For the Worshipful, Mr. Steel the Recorder of London. TO BE Communicated to the rest of the Bench or Goal-Delivery at Guild-hall: These with speed.  
Mr. Recorder,  
YOur Profession being a Lawyer, and as you are Recorder of Lond●n, you are often the mouth of the Court in Old-Bayly, and have several days been so in my case; and as I hear, you are like to be so again upon Wednesday next: In which consideration I judge it the most prop●r for me in my present condition to writ● unto you, and to acquaint you, that I find Moses the mouth of God, charging the Judges of Israel, that they shall hear the causes between their brethren, and judge righteously betwixt every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him: Ye shall not, saith he, respect persons in judgement, but ye shall hear the small as well as the great, you shall not be a●rai● of the face of man, for the judgement is G●ds, Deut. 1.16, ●7. and in Deut. 16.18, 19.20. they are expressly commanded to do that which is altogether just, that they may live long, and inherit the Land which the Lord hath given them.  
And saith the wise man by the Spirit of God, Prov. 28.4. A Land is established by Judgement.  
Sir, by the Law of England, I know you know a Judges Office, and a Prisoners right by Law; and according to Law, you have, as my right, assigned me Counsel, to fit myself to pled matter of Law for my life.  
Yet while I am a pursuing my business according to your late Order at the Sessions, and am peaceable and quiet in my imprisonment, and neither endeavouring to make an escape, or any way quarreling with my fellow prisoners, or my Keepers: I am by Capt. Dike the Keeper of Newgate, served with an Order in these words: 

Tuesday the second of August, 1653.  
ORdered by the Parliament, That Lieutenant colonel John Lilburne be kept cl●se Prisoner, and that the Keeper of Newgate do take care the same be done accordingly.  
Henry Scobel, Clerk of the parliament.    
Upon which Order the said Mr. Dike was pleased to take upon him to render such an interpretation of it, as I dare presume my head to a farthing teaken, that is no way warranted by the Law of England, in any kind whatsoever; ( viz) Tha● I must be such a close Prisoner, as that he must keep all my friends ●●om m, and he and his under Keeper with strictness hath accordi●gly ex●cuted it ever since; although truly, I cannot in reason and c●a●ity b●l●eve, that the Parliament themselves by the said Order intend any such thing, because in their late Declaration of the 12 of July last, and the second page. thereof, they declare, That they will dem●an themselves in all things, as becometh those who are set by God for the go●d of all, and in all, to be as tender of the lives, estates, liberties, just rights and pr●perties of all others, as we are( say they) of ourselves and posterities. But if this close restraint of mine from the visits of my Friends, Lawyer●, attorneys, Solicitors, or Messengers to go up and down about my affairs, be their int●n jons by the said Order, I must not only aver their said Order to be against all the declared Laws of Liberties and Freedom in England, against the Rules of Justice amongst Heathens, Pagans and Tyrants, but against the very tenor of their own foresaid promises, and thereby themselves rendered to be men voided of faith or truth, whose solemn words and promises are not in the least to be regarded, should it be suppos●d that such an interpretation by their consent, so contrary t● Law, should be rendered of their foresaid Order, as to keep me close Pris●ner from speaking with my Friends, Counsellors, Solicitors or Messengers, when I am upon trial for my life.  
Sure I am, the late Parliament in the purest of their days, before they were corrupted and defiled, in their grand and first Remonstrance of December, 1641. complains of such cl se imprisonment, acted upon myself and several oth●rs by the la e King and his Minister●, as the acti●ns of most barbarous ●njustice, oppression and tyranny, as y●u may red in the first part of the Parliaments Books of Declarations, page. 8. although neither my sel● then, nor any of my there menti●ned fellow sufferers, were then in the least upon trial for our lives, when such cl●se rest●aint as is there complained of was exercised upon us; neither were any of us there in that Declaration mentioned, in the least condemned by the said King, or his Male Administrators of Justice, without some Process of Law, even in misdeamenors; as I have been for Felony by the late Parliament without any process of Law at all, if the Act of Banishment upon which you strongly endeavour to take away my life, should concern me in the least.  
