To the Honourable, the Commons assembled in PARLIAMENT.  
The Humble Petition of divers well-affected People inhabiting in the Cities of London and Westminster, the Borough of Southwark, hamlets and 〈◊〉 adjacent.  
Showeth,  
Promoters and approvers of the Petition of the 11. of September, 1648.  
THat if it be altogether uncomfortable to say unto the naked and destitute of daily food, be you warmed and filled, when nothing is given needful for the body, how extremely grievous would it be to say unto such; ye are warmed, ye are filled, when their cold and hunger is increased; but nothing ministered for sustent●ation.  
And yet except we should stifle our Consciences, betray the truth, and by a sinful silence, even break our hearts; we cannot but attest and bear witness, that, of this sad and woeful nature is our misery.  
For how uncomfortable, yea, what torment of spirit, must it necessarily be to a people that have done and suffered so much and so many several kinds of afflictions, for recovery of our Native Liberties, and for redress of grievances, not only to be frustrated in all our hopes, and to be deprived of them by those who can and aught in Conscience to restore the one, and to redress the other, (being obliged thereunto by all possible ties both to God and Man,) but to be born down continually, by private and public discourses, (yea, and to have it dangerous for any to deny) that we are a free people, that we have enjoyed the first, and that this is the second year of England's Liberty, when God he knoweth, we find and feel the contrary: our just fundamental Liberties, being never more invaded and restrained, our burdens never more grievous, and which maketh them ten fold more grievous: our very groans, sighs and complaints (of late) meet with no relief, but are attended with threats, bonds, imprisonments, yea death itself; a condition sufficient to distract us, but that God, we trust, supports us for better things, in dread of whose awful and glorious name, we dare neither by speech nor silence call good evil, nor evil good; we dare not say, our Lib●rties are restored▪ or our grievances as yet redressed.  
And although there are a sort of men, formerly full of complaints, for want of those Liberties, and frequent in Petitions for them whose mouths being since stopped with Offices and employment of gain, Honour, or domination, or by relations to such as have them, that are not only silent themselves, as to any complaint now, but make it their works to suppress and silence all others, and to boast of the happiness and freedom of these sad times; yet the woeful lamentations of well minded people, throughout the Land, bear witness against them; and the things themselves bear witness against them, and against all such unchristian delusions: We judge ourselves bound in Conscience, to bear our witness perpetually, though 10000 High Courts of Justice (those new English Monsters;) were set up to terriefie or devour us, choosing rather to suffer for a cause so evidently righteous, then to enjoy the pleasures of corruption, for a season; and it will be good that all such mockers, remember that it will be bitterness in the latter end.  
And that it may not be said unto us, as it was to the over-grieved Israelites, ye are idle, ye are idle, or that we intend to asperse or scandalize Authority, (a hard measure we frequently meet withal.) In the bowels of Christ Jesus we beseech you, bear with us in comparing times with times, and the things of the former times of bondage, with the present; so much cried up, for Liberty and Freedom.  
