang in our teeth) yet not out of any malice to their persons, but against their ignoble and discourteous dealing against their own Soldiers, who have done so gallantly under their command, do we further set them forth in their lively colours, before we come to our remedy. You may see our slavish condition, that they cunningly and Masterfully endeavour to keep us under, and to effect their designs by us their vassals, if we will be any longer ruled by them: And likewise you may see the advancement we are like to rise to (by what we have here truly set forth) the highest is to a pair of gallows, if they can help us up the ladder, as we see their blessed good meaning towards us, if they take us napping under their power. You had a Precedent, and a late and sad object of this kind lately presented before you on a Gentleman Soldier of our Army, and many of his Comrades sent to Newgate: but he poor Gentleman lost his life for a small matter too, as we have heard, for not ebeying some of his Superiors Command. And though many of us under their Commands (for want of understanding) have been so foolish to venture our lives and limbs for their advancement and greatness; yea have not many of our Army lost their lives and limbs to bring them to this glory, wherein they do so proudly insult now over us, and their Country? but what reward have their wives and children had from them, that have lost their lives for them? some of them a poor pension of 2 s 6 d per week, and that not paid them neither. What crying hath been at the Parliament-doores for poor widows of soldiers? they cried there till their throats were almost rend in sunder, but nothing could be gotten but uncivil language and harsh speeches. And the poor Cripple which hath lost his Legs and Arms, some ten greats or a Noble to carry him where he was borne; We observe how Carts are loaded with them in the Highways, in which they lie miserably distressed in every respect; and when he comes to the place of his birth, or whether he is sent, we believe he finds but course entertainment there, unless it be curses and imprecations upon his soul and body, for the good service he has done his worthy Masters, and the money he had will scarcely buy him a pair of crutches; Are not these brave rewards from our Grandees to us, their Creators, makers, and preservers, as we have hitherto been? and by these means the poor soldier is ever hereafter utterly unable to help himself, and the poor widows and heplesse children left comfortless and destitute of any livelihood for want of their husband's travel & labour, but must necessarily turn beggar, and so must the poor cripple Soldier. Have we not yet set forth (to you) reasons sufficient, whose power is in your own hands by your unvanquished swords, to unthrall yourselves and make these your cruel Masters to fall down at your feet, and compel them to pay you your due rights, and wages, out of the money and treasure they have abundantly accumulated and hoarded up, by their keeping from us our just and merited wages, and by their robbing of the Country? Are our wages so great, that the Army-Taxes could not discharge them? but 'tis thought that they would do more than pay us; and we know that all these Taxes through the whole Kingdom have been fully paid, and yet we unpaid. But suppose we had been paid, and exactly too, what a poor thing is it for so much a day to kill men, yea men of our own Country (and we know not for what neither, except it be to satisfy the bloody and aspiring spirits of our Superiors) our own kindred, our own brothers, paradventure our own fathers, our own friends? Can you but imagine how we are excruciated in our tender consciences for this flood of Crimson blood, that our hands are so deeply stained with, and the cruel and hard usage whereby we have so oppressed our dear friends both in Country and City, you would presently relent with us, and lay down your swords, and mourn in dust and ashes all the days of your lives, and cry to God, and your oppressed brethren, to pardon and forgive you; and if any of you have withal, you would most willingly make restitution to those you have any ways wronged, if your consciences were any ways touched as ours are. It may be God may be so merciful to you as to touch your consciences, and open your understandings, that you may before you depart this life see your bloody sins, and repent you of them, and not suffer you to go out of this world unrepented of them. We hope the Lord will in his good time do these by you, and not let you end your days as Reprobates and Atheists. Thus we daily pray for you.  
But we cannot leave these Cannibal monsters, but we must needs present to your further view the short Epitome of them. They are false Hypocrites to their God, mere Atheists, without natural affection, Murderers of their King (God forgive us this great sin, we cannot absolutely clear ourselves of his Royal blood,) very bloodsuckers; for they care not how many they kill, so they may be secured in their villainy: Let the whole world be ruined, so that they may but enjoy their malicious ends, and evil gotten goods by betraying of their own native Country; Absolute Tyrants (in respect they take and make themselves absolute Governors of the Commonwealth, contrary to the will and good liking of their Fellow-subjects and People) most extreme covetous, for they have wracked the Commonwealth of all her treasure, and assumed it into their own avaricious possession; Covenant-breakers, first with their God, with their Sovereign, and the Parliament; Self-lovers, proud, and great boasters of their own valour; but by our swords (ingrateful wretches to us their instruments) by whose, only fortitude they are risen (from the dunghill) to this greatness; Keepers back of the hirelings wages, a sin crying in the ears of heaven against them; very impostors, and the very scum of all villainy upon the earth, and so let them pass for very rogues and vagadonds. Now if any men that are not as they are can have any joy to serve such Masters, we wish that shame, misery, infamy from the divine hand of Justice, at one time or other may certainly fall upon them, and they be partakers of their Master's wretchedness.  
