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To the Honourable, the Commons assembled in PARLIAMENT.
The Humble Petition of divers well-affected People inhabiting in the Cities of London and Westminster, the Borough of Southwark, Hamblets and 〈◊〉〈◊〉 adjacent.
Promoters and approvers of the Petition of the 11. of September, 1648.
THat if it be altogether uncomfortable to say unto the naked and destitute of daily food, be you warmed and filled, when nothing is given needful for the body, how extreamly grievous would it be to say unto such; ye are warmed, ye are filled, when their cold and hunger is increased; but nothing ministred for sustent••ation.
And yet except we should stifle our Consciences, betray the truth, and by a sinful silence, even break our hearts; we cannot but attest and bear wit∣nes, that, of this sad and woful nature is our misery.
For how uncomfortable, yea, what torment of spirit, must it necessarily be to a people that have done and suffered so much and so many several kinds of af∣flictions, for recovery of our Native Liberties, and for redress of grievances, not only to be frustrated in all our hopes, and to be deprived of them by those who can and ought in Conscience to restore the one, and to redress the other, (being oblieged thereunto by all possible tyes both to God and Man,) but to be born down continually, by private and publick discourses, (yea, and to have it dangerous for any to deny) that we are a free people, that we have injoyed the first, and that this is the second year of Englands Liberty, when God he knoweth, we find and feel the contrary: our just fundamental Liberties, be∣ing never more invaded and restrained, our burthens never more grievous, and which maketh them ten fold more grievous: our very groans, sighes and com∣plaints (of late) meet with no relief, but are attended with threats, bonds, imprisonments, yea death it self; a condition sufficient to distract us, but that God, we trust, supports us for better things, in dread of whose awful and glorious name, we dare neither by speech nor silence call good evil, nor evil good; we dare not say, our Lib••rties are restored▪ or our grievances as yet redressed.
And although there are a sort of men, formerly full of complaints, for want of those Liberties, and frequent in Petitions for them whose mouthes being since stop't with Offices and imployment of gain, Honour, or domination, or by relations to such as have them, that are not only silent themselves, as to any com∣plaint now, but make it their works to suppress and silence all others, and to boast of the happiness and freedom of these sad times; yet the woful lamentations of well minded people, throughout the Land, bear witness against them; and the things themselves bear witness against them, and against all such unchristian de∣lusions: We judge our selves bound in Conscience, to bear our witness perpetually, though 10000. High Courts of Justice (those new English Monsters;) were set up to terriefie or devoure us, chusing rather to suffer for a cause so evidently righteous, then to enjoy the pleasures of corruption, for a season; and it will be good that all such mockers, remember that it will be bitterness in the latter end.
And that it may not be said unto us, as it was to the over-grieved Israelites, ye are idle, ye are idle, or that we intend to asperse or scandalize Authority, (a hard measure we frequently meet withall.) In the bowels of Christ Jesus we beseech you, bear with us in comparing times with times, and the things of the former times of bondage, with the present; so much cryed up, for Liberty and Freedom.
