Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A96028
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Vox plebis: or, The voice of the oppressed commons of England against their oppressors.
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Overton, Richard, fl. 1646.
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1653
(1653)
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Wing V727; Thomason E691_13; ESTC R206972
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3,475
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8
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Vox Plebis Or THE VOICE OF THE OPPRESSED COMMONS OF ENGLAND Against their OPPRESSORS Prov. 19.20 Hear counsel and receive instruction that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end Prov. 11.21 Though hand joyn in hand the wicked shall not be unpunished but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered Printed in the yeer 1653. VOX PLEBIS SIRS BLame us not seeing it is now high time after our many yeers sufferings and tedious expectation to be delivered from our then declared pressures and grievances that we by you declared the free Commons of England should have leave for losers may have leave to speak to tell you that we cannot but with bitterness of spirit declare That we wonder with what strange and unheard of presidents this Parliament hath acted there having never been any visible rule for such actions in or by any Parliament before But leaving to speak of things that are past cure let us come to expostulate with you about our future security and that long promised good land viz. Peace Freedome and Justice promised us at the beginning and for which we have with the expence of our Lives and Estates so earnestly contested for Was it not unlimited prerogative Corruptions in Law and Courts of Justice infringment of our liberties illegal Taxes and the like which was by you then declared to be the misery of the Kingdome a door and inlet to Tyranny and Oppression And was it not that Regal power might be limited by Law not proportioned by will that the constitutions of our Laws might not be destroyed but reduced to their fundamental purity that Justice might be executed and we preserved in our Liberties and Estates Give us leave then to the expostulate with you a little How comes it to pass that notwithstanding all your promises made so solemnly in the presence of God and the Kingdome we reap not the harvest of this promised seed-time How comes it to pass we beseech you that such faire blossoms yeeld such slender fruits Whence grows this muttering nay we may say groaning under and exclamations against Oppression Tyranny and Injustice in our streets nay Courts of injustice Justice we cannot call them even at the Parliament-door nay within the Parliament House How comes it to pass that so many irregular illegal nay we may say unparliamentary proceedings are daily acted Whence proceeds this spirit of Ambition Contention Oppression and Sedition which reigns so powerfully among you We cannot be seduced to believe that ever this proceeds from principles of Law or Justice but from principles of Ambition Usurpation Pride Covetousness or the like which is made well known to us by woeful experience from the power of which Good Lord deliver us c. Can it think you consist with the Peace and Welfare of the Nation especially considering the state and temper of the people that you who should be acting for the Subjects liberty should drive on your own particular interests Is this to discharge the trust which you have in the presence of God so often sworn to performe Surely so long as you continue thus we cannot hope for any good either by or from you What made you exclaime so vehemently against prerogative Was it with intent to destroy us by priviledge Did you exclaime against Injustice in others that your selves might be singular yea superlatively unjust Were corruptions in the Law past cure so that your Wills must be our supream Law Was the taking a little of our estates illegal and Tyrannous in his late Majesty but in you Justice to take all Is this the promised recompence for our labour The return of our expectation the prize for which we have undergone so many dubious changes in the wilderness of disorder and confusion and for which we have shed so much blood Certainly we looked for the good Land of Peace but behold Oppression We looked for liberty but behold slavery and our end is worse then our beginning And now having with sorrow of heart given you some hints of our present insufferable sufferings take notice we beseech you of some of our desires which in the first place we expect speedy satisfaction First Cast your eyes back into the rock out of which you were hewn were you not our fellow-Commoners Were not every one of us as equally fully and properly interested in the safety welfare and government of the Kingdome as any or all of you Did you not receive your power from us for our good And have you not declared your selves to be our servants and to be accountable to us by whom you were impowred and intrusted Have you not likewise declared that all intrustments are and ought to be for the good of the Trusters Upon this ground we the free Commons of England