Well then, are not we their strength and power, that have made them thus imperious? Are not we those that have made them thus dreadful to the whole Kingdom of England, Scotland and Ireland? Why should we then be such sots, that we should be like unto the mere brutes, that have strength and know it not? Let us but leave them, how contemptible would they be? How would they be jeered of all men? How soon would they be rooted and spewed off from the face and surface of the earth? Would not England rejoice to see herself rid of these devouring Locusts, (they are so generally hated of God and all good people.) Oh! what a blessing would descend from heaven upon the earth, if God would be pleased to put this noble and gallant spirit in you all (our Fellow-soldiers) to vindicate our miserable Nation from these devouring vermin? Do you not observe how they endeavour to destroy you? Are they not preparing for new Wars, to set you more by the ears than ever before, till ye have devoured one another? Do they not lay heavier Taxes upon you more than formerly? Do they not eat up your Corn on which you and yours should feed, and be nourished with their Horses and Soldiers? Do they not devour every manner of ways? How soon would this Commonwealth be settled in peace, by God's blessing, upon our deserting of them? What bloodshed would you keep off? What cruel oppression? How would good men and women bless you, and children even yet unborn? How would all future Ages write and speak of your worthiness? If you would free your Country, your Parents, your wives and children from these their enemies, who only seek yours and their destruction? Would we be free ourselves from their kicking, bastonadoing, horsing, whipping hanging, shooting, and what not? Would you free your native Country from foreign Invasion, cruel slaughter of innocent and harmless people, from intolerable oppression, and perpetual slavery?  
Then let us boldly like good Christians, loving Countrymen, and Fellow-soldiers, unite ourselves into one soul, and resolution to free ourselves and our Country from the miseries abovesaid, lest we be worse than the very Turkish Janissaries; for they will be more excusable than we, for they fight against their own Country, natural Parents, and their true Religion they were born under, is, because they were taken away, and pulled from their Mother's breasts in their Infancy, when they could not rightly distinguish their right hand from their left; but we in our Majority, and come to our discretion, and educated and brought up to ripeness of Age, in the Christian Religion; And for us (though we have been deceived by their fair pretences) yet now God hath been pleased to discover unto us their hypocrisy, dissembling and falseness; for us to be longer seduced by their dissimulation, and so sin against our own knowledge, in joining with them in their falsities, and wickedness, What a horrid shame will it be, not only to our own persons, but to the whole Nation, that such Vipers should be fostered and nourished in her!  
Let us boldly therefore demand of our General, and all his subordinate Officers, our full wages and hire that is due to us; Let us not be daunted to require our just and honest recompense for our hire and service, we have served for, even to a mite; and if they refuse to pay it us, let us require it by the peril of their blood; for we have spent our blood, yea many have lost their lives and limbs to bring them to this greatness they are come to. They will say they have not to satisfy, that is all one, let us do by them, as they have forced us (for want of our pay) to make the Country and City to pay their Taxes and Excise: we must have it, and will have it of them, neither will we be so put off by them: For they, their Officers (take the Parliament Sitters, or setters amongst them) have sufficient amongst them to pay us to our desires. We are well assured of what we speak; The Taxes, Excize, Churchland, King's Revenue, Composition, Customs, Forrest-Lands, the waste of Timber that they have wasted and thrown dawn in this Kingdom (to their perpetual shame for suffering of it) Irish-Taxes, Advance-money, Pole-money, Proposition-money, Thievish Plunder, Bribery; If all these vast sums could be Audited and presented to the view of the eye, it would be a wonder to know the infinite treasure they have grappled into their fingers and possession, and notwithstanding all these, that the hired common Soldier should be in Arrears in so great sums for our wages, and for want of it to put the poor Country and City to such vast expenses by our quartering upon them. These things rightly considered, it will make all honest men to stand amazed at their knavery, and unhonesty for to cousin the common Soldier, and oppress the Commonwealth. And nevertheless, that they have engrossed these vast sums, and the Commonwealth thus racked and impoverished by them, yet the Soldier's Arrears of his just pay should rise and amount to divers 100000 pounds. Now doth it not appear to you our Fellowsouldiers, what notable cheating has been amongst the Parliaments, their Officers, and the Commanders of the Army? And what has made them thus false and impudent, but their presumption of our fortitude and strength, as if we were the foundation for them to build all their villainy, cozenage and oppression upon? It's no marvel that we have lost the love of our Countrymen (as we have worthily deserved) and only by reason of our unhonest Commanders, who unhonestly keep our money from us, and turn us to feed upon the barren Commons of England. We hope your eyes and understandings will be opened, and take these our writings into your consideration, by whom all this while we have been thus wronged, misled, and our just Rights kept from us, and how long we have lived, and still are likely so to do, except we presently take-some speedy course to relieve ourselves, out of the moneys and means, and treasure, our wise Masters have grappled up to themselves, or else we must be forced to oppress the Country still for food, or by stealing and thievery to get us raiment to  our nakedness: but if you will be but men of courage, and cement ourselves sound together, do not fear or doubt, but we will have our deuce out of them with a murrain, and make the Cormorants disgorge their stomaches of all their rich treasure they have swallowed; We will make them glad to lay it at our feet, and pray us to accept of it. And by this course we shall pay ourselves; for if this course be not taken by us, we shall vever be paid, nor the Country eased of future Taxes and Quartering: For they care not how immense the Arrears of the Army grows; for thereby they purpose hereafter to raise infinite sums of money upon the People, and put it into their pockets too; but we shall be never the better for it neither, but still be fed on with a bit and a knock, as they do a setting-dog; and to take of them, what they shall think fit to give us.  
