WE your Soldiers who have served under your Commands, with all readinesse to free this our land and nation from all tyranny and oppression whatsoever, and that by vertue of Commission both of this present Parliament, and from the hands of Sir Thomas Fairfax, whom now is our Generall at this present, and likewise also from all the late generalls that were his predicessors in this our late war, which was, and is both justifiable and warrantable for you, which both by the law of nature, and the necessity of the land, through the permittance of God you have been called unto: Now we (we say) meaning the whole Solderie, who have faithfully served both the State and you, without any by respect to our selves, or any ambition of or to that great power that God hath been pleased to put into their hands, or that honour that he hath cast upon any of you, but on the contrary were alwayes right glad, when that any conscientious, godly and juditious moral man was placed either in that great Counsel at home, or the publick service broad, which we had thought would have been to the utter extirpation of all ungodlinesse and illegall proceedings against the liberty of the Subject, according to the tenor of all their oathes, vowes, declarations, and Protestations, through which hope and comfort the hearts of our whole Armie were mightily animated, and unanimously went through all difficul­ties to the uttermost of our power, even to the adventuring of our lives, limbes, and estates, for the preservation of the Gospel, the liberty of the Subject, and the just and right privi­ledges of Parliament, which we shall ever be willing to maintaine, they protecting us in our lives, liberties and estates, to live under them safely and peaceably in the faith and pra­ctice of the Gospel, which was and is the tenor of our service, of which we have but little hopes, seeing every day where we come to our great discomfort, how the common enemyes of our peace are countenanced and we disregarded, or rather contemned, and the honest par­tie of the Kingdome in all parts slited, and in many places imprisoned, whereby we are made sensible, what we are like to suffer, when once dispersed, by which meanes we are in­forced, or rather provokd, to frame or draw a petition unto the honourable house of Parlia­ment, wherein we shall make knowing our grievances, whereunto we desire your assent, yet notwithstanding we are not ignorant of that great likelyhood, which there is of estates to be sealed upon all of you, which wil be in effect-but like the trunling of a goulden-bal before you, to make you to run after it, with an intent never to let you have it, but when they have once devorced you from your Soldiers, thinke to order you at their pleasure, and indeed if they once effect this their designe, which we think is the disbanding of our forces, that then you must subject your selves unto their wills, and so make a god of your Mammon, or else be content to part with what they shall so settle upon you, and also that which is your owne already, and however it will be but a pu chasing of a bondage of s [...]very to you and your po­sterity to eternity, they being carried along as we perceive in many of their proceedings, by those who not dare to both pray and preach for the destrict [...] of our Armie in these words, that God would be pleased to bring to confusion those wicked, ungodly Comman­ders, and damned trooping Divells, (for whose vistories the Lord make us ever thankfull) but before this disbanding be brought to pass [...], we hope they will out of a godly and sericus consideration thinke upon us their Soldiers who have faithfully served them in this their [Page]love and unhappy war, even unto the very subduing of their enemies, through the wonder­full blessing of God, they themselves, lives, liberties, and estates together with the King­domes deliverances, being testimonies of our service, and not to expose us into the hands of such mercilesse men, where we shall not dare to make any profession of what God shall hold sooth or reveale unto us, nay not yet once to speake in the behalfe of this our just and law­full service in which we have served them, which we doe render in respect of our liberties, [...]en thousand times more then all our Arrears, in which we hope they will not in the least deale discourteously with us, we being such men as are willing to walke by this rule, as to be content with our wages, and we having our brethren the Scots, for an insample in that particular, and againe, we say, it had been better for us never to been born, or at least to have been an Army, then that those honest people, who have shewen themselves with us, and for us in these our sad calamities, and that ten times more for our just priviledge and liber­ties, then for their owne ends, then that they should suffer either imprisonment of body, or any other tyrannical and ungodly persecutions, and that without any redresse or legall relief, who have been imbolened through those blessed atchievements and successions of our Ar­mie, as to discover themselves for us, among whom we may count our selves who are like to partake of the same afflictions, if not prevented before the anulity of our armie, which if not that then there will be but little difference between you, our Officers, and us your Soldiers, witnesse that audatiousnesse of the ill affected in all places, saying of some of you [...]heady, what was such and such a one before these times, besides those wicked and insolen: speeches wherewith the whole Armie in generall is mocked, scoffed and derided by those wicked, Matcha [...]illians of the world undeservedly.

Now these and many other such like reasons being taken into your serious considerations we hope will we be just cause for you to goe along with us in this businesse, or at the least to let us quietlly alone in this out designe, we desiring no more then what is just and right, according to all their Declarations, and Protestations to the whole world, that being our witnesse, thus leaving you to the powerfull wisedome of God, which is only able to make you wise to all things, we rest so praying.