HAving done with our particular concernments, give me leave to acquaint you in brief with mat­ters more publick, and perhaps very strange unto you: The Gentry of this County are univer­sally up under the Conduct of the Lord Fairfax, such a rising on a sudden hath not been known. That which first occasioned it, is Free-quarter, and the Tax that hath been lately imposed upon this Coun­ty by military Power, to which the Gentry of these parts are unwilling to stoop, being loath to receive Law from the Sword, having drawn their Swords to maintain the Laws of the Land, which declares, that no Tax be imposed upon the People, but by Consent in Parliament, and the Gentry in these parts ex­plain to be by Consent in a Full Parliament. The manner of their Rising was in three Divisions; the Lord Fairfax for the West-Riding of the County had his Rendevouze at Leeds, where multitudes of Peo­ple resort unto him both Horse and Foot. And the Trade of Cloathing being dead, by reason of the Warres with Spain, makes those Parts rise in abundance, to do any thing for the having of a Free Par­liament, which (they think) will procure the opening of Trade again. There is come unto the Lord Fairfax's Assistance also three Troops of Horse of Collonel Lilburn's Regiment, under the Command of Major Smithson, Captain Strangwayes and Captain Wilkinson. The Forces in the North-Riding are raised by Collonel Hugh Bethel (with one eye) and Sir Francis Boynton: And the Forces in the East-Riding are raised by Sir Henry Cholmely, and other Gentlemen in that Riding. These two last Divisi­ons at a Rendevouze yesterday had fifteen hundred Horse compleatly armed; And this day, or upon Munday, do meet the Lord Fairfax at the General Rendevouze. I have endeavoured to understand the Bottom of this Business, and do perceive they intend to declare upon these Heads following,

I. For the Restoring of this Parliament to the Due Freedome which it enjoyed in the Year, 1648. be­fore it was Garbled by the Army.

II. That the Souldiers of the Army may have their Arrears paid, and that for the future military Forces may be put into such hands as may be of Publick Interest, and likely to submit to Civil Authority.

III. To remove the present Illegall Assessement now in Leavying upon the County; and

IV. To prevent the Quakers Anabaptists, &c. from meeting at their Rendevouze, who did intend as we are informed to joyn with the Lord Lamberts Forces on the third day of January. The Lord Lam­bert is upon a speedy March Southward from Newcastle, (where he hath left ten Companies of Foot, and two Troopes of Horse to secure it) (and the report goes that Generall Monk will March after him, but we have not the Certainty of it) the Lord Lambert horses many of his Foot, we expect them at Witherby the second of Ja­nuary, and various are the Opinions what he will do. Some think he will not trust to Indemnity from a­bove, should it be granted unto him, and therefore it is conceived, that since the Quakers, &c. do prepare for a Conjunction with him, that he will declare for Liberty of Conscience; and by the help of the Garrison of Hull, Arme and Array those men, in hopes of which the Papists do not a little rejoyce. But others think, that he will hold those people too narrow an Interest to build so great an undertaking upon, having Monk behind him, the Lord Fairfax on the Flank, and the Southern Army if reall, against him in the Front, and therefore that he will rather Declare to joyn with the Lord Fairfax for the Restitution of the Members in 1648. and ra­ther receive Indemnity from them, then from the Present Parliament; one of those two in all likelyhood he will be constrained to do, if he do not submit, unless he intend to Go by to hasten up to London, whereas, we now hear, he expecteth to find the Army as plyable to his design as when he left them.