THat your poor Petitioners, though they be the lowest and meanest Members of this City, yettney do with all humble and hearty acknowledgment confesse, that the uncessant and unexpressable care and paines you have aken for the good of both Church and State, in the middest of so many Plots, Conspiracies and perills, deserveth to be recorded to your eternall Fame, and of your poore Petitioners most humbly and gratefully accepted of; although those happy effects, you have by your unwearied endeavours laboured for, and your Petitioners long expected, be not yet produced; the case of which is, that adverse malig­nant-blood sucking-rebellious Popish party in the generall: For particular parties, many of them hath been often mentio­ned in this Honourable House heretofore: therfore we will omit to make any further mention of them; only your Petitioners doth humbly crave leave to name some of those many particular evills, which we have too much cause to feare, and are in a great measure sensible of: as First, that great height of power the Adverse party is grown unto, in that they are so impudent and Insolent, as to counsell to, and devise a way to a [...]cuse the Innocent; and when that would not hit, then they counselled that power Prerogative should trample upon all the Priviledges of Parliament, and the Liberty of the Subject, which if Gods providence and your pru­dence had not timely prevented this designe, the whole Kingdome ere this time, had been involved in blood. Secondly, the dayly growth of the For­ces, Insolencies and outrages of those salvage, and more then barbarous Rebells in Ireland, exercised upon our poore Brethren by Nation and Religi­on, whose miserable and distressed estate we truly sympathize, and doe much condole; and if the good hand of the Allmighty, by your prudence and puissance, doe not speedily bridle the adversarie, they will totally extirpate and extinguish the name of the English, with the Protestant Religion in that Nation. And your Petitioners doe humbly conceive, that the hand of the adverse party is too much seen amongst us here, by contriving and procuring obstructions and delayes in their reliefe and supplyes. Thirdly, the universall deadnes of Trading, it hath been a languishing long, and strooke in divers branches of it, but now the very body of it is strooke livelesse and dead: and the reasons hereof (as your Petitioners doth humbly conceive) are divers, not only the things before named, but the many feares, jealousies and distractions we lye under: for being the adverse party seeth [...]hat their secret plots, Conspiracies, and hellish devices, hath hitherto become abortive, it is to be feared they will break out into open Hostilitie, as they have done in Ireland; and moreover, laying of our selves open to forreigne Invasion, by delaying of the fortification of the Cinque Ports, which is (as your Petitioners doe humbly conceive) too great an advantage and encouragement to the Papists amongst us to make Insurrection, and doth too much animate a forreigne pewer to Invade us. These and many more, which is above and beyond our line and soheare of conceiving, are the causes of this universall deadnesse of Trading: now this deadnesse of Trade is the solecanse your poore Petitioners doth want imployment in such a measure, that their lives are made very uncomfortable: for besides the single number mentioned before, which is the least that doe live in that way; there is a treble number which hath their subsistence of the labour of your poore Petitioners, that is, their Wives and Children: and being your Petitioners can have no better imployment, they are exposed to many hardships for that little, your Petitioners was possessed of before these times, since these times of Trading grew so dead, they have been constrained to sell part, and paund other part, for to buy food for their Families, and now they have scarce so much left as will satisfie their Landlords for Rent, and so your Petitioners are very nigh turning into the Streets.

Therfore, the most humble request of your poore Petitioners is, that this extreame necessity of theirs may be taken into serious consideration, and that this Honourable House would fall upon the speediest course that your wisdomes seeth best, for abateing and quelling of the pride, outrage, and insolencie of the adverse party here at home; and that reliefe and supply may be sent to our Brethren in Ireland, if it may be before it be too late. And your Petitioners doe further humbly pray, that this Land May be secured, by fortifying the Cinque Ports, and putting the people into a posture of Defence, that all, or as many of our feares as can, may be removed; that the way and life of Trading may againe be set up and opened; that so your Petitioners wants may in some measure be supplyed. They further humbly pray that Justice may be done upon Offenders, accord­ing as the atrocitie of their crimes have deserved: for if these things be any longer suspended, they will force your Petitioners to extremities, not fit to be named, and to make good that saying, That necessity hath no Law: It is true, that we have nothing to lose but our lives, and those we will willingly expose to the utmost perill, in the defence of the Kings Majesties Royall person, Crown and Dignities, and this Honourable House of Parliament, with the Priviledges thereof, with all therest, contained in our Protestation, to which your Petitioners will adhere to the losse of their lives: And they doe most humbly desire a favounble construction and acceptance of these few immature and undigested expressions, and so much as is unsavourie in them to impute it to a defect in their understanding, and not to any perniciousnesse in the will. And your Petitioners doe with all humblenesse and submission desire a speedy Answer;

And they will never cease to pray,[?] [...]