TO THE honourable THE house OF COMMONS Assembled in PARLIAMENT. The humble Petition of many thousand poor people, in and about the city of LONDON  
Humbly showeth,  
THat your Petitioners have lain a long time under great pressures and grievances both in liberties and consciences, as hath been largely at sundry times showed and declared by several Petitions exhibited to this Honourable Assembly, both by the Citizens and apprentices of the city of London, and divers Counties and parts of this kingdom, from which we hoped long ere this, by Your Pious care, to have been delivered; but now we (who are of the meanest rank and quality, being touched with penury) and are very sensible of the approaching storms of ruin which hang over our heads, and threaten to overwhelm us by reason of these sad distractions, occasioned chiefly and originally (as your Petitioners humbly conceive, by the prevalency of the Bishops and Popish Lords, and others of that malignant faction, who make abortive all good motions, which tend for the peace and tranquillity of this kingdom of England; and have hitherto hindered the sending relief to our brethren in Ireland, although they lie weltering in blood, which hath given such head to the adversary, that we justly fear the like calamity inevitably to befall us here, when they have vented their rage and malice there. All which occasions so great a decay and stop of trade, that your petitioners are utterly impoverished, and our miseries are grown unsupportable, we having already spent all that little means which we had formerly by God's blessing and our great labour obtained; and many of us had not, nor can tell where to get bread to sustain ourselves and families; and others of us are almost arrived at the same port of calamity, so that unless some speedy remedy be taken for the removal of all such obstructions, which hinders the happy progress of your great endeavours, your Petitioners shall not rest in quietness, but shall be enforced to lay hold on the next remedy which is at hand, to remove the disturbers of our peace, want, and necessity, breaking the bounds of modesty: And rather than your Petitioners will suffer themselves and their families to perish through hunger and misery, (though hitherto patiently groaned under) they cannot leave any means unassayed for their relief.  
The cry therefore of the poor and needy, your poor Petitioners, is that such persons who are the obstacles of our peace, and hinderers of the happy proceedings of this Parliament, and the enjoyment of the long looked for purity of Religion, safety of our lives, and returns of our welfares, may be forth with publicly declared, to the end they may be made manifest, the removal of whom we humbly conceive will be a remedy to cure our miseries, and put a period to these distractions, and that nobleworthies of the House of Peers, who concur with you in your happy Votes, may be earnestly desired to join with this Honourable House, and to sit and Vote as one entire body, which we hope will remove from us our distracted fears, and prevent that which oppression will make the wisest and peaceablest men to put in execution.  
For the Lord's sake hear us, and let our Religion, lives, and welfares, be precious in Your sights, that the lines of the poor may bless You, and ever pray, &c.   

Printed for Will. Larner and T. B. this 31 of January, 1642. For the use of the Petitioners who are to meet this present day in More Fields, and from thence to go▪ to the house of Parliament with it in their hands.