Revenue which you have appointed for the Government; wherein you have distributed Three-hundred thousand pounds of it to the Maintenance of the Civil Authority, and One-million to the maintenance of your Forces by Sea and Land:-you have indeed in your Instrument said so, that there shall be such a Revenue,' and we cannot doubt of it: but yet you have not made it certain; nor yet those "temporary supplies" which are intended for the peace and safety of the Nations. It is desired, That you will take this into your thoughts, and make the general and temporary allowances of Revenue certain, both as to the sum and to the time those "supplies" are to be continued. [Let us know what ground we stand on.] And truly I hope I do not curry favor with you: but another thing is desired, and I may very reasonably desire it, That these monies, whatever they are ;-that they may not, if God shall bring me to any interest in this business,* as lieth at His disposal;-that these monies, 'I say,' may not be issued out by the authority of the Chief Magistrate, but by the advice of his Council. You have made in your Instrument a coördination of Council and Chief Magistrate' in general terms: 'but I could wish' that this might be a specified thing, That the monies were not to be distributed 'except by authority of both.' It will be a safety to whosoever is your Supreme Magistrate, as well as a security to the Public, That the monies be issued out by advice of the Council, and that the Treasurers who receive these monies be accountable every Parliament, within a certain time limited by yourselves; that' every new Parliament, the Treasurer be accountable to the Parliament for the disposing of the Treasury.

6

['Article Ninth: Judges, Principal Officers of State, Commanders in Chief by Sea or Land, all chief officers civil and military," are to be approved of by both Houses of Parlia ment.' .""]

There is mention made of the Judges in your Ninth Article. It is mentioned that the Officers of State and the Judges are to be chosen with the approbation of Parliament. But now if there be no Parliament sitting, should there be never so great a loss of Judges, it cannot be supplied. And whether you do not intend that, in the intervals of Parliament, it should be by the choice-[Omit "of the Chief Magistrale," or politely mumble it into indistinctness],—with the consent of the Council; to be afterwards approved by Parliament?

* If I live, and continue to govern.

[Certainly, your Highness; reason so requires it. Be it tacitly so ruled. And now for Article Twelfth :

Article Twelfth (Let us still call it Article Twelfth, though in the ultimate Redaction it has come to be marked Thirteenth)::Classes of persons incapable of holding any office. Same, I think, as those excluded from elections,-only there is no penalty annexed. His Highness makes some remarks upon this, under the Title of "Article Twelfth ;"-a new article introduced for securing Purchasers of Church Lands, which is now Article Twelfth,* has probably pushed this into the Thirteenth place.']

The Twelfth Article relates to several qualifications that persons must be qualified with, who are put into places of Public Office and Trust. [Treats all of Disqualifications, your Highness; which, however, comes to the same thing.] Now if men shall step into Public Places and Trust who are not so qualified, 'I do not see but hereby still' they may execute them. "Office of Trust" is a very large word; it goeth almost to a Constable, if not altogether;-it goeth far. Now if any shall come in who are not so qualified, they certainly do commit a breach upon your rule:-and whether you will not think in this case that if any shall take upon him an Office of Trust, there shall not some Penalty be put upon him, where he is excepted by the general rule? Whether you will not think it fit in that respect to deter men from accepting Offices and Places of Trust, contrary to that Article?

[Nothing done in this. The "Penalty," vague in outline, but all the more terrible on that account, can be sued for by any complainant in Westminster Hall.

'Article Thirteenth suddenly provides that your Highness will be pleased to consent that "Nothing in this Petition and Advice, or the assent thereto, shall be construed to extend to the dissolving of this present Parliament ! "Oh, no!" answers his Hignness in a kind of bantering way; "not in the least!"

The next Article' is fetched, in some respects, I may say, by head and shoulders into your Instrument! Yet in some sense it hath an affinity with the rest, too;' I may say, I think it is within your general scopet upon this account;-'yes,' I am sure of it: There is mention made in the last parts of your Instrument [Looking in the Paper; Arti

• Whitlocke, p. 659.

torder' in orig.

cle Eighteen] of your purpose to do many good things:-I am confident, not like the gentleman who made his last will, and set down a great number of names of men who were to receive benefit by him, and there wis no sum at the latter end! [" You cannot do these many good things' if I dissolve you! That will be a Will, with many beneficiary legatees, and no sum mentioned at the end!" His Highness wears a pleasant bantering look ;-to which the countenances of the others, even Bistrode's leaden countenance, respond by a kind of smile.]

I am confident you are resolved to deal effectually in these things at the latter end; and I should wrong my own conscience if I thought otherwise. I hope you will think sincerely, as before God, "That the Laws be regulated!"* I hope you will. We have been often talking of them :—and I remember well, at the Old Parliament [ Whitlocke and Glyn look intelligence], we were three months, and could not get over the word "Incumbrances " [Hum-m-m!] : and we thought there was little hope of "regulating the Law" where there was such difficulty as to that. But surely the Laws need to be regulated! And I must needs say, I think it were a sacrifice acceptable to God on many accounts. And I am persuaded it is one of the things that God looks for, and would have. [Alas, your Highness !]—I confess, if any man should ask me, "Why, how would you have it done?" I confess I do not know How. But I think verily, at the least, the Delays in Suits, and the Excessiveness in Fees, and the Costliness of Suits, and those various things which I do not know what names they bear-I heard talk of "Demurrers " and such-like things, which I scarce know-[Sentence is wrecked] !— But I say certainly, The people are greatly suffering in this respect; they are so. And truly if this whole business of Settlement, whatever be the issue of it, if it come, which I am persuaded it doth, as a thing that would please God:-' then,' by a sacrifice to God' in it, or rather as an expression of our thankfulness to God, I am persuaded that this will be one thing that will be upon your hearts, to do something that is honorable and effectual in this. ["Reforming of the Law!" Alas, your Highness!]—

