TO THE HONEST SOLDIERS OF THE GARRISON OF HULL, etc. These  
Soldiers,  
TIme was when your Persons were as dear as your Actions were Honourable; and in truth your noble enterprises founded upon Just and Righteous Principles, was the groundwork of such high affections to your very names; that we did not only hug you in our bosoms on earth, but heave you up in our hearts to heaven: To call a person a Soldier, of the Victorious English Army, was in effect to say, that he was neither sordid nor ingenerous; neither mercenary, nor unjust; but a man of much goodness, pure in his aims, undertake and ends; esteeming the fruits of Righteousness in the freedom of his Country, from the yoke of Usurpation and Tyranny above his life; but with the Revolution of Time, the scene of your noble performances is changed; you and your fellows, who declared yourselves (distinct from your superior Officers) called forth out of judgement and Conscience to serve the design of God, in throwing down the horn of Monarchy in England; and your Country, in making them a free and unsubjected people unto the will and lust of any single person. Behold, on a sudden, you are made to forfeit all your Vows, and your judgement and Conscience are sacrificed to man's Commands, though never so treacherous and abominable. This is evident, if we go no further for a Precedent than your own Garrison, in the late Case of Master Can, who without all process of Law, show of Reason, any Conviction, some of you turned out of Town, upon the peremptory and irrational commands of your Mayor, being not able to give the least account for the legality of the attempt: What say ye, oh ye soldiers? Was this a proceeding upon Judgement and Conscience, to persecute a man unto Banishment, for no cause shown? Nay, nor that can be shown, except he were in some measure true unto your interest of most glorious truth. Will your Mayor's Warrant (suppose you had it in your hands to show) be a sufficient compurgator for you before the judgement seat of God? What will any of you say before that great Tribunal, when your solemn Engagements in the high places of the field shall be laid on this hand, and your actual obeying unjust directions on that? Will not your Consciences cry guilty before God and his holy Angels, before the persons, whom you have dealt injuriously with and all the world? Put this day as far off as you will or can, it can and will overtake you; and then every man (as well private Soldiers as Major Elton) must give an account of the deeds done in the flesh, whither they be good, or whither they be evil. But you are determined to say, Is it not a sin to refuse. Commands from our lawful Officers? Shall the Scripture decide this Question between us? If it be agreed, i'll name the place, Acts 4. 19 Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you, more than unto God judge ye; so say I to you, whether it be right to hearken unto your Mayor, more than unto God, judge ye: God commands you, even you soldiers, to do violence to no man, Luke 3 14. Your Mayor commands you to do violence to Master Can, now judge you which is most your duty? If you say, it is more righteous to obey your Mayor in this matter; I dare pronounce you cursed with a dreadful Curse; and I protest against you this day, that you are perjured, perfidious, Apostates; the most monstruous wretches that ever trampled on the ground throughout the Globe of all the Earth: If you acknowledge God rather to be obeyed, then repent of what you have done; Repent of the wrong you have done to Master Can. And if ever your Mayor command you to deal so with any other, without a real reason shown and declared by some presidented Law, refuse it. Tell him you are men under Vows to God for righteousness, you have declared yourselves no mercinaries; you have fought for a due distribution of Justice, and will not act against it; tell him that though he think not of a day of account you must; and howbeit he command, yet think with yourselves, you are not bound to obey besides the rule of Reason and Righteousness; Being now no longer the servants of men, but of your Country, for the good of which you unsheathed your swords, embrued them in the blood of England's enemies, and aught so to do against all who impede its real prosperity, under a free Representative, be they what or whom they will; and much rather those (for such there be) who have dealt deceitfully with the Nation, pretending (with you) to introduce freedom●… but have led us further into the house of bondage than ●…tofore. Soldiers, I beseech you in the bowels of c●…on, think on these things, whilst those who ere 〈◊〉 were no better than poor Michanicks (witness your Mayor) pomp themselves over these Nations, and (though they be base than the earth (as Job said) vaunt it over the freeborn people of England, making themselves great by the price of your blood, and arrears of pay, which they have frudulently wronged you off. They leave not you also void of drudgery, think how sordid a matter it is for you to relinquish all your noble principles to prostrate yourselves to the lust of any creature! Mind your own hearts, how God hath forsaken you, since the stream was turned by the treachery of your great ones, from a glorious Commonwealth to the vassalage of a Protector (so called) and a Council! God is against them, and you for their sakes at home and abroad! How are their soaring designs frustrated in America? How many of your fellows fell there by the butcherous hands of fifty Cow-killers? How is the hand of God against them at home? Their Counsels are every way defeated, their Cabinets by their giddy enterprises exhausted, and themselves run into extreamdebt; so that in probability, the longer they subsist (except they lay aburden of Taxes upon the Nation, which it can not, will not bear, (by which means you may smart for their iniquity, being found at least appearing assistance of their horrid designs) you may still find a diminution and arrearage in your pay (that free Parliaments by the blessing of God may fully satisfy) which how ever (indeed) it fair with themselves, policy invites them to; well knowing that poverty debates the spirit, and is the best way to servilise any people. Consider also, how many gallant upright souls, are now exempt from the right of Election and being elected, only because they stand for what you have engaged to maintain and fought for, and how they disperse their wretched brood of Ambitious creatures into all the Countries (in particular Yorkshire) to prostrate the people's zeal unto their Tyrannical Threats. Soldiers, In truth, from the highest to the lowest they have dealt treacherously with you; and let them pretend what they please, you stand bound before God and his peo●… prosecute the end of your engagements, for the setle●… of the three Nations in the way of a Commonwealth, in opposition to the government of a single Person: Have a care of lifting up a hand, or stirring a tongue against any, whose designs are by assisting that way, as you value your eternal peace; fight not for them to the dissolution of your Country, their alone exaltation, and the loss of your own souls; for if you do (after so many warnings as you have received, and amongst the rest this from the hand of your Friend) sad will be your account before the just and righteous judge of heaven and earth; who for the cry of the dissolute will bestir himself, as a Lion to the prey, he will cry, yea roar, and will prevail against his adversaries; And then the sinners in Zion shall be afraid, and fearfulness shall surprise the Hypocrite. I am far distant from you, but my affections draweth forth these premonitions before the day of calamity come upon you, like an overslowing flood.  
Your true friend so far as you shall be found steadfast to your fisst and 〈…〉