To his Highness the Lord Protector: The Humble Petition of the seamen, belonging to the Ships of the Commonwealth of ENGLAND,  
Showeth,  
THat many of your Petitioners have served the Commonwealth of England in the Parliaments service for divers years last past, during the War against the Cavileers, both in England, Scotland and Ireland; and also, in the late sharp War with the Dutch.  
That your Petitioners have been very free in hazarding themselves both at Sea and Land, and have suffered great hardship: divers of your Petitioners fellow-Sea-men having sacrificed themselves; and some of our limbs are mangled, and blood spilled, especially in those late conflicts with that enraged and powerful Enemy of the Netherlands; besides great diseases and distempers, sometimes occasioned through bad Victual, which in time of expected service, your Petitioners have been necessitated to ear, their stations being not then quitted.  
That the Parliament declared, They intended to maintain and enlarge the Liberties of the free-people of England where infringed: which we were in great hopes of, and the more encouraged to wait and expect, because the Army also often declared for the same.  
That your Petitioners notwithstanding continue under very great burdens, being imprested, and haled on board the Commonwealths Ships, turned over and confined there, under a degree of thraldom and bondage, to the utter ruin of some of your Petitioners poor families. That pay appointed them being also detained, sometimes ten, twelve, sixteen, and twenty months from them.  
That many of your Petitioners fellow-Sea-men are sent abroad upon foreign service, since the War with the Dutch, and some numbers more of us are designed abroad, as we hear; and the rest of us we know not how soon may be either appointed to such service, or turned over to those Ships that are going: and so our Relations will be left in a perishing condition, as divers of those are, that spent themselves in the late Wars.  
The Premises considered, your Petitioners humbly pray, 
 That they may be relieved in those grievances, and may reap some fruits of all their bloodshed and hardships, and that they may not be imprested to serve; they humbly apprehending it to be inconsistent with the Principles of Freedom and Liberty, to force men to serve in Military employments, either by Sea or Land; and that your Petitioners may be as free as the Dutch seamen, against whom they have been such instruments in the Lord's hand, for the good of their Country; but that if the Commonwealth have occasion to employ any of your Petitioners, they may be hired as the Dutch are, and that they or their lawful Attorney may be paid every six months at the furthest; and that such other encouragements to their Relations may be assured, in case they are slain in the service, as shall be agreeable with justice, & as their necessity calls for: and that all other Liberties and privileges due to your Petitioners, as freemen of England, may be granted and secured.  
And your Petitioners shall, as there is occasion, faithfully serve and pray.