And surely it will be found, and cannot be denied, that if it were a breach of known liberty, and a sore grievance that any Laws should be made, or Customs brought in, contrary to our Native Liberties contained in Magna Charta: such being null and void in themselves, and not to be obeyed, though made in full Parliament: (as appeareth in the case of Empson and Dudley) how exceeding grievous must the late Act declaring what shall be treason, that for unlicensed Printing, and that for erecting the High Court of Justice, &c. appear in these times; was imprisonment for debt, confessed by all to be an encroachment upon our just Right? and is it not lamentable, it should be continued to the ruin of the poorer, and to the sheltering of the richer sort of debtors, as it is known to be? was it grievous, that all men were made liable to be attached by pursuivants, to be adjudged, fined, imprisoned, by the council-board High Commission and Star-Chamber, without being tried by Juries, to be examined against themselves, and imprisoned in illegal Prisons, and remote Castles, and there to be most barbarously abused? And doth not the same dealing from a continued Parliament, a council of State and Committees, executed by Messengers, and soldiers too, violently hauling and terrifying people, prove much more grievous? If tithes were then a burden to the industrious and conscientious, is it not much heavier now, being exacted upon treble damages? If Customs than were accounted an unreasonable burden, destructive to traffic and navigation, can they be less, being required with more strictness and severity? If Patents and Projects, and Ship-money, were intolerable burdens and grievances: how much more burdensome and destructive to Trade, is the Excise and the perplexities thereon depending to all tradesmen, and consequently to all industrious people? If the great number of Officers belonging to the High Commission Star-Chamber council-board, to patentees, Projectors, Bishops, Courts, and the like, bred and fostered an interest against the common freedom of the People, to their excessive charge and trouble: all such being arguers for arbitrary power, and maintaine● by the sweat of other men's brows, is it not so and much more, by those many employed about Customs, Excise, and in Committees: in so much, as men can har●ly say any thing, or discourse together, for fear of being ensnared in their words by some of them? If it were then deemed most injurious, to make it dangerous to mention a Parliament: is it not most lamentable, that it should be now as dangerous to move for a new Parliament, after so long continuance, and so many grievances unremoved? If Conscience then were oppressed by Oaths of Allegiance and supremacy is not the enforcement of the Engagement upon penalty of being our-lawed, a greater grievance? If Conscience in divine worship were free only to some, is not its freedom restrained now? or should we for that one part of our just freedom, sell all the rest of our birthright, (God forbid) and the liberty of Printing more restrained, (except to books maintaining the most tyrannous principles ●as the Book entitled, The Case of the commonwealth of England stated, and the like, which to the shame of these times were freely licenced. If those ti●es were judged of cruelty, in censuring men to be whipped, gauged, and pillor'd, for small or verbal things; how can that time escape that makes the like verbal things Capital, as is evident in many Acts of this Parliament? If it were deemed of dangerous consequence, that almost all Officers & Magistrates▪ both civil & military, as Judges, Sheriffs, and Justices, &c. were not chosen in a free way by the People, (as by right they ought) but were chosen and imposed by the Court, thereby to incline all men and things to the bent of one particular party or Interest, rather than to the impartial good of all, is it not as prejudicial to be so now? If monopolising of the principal merchandizes of the Nation by Companies, were then esteemed a most pernicious evil, they remain still much after the same manner, and so also do lawsuits, and all proceedings in Law, continue as full of tedious chargeable perplexities as ever, and the numbers of Lawyers, Attorneys, Solicitors, gaolers, and their Officers, all feeding themselves fat, as the other Officers forementioned) by the spoils of the distressed, never more countenanced, yea, 1000 pounds a piece per annum, added to the Judges above their ordinary Fees, which alone was formerly accounted a large proportion, and great preferment. If trials by extraordinary packed Commissions of Oyer and Terminer, and trials by Court-Martials, (though of loose and dissolute people) were esteemed utterly destructive to the Lives & Liberties of the People, (as appeareth by the Petition of Right,) are not those kinds of trials more frequent now, or can any thing exceed in dangerous trials by High Courts of justice, a Court against which no legal defence or privilege is permitted, it being to be admired, that in times pretending liberty, there should be found persons to serve in such a Court. If these are the effects of Freedom, then are we free indeed; but if they are, we have lost our understandings. If then be considered the manifold miseries accompanying these ten years' strife for liberty, as decay of Trade, excessive Taxes, Poverty and War: to supply which, a new and never before heard of grievance is added, as the loss of Servants and Children, through a liberty given them, to betake themselves to Arms, though against their Master or Parents liking, to the impoverishment of whole Families, and to the unexpressible grief of many tender-hearted Fathers and Mothers. And then if the Parliaments Declarations in behalf of Magna Charta, and the Petition of Right, with all things concerning Life, Limb, Liberty, and Estate, be duly weighed, and after them, those of the Army, manifesting a most deep sense of the long suffering of the Nation▪ for want thereof: would it not pierce and grieve the most hard and stony heart, that yet all things should remain in this woeful condition, as is evident they now do? And that through discontents, divisions, and distractions, arising from so continued an unsettlement, and the presumption of enemies thereupon, a War should frequently be threatened within the bowels of the Land, (as more than once hath been seen) and that a more dangerous one than any yet is now already begun, and yet no regard taken for the real restoration of our liberties, or redress either of old or new grievances, (the only means of reconcilement) but in place thereof, all mouths are stopped with the mere Title of a free commonwealth, and of a free people, to the heightening of all discontents, and withholding from the Army the assistance of thousands of zealous cordial people, that upon the real (but not verbal) restoration to just Liberties, and the real redress of those known grievances, would readily assist them.  