And sure I am, the then Parliament or House of Commons, upon the fourth of May 1641. voted such unjust close imprisonment, and other the like illegal proceedings against me( which yet never rea●hed to any sentence for the loss of life) to be not only illegal, but also bloody, wicked, cruel, harbarous and tyrannical, and that I ought to have reparations there ore.  
And sure I am, at the trials of Strafford, Canterbury, Hamilton or Capel, and that for Acts of the highest of Treasons, the late Pa●liament never exercised any such cl●●e imprisonments upon them as is now done upon me.  
And also sure I am, that although I was taken as a Pris●ner of War, sighting most resolutely against the King, and carried from Brandford a Prisoner to Oxford Castle, and there at one time sufficiently c u●ted from him by the present Earl of kingston, th● late Earl of Arundel, the Lord Dunsmore, and the Lord Andover, to all whose allurements and threats I sufficiently held our and avowed flag of defiance and scorn, upon which I was laid in I●ons, and kept close Prisoner from the visits of my friends, which when I came before Judge Heath for a trial for my life at the common Law, and complained of the aforesaid usuages as against Law: he justly acknowledged them to be so, and immediately at the Bar ordered me present release from them both, which I legally enjoyed, and thereby had an opportunity presently to post away a Letter to Mr. Lenthal the Speaker of the Parliament, another to young Sir Henry Vane, and a third to my wife, which said Letters produced a Declaration from the Lords and Commons of the 17 of December 1652, printed in the first part of their Books of Declarations, page. 802. that instrumentally then saved my life.  
And sure I am, that the Apostle Paul was accused by his most malicious advers●ries, of higher things then any is pretended to be laid unto my charge, even to be a pestlien● f●llow, a mover of sed●tion among the Jews throughout the world, and a Ring lea●er of the Sect of the nazarenes, y●t his Heathen Roman Judges examined the matter legally, and strictly, and expressly, notwithstanding the said grievous accusation ordered Pauls K●●per or Jayl●●, to let him have liberty: and that he should forbid none of h●s acquaintance to minister or come unto him, Acts 24, 5, 8, 2● y●a, when upon his Appeal to Caesar as Supreme( the li●erty of the ●amous Commonwealth of Rome by Julius and Augustus Caesar b●●ng lately overthrown and subdued) he came to Rome, the grand Tyrant Nero being, as I judge, by his expre●sions in his Epistle to the Philippians, the present Emperor, permitted Paul 〈◇〉 dwell two whole years in his own hired house, and to receive all with freedom, without the least restraint, that came unto him, Acts 28, 30.  
Sir, as my undoubted ●ight by Law, you assigned me Counsel to fit me with a plea t● preserve my life at this next Sessions: and yet the Jay●or of your Court d●prives me of all the means that tends to that end And so deals as bad with me, as the old Tyrant pharaoh dealt with the poor Israelites, when he made them make brick without straw; for which hard and cruel bondage, they sighed and groaned unto the Lord, and he glori●usly delivered them, to the destruction of pharaoh, and all his cruel Tyrannical roving Task-mast●rs: Wherefore Sir, I cannot do less in conscience to the welfare of my own life, and the Nations liberties and freedoms, then to demand of you upon sight and knowledge hereof, your Order, as I had fr●m J●dge Heath( who was styled and called a traitor judge at Oxford) to deliver me from my present illegal, unjust and tyrannical testraint( in my hard and unquiet imprisonment) from speaking with my Friends, Counsel, Solicitors and Messengers; or else the great and mighty God of heaven and earth judge betwixt you and me, and all the rest of your Associates, that with force and violence, without all shadow or pretended colour of Law or Justice, pursue the last drop of my innocent blood, and so I rest,  
A Faithful and true hearted Englishman, John Lilburne. From my barbarous and Tyrannical Imprisonment this 8. of Aug. 1653.  
I have by a private hand sent this to some of my friends to deliver to you, and be witnesses of your Answer.  
FINIS.