Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	great_a	life_n	see_v	11,121	5	3.3934	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A74697	Englands slavery, or Barbados merchandize; represented in a petition to the high court of Parliament, by Marcellus Rivers and Oxenbridge Foyle gentlemen, on behalf of themselves and three-score and ten more free-born Englishmen sold (uncondemned) into slavery: together with letters written to some honourable members of Parliament.	Rivers, Marcellus.	1659 (1659)	Wing R1553; Thomason E1833_3; ESTC R209821	8,563	23

of the smart due to themselves and which they may expect if they will not learn their books better And if our Torment will but make this Princely Assembly look about them and in us as in a looking-Glasse to behold the face of their own Condition they will certainly find that 't is but hodie mihi cras Tibi can promise themselves no longer freedome from our Condition then they continue members of the Peoples Representative For the House being once dissolv'd they are exposed to a possibility I may not say a probability of the like violence Parliament-protection onely makes the difference Else my Lord for ought I know I ought to be as free from being the goods and chattels of Martin Noel and Henry Hatsel for Thomas Aldern that had the thirds of us hath already I hear given an account of his unrighteousnesse to a greater Tribunall as any man though he might have been once a member of Parliament For I never made any contract with them nor do I know whether there be such persons or whether the Master of the ship used their names sictitiously as Lawyers do formally Iohn Anokes and Iohn Astiles My Lord I do not go about to conceal that I was sometime an unworthy Officer in the late Kings Army But this I affirm I was never in any military Action since we were disbanded upon Articles at Truro in Cornewall in the end of the year 1644. Indeed I have had my share in the suffering part since upon jealous suggestions and false surmises After that disbanding I have also had the benefit and protection of an Act of Oblivion from the Parliament and further being upon unjust pretences indicted as a Traitor at Exon in the West in 1655 I was there by the grand Jury of the County of Devon pronounced Innocent by their Ignoramus and so declared in form of Law And if neither the Artiticles of a Victorious Army nor the Act of Oblivion of an English Parliament nor the formality of a Tryal by a Iury and the Declaration of Law make us Innocent and preserve us ftom being sold for Slaves whence shall we expect freedom My Lord your spatious soul can certainly never undertake a more charitable Office then to endeavour the Redemption of the Innocent Slaves at Barbados and the prevention of the further slavery of England Our case is but your Touchstone by which you may discover whether English be Slaves or Freemen which I humbly beg you Lordship to be zealous in I can only pray for your Lordships good success heartily subscribe my self to be as far as without my pretended Owners consent I can promise My Lord Your Lordshipps humble and faithfull Servant A Copie of a second Letter written to another worthy Member of Parliament Sir HAving had former Experience of your goodnesse and having been eased by your hand upon my Letter when I was heretofore under some oppression though of nothing so high a nature as now being with some scores more of free-born English men sold into slavery That gives me the confidence you the trouble of this second Letter though you cannot now as then singly help me yet in conjunction with others of your great Assembly all inclin'd for the freedome of the people I hope you will further mine and all the others liberties who are now Slaves at Barbados and Petitioners at your Bar For if this man-stealing trade hold good that all they that were at the Salisbury Rising shall be sold to the Indies for Slaves because they were there And all those too that were not at the Salisbury Rising shall be also sould thither because they were not there which is the case of a great number of the Petitioners who never either saw Salisbury or heard of that Rising nor knew why they were committed to Prison yet found themselves indicted for treason and being thereupon quitted by the Iury of life death which is the case of Augustine Greenwood and Nicholas Broadgate two of the Petitioners to my knowledge whatever more of that petitioning number were so quitted which I do not remember are notwithstanding that acquitment inslaved If this be allowed an easie understanding will quickly find what must necessarily become of all the formerly free People of England And these Merchants of men shelter themselves and hope to continue hidden from the punishment of their Iniquities and to continue and encrease Englands slavery by an unheard of wile which unlesse this brave Assembly of Parliament doe wisely look into and vigorously stand to their own and the Peoples preservation They themselves may chance to be cheated of lives liberties and estates And the Maior Aldermen and Citizens of London by this law or rather lawfulness will in time not be spared by these West Indian spirits though they begin with Countrey Gentlemen and others as a more private and silent thing These subtile Sophisters do not seem to be so impudent as publickly to establish Iniquity by a Law for that the free People would perceive and at least murmure at though they might not be able to help But these use the way of a more sly violence and pick up free People travelling upon their occasions and take others out of their houses upon pretences of publick Iustice and so do piously shelter their own private and profitable malice of the former number I believe the greatest part if not all of the Petitioners were amongst whom is not any one condemned person but that 's no matter they were as proper men as those taken in Arms at South-moulton and some of them of better trades and so would prove more profitable Commodities and yield more Sugar then those Gentlemen that could not work so lustily But I 'le instance but in one taken out of his house though I could name more there was one Master Diamond a Devonshire Gentleman as proper as ancient being at his sale threescore and sixteen years of age he was taken up at Tiverton where he dwelt and the greatest offence that they accused him guilty of for ought I could ever hear was that when Sir Ioseph Waggstaffe and the party came through that town and the poor old Gentleman wondering to see so unexpectedly so many gallant men travelling together askt who they were and 't was answered Cavaliers Marry said he as they pretend they are very brave Gentlemen were I as young as I have been I would goe along with them whither he said so or no God knows I know not but that was all they had to alledge against him which they never went about to prove though he were kept prisoner a whole year most of the time in the inner prison of the common Goal amongst the felons and murderers from which the high Goal of Exon is never free and the rest of the time in a Room in straw amongst three or fourscore Prisoners more and he was so far from being indicted that he was never I am confident so much as examined