TO The honourable, the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses of the House of COMMONS Assembled In the High Court of PARLIAMENT.  
The humble PETITION Of the mariners and Seafaring-men and other Inhabitants of STEPNY, and some other adjacent parts.  
Humbly showing,  
THat the Petitioners cannot but be sensible of the present great distractions of this kingdom, the Religion of our Church so well approved by this representative body in former times, and established by Law in Parliament, being now in danger of being supplanted and ruined by the cunning and violence of Papists and Sectaries, the peace of our state so necessary to the enjoyment of all temporal blessings changed into an unnatural civil war, which induceth a confluence of all miseries, the honour of our Nation impaired, the wealth and treasure exhausted, and our late flourishing Trade and traffic upon the Sea (by which most of the Petitioners have their livelihood) so much decayed, that most of the merchant's ships ride at Anchor in the River, neither now employed, nor (without sudden redress of these mischiefs) likely to be employed in merchandise again, the EXCHANGE less frequented, many shops already shut up, the men for want of Commerce giving over their Trades, and the Petitioners constrained to remain at home without any employment, spending upon their small Stocks, and having no use of that Credit which they were wont to have, both with the abler Merchants at home, and with strangers abroad; So as without speedy Remedy (by your tender care and compassion) they are likely to be soon overtaken with extreme poverty, or enforced to follow the council of necessity for their subsistence.  
And therefore they humbly pray (the premises considered) that this honourable Assembly will be pleased seriously to weigh their distressed condition, and to make, or accept, such Propositions as may, with the true Reformed Protestant Religion, His majesty's honour, and the people's safety, effectually and really conduce to a timely composure of the present distractions; And to settle again the Peace of this kingdom, without which no Right or Liberty can be enjoyed, no Truth determined, no Law have any force or vigour, nor the declining and almost lost Trade of the Land ever be restored.  
And the Petitioners shall pray &c.   

LONDON, Printed in the year of our Lord, 1643.