'Another thing' that truly I say that it is not in your Instrument[Nothing said of it there, which partly embarrasses his Highness; who - is now getting into a small Digression !]-Somewhat that relates to the Reformation of Manners, you will pardon me!-My Fellow Soldiers the Major Generals,' who were raised up upon that just occasion of the Insurrection, not only "to secure the Peace of the Nation," but to see that persons who were least likely to help-on "peace or to continue it,

* One of their concluding promises (Article Eighteen).

but rather to break it-[" These Major-Generals, I say, did look after the restraining of such persons; suppressed their horse-racings, cock-fightings, sinful roysterings; took some charge of 'REFORMATION OF MANKERS,' they :"-but his Highness is off elsewhither, excited by this tickle subject,' and the Sentence has evaporated]—Dissolute loose persons that can go up and down from house to house,-and they are Gentlemen's sons who have nothing to live on, and cannot be supplied with means of living to the profit of the Commonwealth: these I think had a good course taken with them. [Ordered to fly-away their game-cocks, unmuzzle their bear-baitings; fall to some regular livelihood, some fixed habitat, if they could,—and, on the whole, to duck low, keep remarkably quiet, and give no rational man any trouble with them which could be avoided!] And I think what was done to them was honorably and honestly and profitably done. And, for my part, I must needs say, It* showed the dissoluteness which was then in the Nation;-as indeed it springs most from that Party of the Cavaliers! Should that Party run on, and no care be taken to reform the Nation; to prevent, perhaps, abuses which will not fall under this head alone! [Not under Reformation of MANNERS alone: what will the consequence be?)

We send our children into France before they know God or Good Manners; and they return with all the licentiousness of that Nation. Neither care taken to educate them before they go, nor to keep them in good order when they come home! Indeed this makes the Nation not only commit those abominable things, most inhuman things, but hardens men to justify these things;-as the Apostle saith, "Not only to do wickedly themselves, but to take pleasure in them that do so." And truly, if something be not done in this kind, in the way of reforming public morals,' without sparing that condition of men, without sparing men's sons, though they be Noblemen's sons-! [Sentence breaks down] -Let them be who they may that are deboist, it is for the glory of God that nothing of outward consideration should save them in their debauchery, from a just punishment and reformation! And truly I must needs say it, I would much bless God to see something done in that matter heartily, not only as to those persons mentioned, but to all the Nation; that some course might be taken for Reformation; that there might be some stop put to such a current of wickedness and evil as this is! And truly, to do it heartily, and nobly and worthily! The Nobility of this Nation, they especially, and the Gentry, would have cause to bless you.

* The course taken with them; the quantity of coercion they needed, and of complaint made thereupon, are all loosely included in this "It.” † Morals.

And likewise that some care might be taken that those good Laws already made for punishing of vice might be put in execution.

6

This I must needs say of our Major-Generals who did that service; I think it was an excellent good thing;-I profess I do! [Yes; though there were great outcries about it.] And I hope you will not think it unworthy of you to consider' that though we may have good Laws against the common Country disorders that are everywhere, yet Who is to execute them now, the Major-General being off?' Really a Justice of the Peace, he shall by the most be wondered at as an owl, if he go but one step out of the ordinary course of his fellow Justices in the reformation of these things! [Cannot do it; not he.] And therefore I hope I may represent this to you as a thing worthy your consideration, that something may be found out to repress such evils. I am persuaded you would glorify God by this as much as by any one thing you could do. And therefore I hope you will pardon me.

[His Highness looks to the Paper again, after this Digression. Article Fifteenth in his Highness's copy of the Paper, as we understand, must have provided 'That no part of the Public Revenue be alienated except by consent of Parliament:' but his Highness having thus remonstrated against it, the Article is suppressed, expunged; and we only gather by this passage that such a thing had ever been.]

I

I cannot tell, in this Article that I am now to speak unto, whether I speak to anything or nothing! There is a desire that no part of" "the Public Revenues be alienated except by consent of Parliament." doubt "Public Revenue " is like " Custodes Libertatis Angliæ; a notion only; and not to be found that I know of! [It is all alienated; Crown Lands, &c., are all gone, long ago. A beautiful dream of our youth, as the "Keepers of the LIBERTY of England" were,-a thing you could nowhere lay hands on, that I know of!] But if there be any,—and if God bless us in our Settlement, there will be Public Revenue accruing,― the point is, Whether you will subject this to any alienation without consent of Parliament ?

[We withdraw the question altogether, your Highness: when once the chickens are hatched, we will speak of selling them!Let us now read Article Sixteenth :

Article Sixteenth, in his Highness's copy of the Paper, Pro. vides that no Act or Ordinance already extant, which is not con