Alderman Isaac Penningtons Speech. at the presenting of the Golden Bason and Ewer unto the General, with Plate of 300 l. value, and 200 l. in Gold in a Purse to the Lieutenant General.
GIve ear O Heavens, and regard O earth; may it please your Excellency to open your mouth wide and I shall fill it. I Isaac Pennington Alderman of London, confesse my self altogether unable to speak the praises due unto your self, Mr. Leiutenant Gene∣ral, and all the faithfull Officers and Souldiers of your Army. Yet why should I hold my peace? I wil•• speak though I cannot speak, and though I cannot speak I will not keep silence. Some have been so bold as to brand me for a crackt vessel, yet I have been meet for my Masters use, and they shall find me as sound as sounding Brass, or as a tinckling Cymbal▪ Moses was a man slow of speech, yet he was a great leader, and so have I been, and so is Your Excellency. But as for Mr. Lieut. General, though he be such a one too, yet he hath the torgues of men and Angels so much at his devotion, that the very noise of them drowns the fame of your Excellency, and swallows up your senses.
For my part, I ble••s God exceedingly for you both, for all your labour of love in Gun-powder and Gosp••l, and carrying on that glorious work of Reformation, which though I began in desperation, yet you have brought it to perfection. Henceforth therefore all Generations shall call you blessed, and me no mad man, though I have been as mad as any of you all; and yet I think I am fit enough to deliver the sense of the City; who by me returnes you thanks for the great pains you have taken in purg∣ing the malignant Presbyterians out of the Common council, as well as the House; by which means you made shift to new-model the City, as you did the Army, turning out all that were not of your own temper; so that we are all now of one soul and one mind, and lay all things in common for the use of the State, but what is our own.
Add to these things your borrowing money of the City, but never paying them again, your brea••ing all their priviledges, and putting daily affronts upon them, your imprisoning, fining, assessing, taxing, exci••ng, Free-quartering, and fleecing all their fellows; your conquering them by treachery, and riding through their streets in triumph, your over-awing them with the Military power, and destroying their Trade by Land, and Traffick by Sea. For all which unexpressible fa∣vours, with the extirpation of Presbyterie, and the suppressing of the Levellers, they conceive them∣selves bound to return an acknowledgment, and rejoyce in the opportunity of dedicating this day of Thanksgiving unto you and your Bellies.
But since man lives not by bread only, but by killing of Kings and loyall Subjects, and seizing on their goods and estates, and turning them into money. Since Gold is the only Goddess of this Refor∣mation, and the Saints cannot establish their Kingdom without it; since your Excellency, and your Lieutenant-General Guardian, have vouchsafed us this favour of a visit which you denyed to the Presbyters, we here present your Excellency, with the same golden Bason and Ewer, which you refused from their hands. It cost them one thousand pounds, and because it was of their providing we can the more freely bestow it upon you. I have been an old Thanksgiving-Sinner, as well as M. Speaker, or any of them all, in the days of old Essex, who (I am sure) never received such a present for all his pains, but was content to be fobb'd off with a Close stool and a pipe of Tobacco; which was the rea∣son (I conceive) why my brother Atkins here in those days, kept so close to him after dinner.
And as for you (M. Lieutenant General) though your merits out-weigh whatever we can present un∣to you, and though in all the before-named exploits we must allow you the greatest share, yet be pleased to accept of the less requital, a poor pittance of 300 l. in Plate, and a Vision of golden An∣gels in a purse, to the value of 200 l. all the cost of our own Fraternity.
As for the rest of the Lords and Gentlemen here present, I hope they will excuse us, and think themselves well satisfied with their dinner: And in particular, you my Lord President, who deserve much in the settling of this Republick. But having done but one single Act towards it, if you expect more than a dinner, we must leave you to the consideration of M. Lieutenant-General, who set you on work and in the end (no doubt) will pay your wages.
I have but one word more to say, and that is this: We have great cause to rejoyce in the happy settlement of this Common-weath; but I fear we shall not be quiet yet. God bless us from untoward dreams and restless nights, and send us well to digest this Thanksgiving-Dinner, and to have no more of them, nor occasion for them in hast: for the frights they put us into before-hand are terrible, and the dinners themselves are chargeable and will prove very chargeable indeed, if Malignants speak truth, who say this very days Thanksgiving will costs us no less than our heads, if not our souls too into the bargain. Therefore (Gentlemen) in a word, I think we have but one play, and that is to hold up the State as long as we can, and to make sure of our heads and estates, and pillage other mens, when we can hold it no longer.
In answer to this, Hugh Peters being well whittled with mine, made the following Reply.
Reader, Peters his being drunk is no Fable (I assure you) and he fell out with the Butler.