this? 'So stands it;' it is so. And do but judge what proofs have been made of the spirits of these men. [Republican spirits: we took a "Standard" lately, a Painted one, and a Printed, with wondrous apparatus behind it!] Summoning men to take up arms; and exhorting men, each sort of them, to fight for their notions; each sort thinking they are to try it out by the sword; and every sort thinking that they are truly under the banner of Christ, if they but come in, and bind themselves in such a project!*

Now do but judge what a hard condition this poor Nation is in. This is the state and condition we are in. Judge, I say, what a hard condition this poor Nation is in, and the Cause of God 'is in,'- amidst such a party of men as the Cavaliers are, and their participants! Not only with respect to what these ["Cavaliers and their Participants," both equally at first, but it becomes the latter chiefly, and at length exclusively, before the Sentence ends] are like to do of themselves: but some of these, yea some of these, they care not who carry the goal: [Frantic-Anabaptist Sexby, dead the other day, he was not very careful!] some of these have invited the Spaniard himself to carry on the Cavalier Cause.

And this is true. "This' and many other things that are not fit to be suggested unto you; because 'so' we should betray the interest of our intelligence. [SpyRoyalist Sir Richard Willis and the like ambiguous persons, if we show them in daylight, they vanish forever,as. Manning, when they shot him in Neuburg, did.] E say, this is your condition! What is your defence? What hindereth the irruption of all this upon you, to

* "and oblige upon this account" in orig.

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your utter destruction? Truly, 'that' you have an Army in these parts, in Scotland, in England and Ireland. Take them away tomorrow, would not all these Interests run into one another? I know you

are rational prudent men. Have you any Frame or Model of things that would satisfy the minds of men, if this be not the Frame, 'this' which you are now called together upon, and engaged in, I mean, the Two Houses of Parliament and myself? What hinders this Nation from being an Aceldama, ‘a field of blood,' if this doth not? It is, without doubt, 'this:' give the glory to God; for without this, it would prove* as great a plague as all that hath been spoken of. It is this, without doubt, that keeps this Nation in peace and quietness. And what is the case of your Army 'withal?' A poor unpaid Army; the soldiers going barefoot at this time, in this city, this weather! [Twentyfifth of January.] And yet a peaceable people, 'these soldiers;' seeking to serve you with their lives; judging their pains and hazards and all well bestowed, in obeying their officers and serving you, to keep the Peace of these Nations! Yea, he must be a man with a heart as hard as the weather who hath not a due sense of this! [A severe frost, though the Almanacs do not mention it.]

1

So that, I say, it is most plain and evident, this is your outward and present defence. [This frame of Government; the Army is a part of that.] And yet, at this day, do but you judge! The Cavalier Party, and the several humours of unreasonable men 'of other sorts,' in those several ways, having 'continually' made

"it would prove" is an impersonal verb; such as "it will rain," and the like.

battery at this defence ever since you got to enjoy peace [Sentence catches fire] What have they made their business but this, To spread libellous Books; [Their "Standard," "Killing no Murder," and other little fiddling things belonging to that sort of Periodical Literature] yea and pretend the "Liberty of the Subject" - [Sentence gone again]-?- which really wiser men than they may pretend! For let me say

this to you at once: I never look to see the People of England come into a just Liberty, if another 'Civil' War overtake us. I think, 'I' at least, that the thing likely to bring us into our "Liberty" is a consistency and agreement at this Meeting! Therefore all I can

say to you is this: It will be your wisdom, I do think truly, and your justice, to keep that concernment close to you; to uphold this Settlement 'now fallen-upon.' Which I have no cause but to think you are agreed to; and that you like it. For I assure you I am very greatly mistaken else, 'for my own part; having taken this which is now the Settlement among us as my chief inducement to bear the burden I bear, and to serve the Commonwealth in the place I am in!

And therefore if you judge that all this be not argument enough to persuade you to be sensible of your danger -? — ‘A danger' which 'all manner of considerations,' besides goodnature and ingenuity 'themselves,' would move a stone to be sensible of! Give us leave to consider a little, What will become of us, if our spirits should go otherwise, 'and break this Settlement?' If our spirits be dissatisfied, what will become of things? Here is an Army five or six months behind in pay; yea, an Army in Scotland near as much 'behind;' an Army in Ireland much more. And if

these things be considered, I cannot doubt but they will be considered; I say, judge what the state of Ireland is if free-quarter come upon the Irish People! [Free-quarter must come, if there be no pay provided, and that soon!] You have a company of Scots in the North of Ireland, 'Forty or Fifty thousand of them settled there;' who, I hope, are honest men. In the Province of Galway almost all the Irish, transplanted to the West. You have the Interest of England newly begun to be planted. The people there, 'in these English settlements,' are full of necessities and complaints. They bear to the uttermost. And should the soldiers run upon free-quarter there, upon your English Planters, as they must, the English Planters must quit the country through mere beggary: and that which hath been the success of so much blood and treasure, to get that Country into your hands, what can become of it, but that the English must needs run away for pure beggary, and the Irish must possess the country 'again' for a receptacle to the Spanish Interest?

And hath Scotland been long settled? [Middleton's Highland Insurrection, with its Mosstroopery and misery, is not dead three years yet.**] Have not they a like sense of poverty? I speak plainly. In good earnest, I do think the Scots Nation have been under as great a suffering, in point of livelihood and subsistence outwardly, as any People I have yet named to you. I do think truly they are a very ruined Nation. [Torn to pieces with now near Twenty Years of continual War, and foreign and intestine worrying with themselves and with all the world.] — And yet in a way (I have spoken

"All the Irish;" all the Malignant Irish, the ringleaders of the Popish Rebellion: Galway is here called "Galloway."

** Febr. 1654-5 (Whitlocke, p. 599).

with some Gentlemen come from thence) hopeful enough; - it hath pleased God to give that plentiful encouragement to the meaner sort in Scotland. I must say, if it please God to encourage the meaner sort [The consequences may be foreseen, but are not stated here.] The meaner sort 'in Scotland' live as well, and are likely to come into as thriving a condition under your Government, as when they were under their own great Lords, who made them work for their living no better than the Peasants of France. I am loath to speak anything which may reflect upon that Nation: but the middle sort of people do grow up there into such a substance as makes their lives comfortable, if not better than they were before. [Scotland is prospering; has fair-play and ready-money; prospering

though sulky.]

If now, after all this, we shall not be sensible of all those designs that are in the midst of us: of the united Cavaliers; of the designs which are animated every day from Flanders and Spain; while we have to look upon ourselves as a divided people [Sentence off] - A man cannot certainly tell where to find consistency anywhere in England! Certainly there is no consistency' in anything, that may be worthy of the name of a body of consistency, but in this Company who are met here! How can any man lay his hand on his heart,. and 'permit himself to' talk of things, [Roots of Constitutional Government, "Other House," "House of Lords" and such like neither to be made out by the light of Scripture nor of Reason; and draw one another off from considering of these things, "which are very palpable things!' I dare leave them with you, and commit them to your bosom. They have a weight,