And surely it will be found, and cannot be denyed, that if it were a breach of known liberty, and a sore grievance that any Laws should be made, or Customs brought in, contrary to our Native Liberties contained in Magna Charta: such being null and void in themselves, and not to be obeyed, though made in full Parliament: (as appeareth in the case of Empson and Dudley) how exceeding grievous must the late Act declaring what shall be treason, that for unlicen∣sed Printing, and that for erecting the High Court of Justice, &c. appear in these times; was imprisonment for debt, confest by all to be an incroachment upon our just Right? and is it not lamentable, it should be continued to the ruine of the poorer, and to the sheltering of the richer sort of debters, as it is known to be? was it grievous, that all men were made liable to be attached by Pursevants, to be adjudged, fined, imprisoned, by the Councel-board High Commission and Star-Chamber, without being tryed by Juries, to be examined against themselves, and imprisoned in illegal Prisons, and remote Castles, and there to be most bar∣barously abused? And doth not the same dealing from a continued Parliament, a Councel of State and Committees, executed by Messengers, and Souldiers too, violently hauling and terrifying people, prove much more grievous? If Tythes were then a burthen to the industrious and conscientious, is it not much heavier now, being exacted upon treble damages? If Customs then were accounted an unreasonable burthen, distructive to traffique and navigation, can they be less, be∣ing required with more strictness and severity? If Patents and Projects, and Ship-money, were intolerable burthens and grievances: how much more burthen∣some and destructive to Trade, is the Excise and the perplexities thereon depending to all Trades-men, and consequently to all industrious people? If the great number of Officers belonging to the High Commission Star-Chamber Councel-board, to Pattentees, Projectors, Bishops, Courts, and the like, bred and fostered an in∣terest against the common freedom of the People, to their excessive charge and trouble: all such being arguers for arbitrary power, and maintaine•• by the sweat of other mens browes, is it not so and much more, by those many imployed about Customs, Excise, and in Committees: in so much, as men can har••ly say any thing, or discourse together, for fear of being insnared in their words by some of them? If it were then deemed most injurious, to make it dangerous to menti∣on a Parliament: is it not most lamentable, that it should be now as dangerous to move for a new Parliament, after so long continuance, and so many grievan∣ces unremoved? If Conscience then were oppressed by Oaths of Allegiance and supremacy is not the enforcement of the Engagement upon penalty of being our-law'd, a greater grievance? If Conscience in divine worship were free only to some, is not its freedom restrained now? or should we for that one part of our just freedom, sell all the rest of our Birth-right, (God forbid) and the liberty of Printing more restrained, (except to books maintaining the most tyranous principles ••as the Book entituled, The Case of the Common-wealth of England stated, and the like, which to the shame of these times were freely licenced. If those ti••es were judged of cruelty, in censuring men to be whipt, gag'd, and pillor'd, for small or verbal things; how can that time escape that makes the like verbal things Capital, as is evident in many Acts of this Parliament? If it were deemed of dangerous consequence, that almost all Officers & Magistrates▪ both civil & milita∣ry, as Judges, Sheriffs, and Justices, &c. were not chosen in a free way by the People, (as by right they ought) but were chosen and imposed by the Court, there∣by to incline all men and things to the bent of one particular party or Interest, rather then to the impartial good of all, is it not as prejudicial to be so now? If monopolizing of the principal Marchandizes of the Nation by Companies, were then esteemed a most pernitious evil, they remain still much after the same man∣ner, and so also do Law-sutes, and all proceedings in Law, continue as full of tedious chargable perplexities as ever, and the numbers of Lawyers, Attorneys, So∣licitors, Goalers, and their Officers, all feeding themselves fat, as the other Officers forementioned) by the spoyles of the distressed, never more countenanced, yea, 1000. pounds a peece per annum, added to the Judges above their ordinary Fees, which alone was formerly accounted a large proportion, and great prefer∣ment. If tryals by extraordinary packt Commissions of Oyer and Terminer, and Tryals by Court-Martials, (though of loose and dissolute people) were esteemed utterly destructive to the Lives & Liberties of the People, (as appeareth by the Petition of Right,) are not those kinds of Tryals more frequent now, or can any thing exceed in dangerous Tryals by High Courts of Iustice, a Court against which no legal defence or priviledge is permitted, it being to be admired, that in times preten∣ding liberty, there should be found persons to serve in such a Court. If these are the effects of Freedom, then are we free indeed; but if they are, we have lost our understandings. If then be considered the manifold miseries accompanying these ten years strife for liberty, as decay of Trade, excessive Taxes, Poverty and War: to supply which, a new and never before heard of grievance is added, as the loss of Servants and Children, through a liberty given them, to betake themselves to Arms, though against their Master or Parents liking, to the impoverishment of whole Families, and to the unexpressible grief of many tender-hearted Fathers and Mothers. And then if the Parliaments Declarations in behalf of Magna Charta, and the Petition of Right, with all things concerning Life, Limb, Liberty, and Estate, be duly weighed, and after them, those of the Army, manifesting a most deep sense of the long suffering of the Nation▪ for want thereof: would it not pierce and grieve the most hard and stony heart, that yet all things should remain in this woful condition, as is evident they now do? And that through dis∣contents, divisions, and distractions, arising from so continued an unsettlement, and the presumption of enemies thereupon, a War should frequently be threat∣ned within the bowels of the Land, (as more then once hath been seen) and that a more dangerous one then any yet is now already begun, and yet no regard taken for the real restoration of our liberties, or redress either of old or new grievances, (the only means of reconcilement) but in place thereof, all mouthes are stopt with the meer Title of a free Common-wealth, and of a free people, to the heightening of all discontents, and withholding from the Army the assistance of thousands of zealous cordial people, that upon the real (but not verbal) restoration to just Liberties, and the real redress of those known grievances, would rea∣dily assist them.