expect from you the performance and discharge of your duty herein together with the following particulars Secondly Have you not declared that the Law ought to have been the rule of the Kings actions and must it not be of yours Certainly you have sometime confest that they that give Law to others ought not to be above Law or without themselves Therefore we do expect that all unlawful unparliamentary actions either within or without the House publickly or privately either by the whole House or any particular member or any other by them intrusted or improved be publickely declared against and that a way be opened for just reparation against all such arbitrary and exorbitant practises Thirdly Have you not declared That no free Commoner ought or might be dis-infranchised of his liberty without Inditement and that the fining and imprisoning men without due process of Law was a breach upon the Law and destructive to the subjects liberty How comes it then to pass that since your declaring it to be so unjust in others you have so frequently used it your selves to the reproach of the Nation and breach of the trust reposed in you by us What prison hath been free nay what County or Corporation but hath some sufferers being imprisoned by the arbritary subject destroying power of your Committees who for the most part are composed of such as your selves men without souls unconscionable wretches the misery whereof we expect a speedy redress of it being your own declared duty and sutable to both law and conscience that being no way lawful in you which was by you condemned in others Fourthly Did you not complaine that the Kings favourites spent the Kingdomes money and converted the publick stock to private uses and may not we the poor Commons complaine now of the like or rather worse practises considering the vast sums of money levied upon us which rather increase then decrease notwithstanding the incredible sums by you received by Excise Bishops lands Deans and Chapters Kings Revenues Delinquents Estates c. with many other hellish inventions whereby you grind the face both of the Gentry and Commonalty of this Nation to the utter decay of Trade and Commerce Besides hath not much nay I may say the greater part of these been shared amongst your selves thousands in a morning but for what memorable service we know not unless it be for keeping us in perpetual slavery Fifthly How you exclaimed against his late Mâ—jesty for protecting Delinquents and keeping them from tryal How comes it to pass then that you your selves have protected and abetted so many false and Traitorous members under pretence of priviledge We conceive by your leave the late Kings prerogative was a far better plea then your priviledge therefore we expect a speedy suspension of all persons charged with any crime and that all persons that have acted to the prejudice of the Kingdome by cozenage injustice or otherwise be speedily brought to condigne punishment Lastly Forasmuch as it is pretended that notwithstanding the vast sums of moneys that have been raised the State are not able to maintaine war with the Dutch and maintaine our standing Army without taxations c. We answer That forasmuch as it is apparent that vast sums of money remain in the hands of several Ministers of State as Parliamentmen Committee-men Excisemen Sequestrators c. unaccounted for to our great loss and prejudice we desire that you would speedily call them to an exact account of all such sums of money by them received and detained and to employ it for the service of the Kingdome which would somewhat abate our heavy burthen under which our backs are ready to crack Much more might be said but we shall for this time conclude desiring and expecting the due execution of justice and judgement and that all means be used for the ease peace and safety of our dominions That our burdens may be removed the accounts of the Kingdome perfected the Publike Faith and other Publike debts satisfied our grievous burthens by taxations and otherwise eased and our Petitions for Peace and Justice from time to time without danger of being murthered by you Red-coated-slaves freely received And so we expect the fulfilling of these our desires immediately laying aside all by-respects and self-ends and unanimously act for the good of the nation giving a speedy testimony thereof by walking in the wayes of justice and righteousness that thereby we may be secured in our just rights and liberties which if you neglect to do we shall not only be necessitated to curse the time we ever intrusted you which we have already repented us of but also to prosecute you as persons wholly bent to destroy our lives and liberties and to let confusion and desolation break in upon us Therefore seriously consider of what we have laid open to you and neglect not this faire oportunity put into your hands to do good for if you do the vengeance of God shall dog you at the heels and you shall be abhorred both of God and man and we shall be driven to take such a course as providence and our pressing necessities shall lay before us and leave the issue thereof to God who is able to direct and protect us in all our undertakings These are the Resolutions of us the distressed Commonalty of England April 1. 1653. FINIS