To the Right Honourable the LORDS and COMMONS now assembled in PARLIAMENT. The Humble Petition of the Prisoners in the Fleet.  
Showeth,  
THat there are many ancient and late precedents remaining with the Warden of the Fleet, That Prisoners of all sorts in his custody whether upon Action or Execution have from time to time upon occasion had and obtained writs of Habeas Corpus out of the Courts of Common-Law and Chancery, to go abroad to prosecute their Law suits, and compound with Creditors, and to provide for subsistence: Which writs have been granted successively by the most learned Judges, as also by the Lord chancellors and Lord Keepers of the great seal in their several times without in termission, until now of late that the judges of the Common Pleas have refused to grant the same, which will tend to the utter undoing of many of your Petitioners, howbeit these sad times might rather crave a more merciful and charitable inclination towards the afflicted and distressed.  
Wherefore your Petitioners are most humble suitors to your Honours that your said Petitioners may be allowed the former favours and benefit of the said writs of Habeas Corpus according as heretofore they have anciently and usually had.  
And your Petitioners shall have cause to pray, &c.   

Brief Reasons for granting Writs of Habeas Corpus to Prisoners in Execution, especially in the Fleet.  
1. Anciently the Warden of the Fleet might without Writ send any Prisoners abroad with their Keepers upon all occasions, till the Statute of 1 Rich. 2. Cap. 12. restrained him, unless he had the King's Writ or command for it.  
2. They are Prerogative writs or writs of Grace which the King never denyeth to any of his distressed Subjects upon just occasions: Either for his own service or for their preservation as well in their Persons as Estates. And therefore the Exchequer frequently granteth them to the King's Accomptants Debtors and Farmers in Execution, for the raising and levying of His majesty's Debts and Revenues. And the Chancery awardeth them to remove Prisoners into the country out of the Fleet when the infection is in London; and when they have Law Suits, to solicit their own causes.  
3. The Fleet is a special Prison of the Kings for civil matters, As the Tower of London is for criminal, and thither are men committed for Debts to the King and for contempts of Orders and Decrees in Chancery and all other Courts of Equity. And if any other Prisoners for Debt be removed thither, they have ever been allowed the privilege and benefit of those writs as well as the King's Prisoners.