And we pray you all to observe their cunning fetch they have plotted to send us into Ireland, only to find themselves matter for to set us a work, and keep us from idleness, lest we should pry into their designs. First, what have we to do with Ireland, to fight, and murder a People and Nation (for indeed they are set upon cruelty, and murdering poor people, which is all they glory in) which have done us no harm, only deeper to put our hands in 〈◊〉 with their own? we have waded too fare in that crimson stream (already) of innocent and Christian blood. Secondly, are they not afraid of us lest we should grow too unwieldy, and too great for them to govern, and unhappily (against their desire) we should come to know their policy and knavery in managing their devilish and murderous plots? And if they could but get us once over into Ireland (they think) they have us sure enough: either we shall have our throats cut, or be famished, for they are sure we cannot get bacl again over the great Pond. We that have been old Soldiers, and have tasted longest of their barbarousness, it's we they would be soon rid of; for the new Novices, they suppose they may a while lead them by the noses, as they have done us, by suffering of them like idle rogues to ride a horseback up and down the Country, and pill and poll the poor people, which may very well please them for a time; but alas they will find little benefit that way, because we gave skimed it so clean over and over, that peradventure if the people should be exasperated against them, as who can tell what necessity and want at last may drive them to, perchance they may get that they unexpected: But it is us they fear; for if we perish, than they think they are cocksure, besides all our Arrears (which they never mean to pay us) will fall into their own clutches. If they withhold from us our monies here in England, what will they do in Ireland? when we cannot come to their faces to demand it, what hope is there that we shall ever have it? And if we have no pay but what they think fit, how shall we live? But in case we have money, what shall we do with money? we cannot eat it (peradventure they hope to tempt us with a little ready money in our hands) for victuals and clothing will be so difficult to be had there, that (notwithstanding our money) we may be all starved; but they will make you believe, that victuals and all other provision and necessaries, shall be conveyed out of England; let us be no longer gulled with that foppery, for we too too well know the scarcity of all things in England, that nothing can be afforded out of it; and if here it be not to be had, how is it possible to be brought from hence thither? And have we not very well observed, how often this poor State has been cheated with sending relief into Ireland, which never went, but all converted into their grasping claws, and poor Ireland lost for want of it, and now (at their pleasure) we must be sent to recover it? Besides, are we not eye-witnesses how many poor Soldiers and other People come daily from Ireland, and cry out they are starved, and want their pay worse than we do? neither if we want our pay, can we find the free quarter we have here. So in conclusion, we are like neither to get necessaries or money there; a fair encouragement to make us go. But I hope by what is here set down, our Brother-souldier will well consider before he goes, and first get in their money that is already due, and then we will talk further upon this undertaking-voyage. Neither will they find it so easy a matter to be so rid of us, as they suppose to do by all their cunning and policy. But one more case will we put you: suppose we had money to our desires, provision sufficient in England to be sent us, Yet what danger and hazard will there be to convey it over to us? for if it should be surprised, or cast away, or wind-bound, what shall become of us, are we not in a lamentable case? And why must we go over thither under all these hazards and danger of our own lives, only to kill the people there, that our Tyrannical Masters may the easier rule over a few, & poor sort of base people? and for this reason we must venture bodies, souls and lives, to fulfil their wills and pleasures; surely we have great cause to do it for them, they have been such gracious Masters to us. We hope these reasons will make any sensible men advise with their pillow, before they will voluntarily and rashly run themselves upon this Rock, and let Ireland be quiet; except there may be better reasons readred, than we understand yet.  
FINIS.