And therefore as you tender the preservation of Parliaments, from utter annihilation, (a thing much to be feared upon prevalence of an Enemy, which God de∣fend) the supply and recruit of this Army, the speedy ending of this most threatning War, as you regard the end for which the people chose you, or that for which the Army reserved you; when they excluded the greater number of your own Members: as you regard you own safeties, or that which is above all the known will of God in the keeping of a good Conscience, and performance of all your promises and vowes, made in his all-seeing presence: We beg and beseech you for the tender mercies of Christ, that you will be pleased instantly to make a plenary restoration to our fundamental liberties, and really redress all the grievances foremencioned; and for a clear pledge of your full purpose therein, that you will immediatly and for ever abolish the High Court of Justice, (that Serpent rea∣dy with open mouth to devoure us: and from which, none can be safe, whilst treacherous Informers can be found) and to null all things and proceedings apper∣taining thereunto, as a Plant, which our fore Fathers never planted, but would have ventured all they had willingly, to have rooted out any jurisdiction of so for∣raign a breed, so expresly opposite to all English Liberties, as is manifest by what trouble and danger they under went in all former times.
But if so be the whole work be too hard for you, or that you cannot agree therein, before the War growes to fast upon you; We beseech you then to re∣member the humble Petition and advice of his Excellency and Councel of Officers, the 20. of Jan. 1649. with those other Petitions to the same effect, concerning the way of settlement by an agreement of the People, and that you will be pleased to give countenance and protection to all peaceable people, in entering into such an agreement as themselves shall judge most effectual to their own safety, Freedom and well-being, and whereby they may set such express bounds and li∣mits, to all kinds of Authorities, so restore and establish their fundamental Liberties, and so unrevocably remove their burthens, and redress their grievances, as shall not be in the power of future Authorities or persons (without certainty of punishment) to supplant the one, or to re-impose the other; and this work we trust in God, you will freely incourage, having acknowledged by your votes, the People to be the original power, from whom all just Authorities are derived, which were unavailable, if you should (which God forbid) withhold them from exercising the same, in a work wherein they are so nearly concerned: and which once effected, would render the Nation absolutely free, (not in word only) but in deed and in truth, to the exceeding joy of your humble, (but as yet grieved Petitioners, and of all well-minded people) restore it to much more unity within it self, and so, would become more formidable to all sorts of Ene∣mies, your labours would be exceedingly abated. And in countenancing so just, so due a work, would bring great Honour to God, Peace, Freedom, and pro∣sperity to the Common-wealth, be at rest in your own Consciences, guarded by the cordial volentary affection of the People, whilst you live here, and remain as a sweet savor to all Posterity. And thus as faithful Witnesses to the Truth, and in behalf of the Nations just Rights, we have discharged our Consciences, referring the Issue and our selves wholly to God, whom we continually worship in spirit and in truth; and before whose righteous judgement we must all one day ap∣pear: and therefore although for the Truths sake, our portion in this life should be scofs, reproaches, afflictions, poverty, imprisonment, or Death: We have chosen it, rather then at that great and terrible day of the Lord, to have our portion with the Hypocrite, or that our Consciences should then testifie against us, that we have made lyes our refuge. This is printed only for the better gathering of Subscriptions, 'tis desired you would make no other use of it.