Mr. waller's SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, On TUESDAY the fourth of July, 1643.  
Being brought to the Bar, and having leave given him by the SPEAKER, to say what he could for himself, before they proceeded to expel him the HOUSE.  

July 14. 1643.  
Imprimatur,  
John White.   
LONDON, Printed by G. Dexter. Anne Dom. 1643.   

MR. WALLERS SPEECH IN THE HOUSE of COMMONS On Tuesday the 4th of July, 1643.  
Mr. SPEAKER.  
I Acknowledge it a great mercy of God, and a great favour from you, that I am once more suffered to behold this Honourable Assembly, I mean not to make use of it to say any thing in my own defence by Justification or denial of what I have done, I have already confessed enough to make me appear, worthy not only to be put out of this House, but out of the World too. All my humble request to you is that, if I seem to you as unworthy to live, as I do to myself, I may have the Honour to receive my death from your own hands, and not be exposed to a Trial by the Counsel of War: what ever you shall think me worthy to suffer in a Parliamentary way, is not like to find stop any where else.  
This (Sir) I hope you will be pleased for your own sakes to grant me, who am already so miserable, that nothing can be added to my calamity, but to be made the occasion of creating a Precedent to your own disadvantage; besides the right I may have to this, consider I beseech you that the eyes of the world are upon you, you govern in Chief, and of you should expose your own members to the punishment of others, it will be thought that you either want Power, or leisure to chastise them yourselves; nor ltt any man despise the ill consequence of such a Precedent as this will be, because he seethe not presently the inconveniences which may ensue: you have many Armies on Foot, and it is uncertain how long you may have occasion to use them. Soldiers and Commanders (though I know well they of the Parliaments Army, excel no less in modesty than they do in Courage) are generally of a Nature ready to pretend to the utmost power of this kind, which they conceive to be due to them, and may be too apt upon any occasion of discontent to make use of such a Precedent as this. In this very Parliament you have not been without some taste of the experience hereof; it is now somewhat more than two years since you had an Army in the North paid and directed by yourselves, and yet you may be pleased to remember they was a considerable number of Officers in that Army, which joined in a Petition or Remonstrance to his House taking notice of what some of the Members had said as they supposed to their disadvantage ●nd did little less than require them of you; 'tis true, there had been some tampering with them, but what has happened at one time may wisely be thought possible to fall out again at another.  
Sir, I presume but to point you out the danger; if it be not just, I know you will not do me the wrong to expose me to this trial; if it be just your Army may another time require the same justice of you, in their own behalf, against some other Member, who perhaps you would be less willing to part with. Necessity has of late forced you into untrodden paths; and in such a case as this where you have no precedent of your own, you may not do amiss to look abroad upon others States and Senates, which exercises the Supreme Power, as you now do here.  
I dare confidently say you shall find none either Ancient or Modern, which ever exposed any of their own order to be tried for his life by the Officers of their Armies abroad. for what he did, while he resided among them in the Senate.  
Among the Romans the Practice was so contrary, that some inferior Officers in their Army fare from the City, having been sentenced by their General or Commanderm chief, as deserving death by their Discipline of nevertheless (because they were Senators) appealed thither, and the cause has received a new hearing in the Senate. Not to use more words to persuade you to take heed that you wound not yourselves through my sides in violating the Privileges belonging to your own persons, I shall humbly desire you to consider likewise the nature of my offence. (not but that I should be much ashamed to say any thing in diminution thereof; God knows 'tis horrid enough for the evil it might have occasioned) but if you look near it, it may perhaps appear to be rather a Civil than a Martial crime▪ and so to have Title to a Trial at the Common Law of the Land, there may justly be some difference put between me and others in this business.  
I have had nothing to do with the other Army or any intention to begin the offer of violence to any body, It was only a civil pretence to that which I then foolishly conceived to he the right of the subject, I humbly refer it to your considerations, and to your consciences. I know you: will take care not to shed the blood of War in Peace, that blood by the law of War which hath a right to be tried by the Law of Peace. For so much as concerns myself and my part in this business, (If I were worthy to have any thing spoken or patiently heard in my behalf) this might truly be said, that I made not this business, but found it, 'twas in other men's hands long before it was brought to me, and when it came I extended it not but restrained it. For the Propositions of lecting in part of the King's Army, or offering violence to the Members of this House, I ever disallowed and utterly rejected them.  
What it was that moved me to entertain discourse of this business so fare as I did, I will tell you ingeniously and that rather as a warning for others, than that it make any thing For myself; it was only impatience of the inconveniences of the present War, looking on things with a carnal eye, and not minding that which chief (if not only) ought to have been considered, the inestimable value of the Cause you have in hand, the Cause of God and of Religion, and the necessities you are forced on for the maintenance of the same; as a just punishment for this neglect, it pleased God to desert and suffer me with a fatal blindness, to be led on and engaged in such Counsels as were wholly disproportioned to the rest of my life; These (Sir) my own Conscience tells me was the cause of my life; These (Sir) my own Conscience tells me was the cause of my failing, and not malice, or any ill habit of mind, or disposition toward the Commonwealth, or to the Parliament: for from whence should I have it? If you look on my Birth you will not find it in my blood: I am of a Stock which hath borne you better fruit if you look on my education, it hath been almost from my childhood in this House, and among the best sort of men; and for the whole practice of my life till this time, if an other were to speak for me, he might reasonably say, that neither my actions out of Parliament, nor my expressions in it, have savoured of distrust, or malice to the Liberties of the People, or Privileges of Parliament.  
Thus Sir I have set before your eyes, both my person and my case, wherein I shall make no such defence by denying, or extenuating any thing, I have done, as ordinary Delinquents do, my address to you, and all my Plea shall only be such as Children use to their Parents, I have offended, I confesle it, I never did any thing like it before; it is a passage unsuitable to the whole course of my life beside and for the time to come, as God that can bring light out of darkness, and hath made this business in the event useful to you, so also hath he to me: you have by it made an happy discovery of your Enemies, and God of myself, and the evil principles I walk by; so that if you look either on what I have been heretofore, or what I now am, and by God's grace assisting me, shall always continue to be, you may perhaps think me fit to be an example of your compassion and clemency.  
Sir, I shall no sooner leave you, but my life will depend on your breath, and not that alone, but the subsistence of some that are more innocent. I might therefore show you my Children, whom the rigour of your Justice would make complete Orphans, being already Motherless. I might show you a Family, wherein there are some unworthy to have their share in that mark of Infamy which now threaten us: But something there is, which if I could show you, would move you more than all this, it is my Heart, which abhors what I have done more, and is more severe to itself, than the severest Judge can be. A heart (Mr. Speaker) so awakened by this affliction, and so entirely devoted to the Cause you maintain, that I earnestly desire of God to incline you, so to dispose of me, whether for life or for death, as may most conduce to the advancement thereof.  
Sir, not to trouble you any longer, if I die, I shall die praying for you; if I live, I shall live serving you, and render you bacl the use and employment of all those days you shall add to my life.  
After this having withdrawn himself, he was called in again, and (being by the Speaker required thereto) gave them an exact account how he came first to the knowledge of this business; as also what Lords were acquainted therewith, or had engaged themselves therein.   
FINIS.