And therefore as you tender the preservation of Parliaments, from utter annihilation, (a thing much to be feared upon prevalence of an Enemy, which God defend) the supply and recruit of this Army, the speedy ending of this most threatning War, as you regard the end for which the people chose you, or that for which the Army reserved you; when they excluded the greater number of your own Members: as you regard you own safeties, or that which is above all the known will of God in the keeping of a good Conscience, and performance of all your promises and vows, made in his all-seeing presence: We beg and beseech you for the tender mercies of Christ, that you will be pleased instantly to make a plenary restoration to our fundamental liberties, and really redress all the grievances foremencioned; and for a clear pledge of your full purpose therein, that you will immediately and for ever abolish the High Court of Justice, (that Serpent ready with open mouth to devour us: and from which, none can be safe, whilst treacherous Informers can be found) and to null all things and proceedings appertaining thereunto, as a Plant, which our fore Fathers never planted, but would have ventured all they had willingly, to have rooted out any jurisdiction of so foreign a breed, so expressly opposite to all English Liberties, as is manifest by what trouble and danger they under went in all former times.  
But if so be the whole work be too hard for you, or that you cannot agree therein, before the War grows to fast upon you; We beseech you then to remember the humble Petition and advice of his Excellency and council of Officers, the 20. of Jan. 1649. with those other Petitions to the same effect, concerning the way of settlement by an agreement of the People, and that you will be pleased to give countenance and protection to all peaceable people, in entering into such an agreement as themselves shall judge most effectual to their own safety, Freedom and well-being, and whereby they may set such express bounds and limits, to all kinds of Authorities, so restore and establish their fundamental Liberties, and so unrevocably remove their burdens, and redress their grievances, as shall not be in the power of future Authorities or persons (without certainty of punishment) to supplant the one, or to reimpose the other; and this work we trust in God, you will freely encourage, having acknowledged by your votes, the People to be the original power, from whom all just Authorities are derived, which were unavailable, if you should (which God forbid) withhold them from exercising the same, in a work wherein they are so nearly concerned: and which once effected, would render the Nation absolutely free, (not in word only) but in deed and in truth, to the exceeding joy of your humble, (but as yet grieved Petitioners, and of all well-minded people) restore it to much more unity within itself, and so, would become more formidable to all sorts of Enemies, your labours would be exceedingly abated. And in countenancing so just, so due a work, would bring great Honour to God, Peace, Freedom, and prosperity to the commonwealth, be at rest in your own Consciences, guarded by the cordial volentary affection of the People, whilst you live here, and remain as a sweet savour to all Posterity. And thus as faithful Witnesses to the Truth, and in behalf of the Nations just Rights, we have discharged our Consciences, referring the Issue and ourselves wholly to God, whom we continually worship in spirit and in truth; and before whose righteous judgement we must all one day appear: and therefore although for the truth's sake, our portion in this life should be scoffs, reproaches, afflictions, poverty, imprisonment, or Death: We have chosen it, rather than at that great and terrible day of the Lord, to have our portion with the Hypocrite, or that our Consciences should then testify against us, that we have made lies our refuge. This is printed only for the better gathering of Subscriptions, 'tis desired you would make no other use of it.