Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A40778
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A Faithful souldier, or, The Speech of a private souldier concerning his arrears and putting the captain to death
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1681
(1681)
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Wing F288; ESTC R29802
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3,799
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5
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A Faithful Souldier OR THE SPEECH OF A Private Souldier Concerning his ARREARS And putting the CAPTAIN to Death Dedicated to Parson PETERS'S Seconds Smith Care Harris Curtis and to all the Crew Fellow Souldiers HEar me a word or two I have somewhat to say which concerns every man of us We hear they intend to put the King to Death They know Fellow Souldiers it is in our Power to save his Life for if we think fit to have him live neither Council nor Commissioners will dare to touch him and as our Case yet stands I think we are stark mad if we suffer him to die For as yet they have not paid us our Arrears and perhaps never will when the King is once dead They promised to pay us this day and that day but now they confess that indeed they dare not give us our Arrears For they say If we Souldiers once had all our Money we would soon disband and go home to our Friends Is this fair Dealing By this Rule we must never have it For they can always say they dare not trust us This makes them give us now and then a Pittance which scarce keeps Life and Soul together but for our Arrears which are as truly ours as the Cloaths upon our Backs we may wait long enough For if the King be put to Death there will be such Weeping such Cursing and Raging All England will cry out and say O ye Bloody Souldiers have ye Murther'd our King Ye took Oaths and Covenants to defend his Person and now have you cut his Throat Truly Fellow Souldiers we are arrant Fools to make the World hate us for Killing the King and yet we not be one penny the better for it If we see cause we can any time hereafter take away his Life when we have our Arrears and things are better setled but if now we shed his Blood we can never make him alive again therefore before we do that which can never be undone let us Souldiers make our best use of it Let us declare That until they pay us all our Arrears they shall not put the King to Death let us do this and on my Life it will bring in every penny of our Money You shall see they will strive who shall first pay us those that are so hot to have the King's Blood will pay us rather than let him live and those who are his Friends will give us any thing rather than let him die My Landlord told me that if we Souldiers would save the King's Life which we can easily do the King's Friends would pay us all our Arrears and give us 200000 l. as a Gratuity besides he bid us name our Sum and it should be paid us down upon the Nail And why Fellow Souldiers should we refuse this Now is the time for when the King is dead they will not give us two-pence We know the Scots would not part with the King until they had their 200000 l. and are not our Arrears as due as theirs Nay when the Parliament got the King they would have kept him had not we resolutely fetch'd him from Holdenby yet while they had him they grew so high that they offer'd to disband us without paying all Arrears Then we got the King and while we used him civilly all England was for us Who then but the Army the King and the Army were in every Man's Mouth But as soon as we clapt him in Carisbrook Castle and suffered none to make Addresses to him then all the Kingdom cried out upon the Army each County began to rise upon us You know what Work we had in Wales Kent Essex Twenty Thousand Scots pouring in upon us who if they had but the Twentieth part of our English Courage we had found a hard Task of it So still you see the King is All in All Whoever got the King had the Hearts of the People in all our Quarters and wherever we March'd ye heard the People still calling for their King If they hate us and fought with us for keeping him in Prison how will they rage when they see us cut his Throat Think ye that then they will pay us our Arrears I say Fellow Souldiers we are all stark mad if we let the King die till we have our Money But perhaps some will say That the Council of War does not hinder our Arrears That they are Officers and would be as glad of their Money as we would I confess indeed some Officers would for some are in the same Case with us but the Chief Commanders and the Grandees are of another Mind they have all at Command Sequestrations Offices Parliament and All Lieutenant-General Cromwell hath many Thousand Pounds a Year of the Earl of Worcester's Estate They can pay themselves but when will they pay us They make the Parliament Vote what they please Nay Fellow Souldiers when we took the Money from Weavers Hall the Council of War refused to let us have it but voted forsooth to send it to the Navy He that writes the Occurrences says so in Print and the other day they and the House voted 200000 l. more for the Navy They know the Seamen can pay themselves they have Ships in their Power as we now have the King in our Power and should we serve them as the Seamen served them perhaps then we might have our Arrears but if at any time we ask for Money Mr. Peters is hired to stop our Mouths that Fellow hath cozened us I know not how often and by my Consent when next he comes let us clap him Neck and Heels He said they would pay us as soon as we came to London but here we have waited two Months longer yet no Arrears Then they told us that the Parliament was full of rotten Members and the House must be purged e're we could be paid I think we gave it a sufficient Purge we imprisoned and drove away so many Members that we have not left above Fifty or Threescore not a Member sits now but such as our Council of War approved of and both they and our Council have sate Seven Weeks yet no Arrears Alas Fellow Souldiers these are all Tricks meer Tricks they can never want such Excuses as these and if now we let them take the King and put him to Death we may go whistle for our Arrears But suppose now we had our Arrears which we are not like if we lose this Opportunity are we the better for this King's Death When he is gone either we must have another King or a new kind of Government and this new Government will be either a Parliament or a Committee or many Kings at once For Parliaments and Committees we know how they have used us they voted and gathered up Wealth for themselves but let us bleed and starve sink or Swim all was one to them and for many Kings at once they say that heretofore England had six or seven Kings at a time but these petty Kings