IT is our desires to let you know, and by this Instrument to declare, That although for those many years your Ses­sion hath been interrupted by the late Protector, and your visible being withheld from this Nation; yet so long as a Quorum doth survive, notwithstanding that, or any other interruption, your Authority abideth, and you remain the onely Legal Parliament of England, until your Legal Dissolution; and no other Authority or Power ought to be owned or exercised amongst us: and for our parts, we will neither submit to, nor own any other for the present Authority, but Yours; and in Yours we will acquiesce, (as in the rightful Supreme Authority of England) and in no other whatsoever. And as it is our Duty to Own and Obey your Authority; so, it is your Duties (Providence having opened the way for you) to Return to your Trust. It is Treason in us to forsake and decline your Authority, and Breach of Trust in you not to take upon you the exercise thereof.

You are the rightful and natural Head of our Countrey, from whence all subordinate Powers and Administrati­ons Civil are derivative, without which a Legal new Parliament cannot be called: Law and Common Right denies that to the Sword; it is inherent only in you.

The Army as de jure they may not disturbe or interrupt the Freedom of Parliaments, so de jure they cannot Sum­mon a Parliament, nor impose a Government upon us: for the People of England are a free People, the true Original of their own Authority.

And as the Army can neither give nor take away the right of the People, so neither will they any waies hinder or interrupt your Session, or invade their Countries Right: for have they not like true English men appeared as one man for the Good Old Cause, and made so honest and honourable a procedure therein, as hath united all the hearts of the honest and well-minded of the Nation to them? for which most just and consciencious undertaking, we do declare our selves in union with them, and their friends to be our friends, their enemies our enemies; and that we will stand or fall with them in this their glorious enterprize. Therefore fear not their interposition; their interest and ours is all one, and we will joyntly stand by you and own you, as (indeed you are) the Supreme Authority of the Common­wealth of England (as it was established at your last Session) without King or House of Lords: The several seeming Par­liaments in this deplorable interval of your Authority, and the several Models of obtruded Government since, being no other, then as one continued Act of usurpation and innovation upon the Rights of the People, and their Power of Parliaments.

And now the Grand Enemie and Interrupter of your Session being in the Dust, He that letted being taken away, your Authority ariseth and reviveth; and the Army, People and Nation, of course retire to the Good Old Cause; and all that have continued or are faithful to Authority of Parliaments, invite you and call for you, and challenge the Freedom of your Session as of English Right: and as you had and truly derived your first Session from the People, so we present you with this signal of our unanimous Agreement for your Re-assembling and Session at Westminster: but we de­sire you to humble your selves, and repent truly of your great failings in your last Session, which were very many and grievous; but we trust your eyes are opened, and you see your miscarriages, & that you will be faithful and care­ful Trustees for the People. Indeed so hath the Divine Providence of God ordered the state of Affairs, that your In­terest is and must be, to be honest to the People, or you will perish by their hand. VVe do own and acknowledge, you are the fittest persons in this Nation to do the work of the People, and settle us in true freedom and peace; and there­fore the hearts of the good people are towards you, and invite you: do but you appear, and all the Court-Policies and Practices will end in that moment, your enemies will be quite defunct and defeated; Plots and Designs, Insurrecti­ons and Invasions will be prevented, our Divisions and Distractions will be composed; and we shall return to settle­ment and safety; otherwise both Army and Navy, Nation and People, will be all confounded, ruined and lost.

But in Case of your Assembly again, we desire, That at your first sitting down, you may ascertain a time for your ending, and for the Succession and Beginning of a new Representative; and so settle the Foundations of our Govern­ment, as our Parliaments may be Successive, and of Course, with their certain times of their Beginning and Ending; and with such Boundaries, Limitations and Powers, as all Arbitrariness in Government may be prevented, and the Rights and Freedoms of the People secured. And we shall (together with your and our faithful Army) stand or fall with you, in the necessary and just Defence of your Persons and Authority.