301 among them, and being convinc'd in his conscience that both the cause, and all those who with an upright honest heart asserted and maintain'd it, were betrey'd and sold for nothing, he addrest himselfe to those commissioners he had most honourable thoughts of, and mg'd_ his reasons and apprehensions to them, and told them that the king, after baYing bene exasperated, vanquish't, and captiv'd, would be restor'd to that power, which was inconsistent with the liberty of the people, who for all their blood, treasure, and misery, would reape no fruite, but a confirmation of bondage, and that it had bene a thousand times better, never to have struck one stroke in the quaJTell, then, after victory, to yield up a righteous cause; whereby they should not only betrey the interest of t heir coLmtry and the trus t repos'd in them, and those zealous friends who had engag'd to the death for them, but be false to the covenant of their God, which was to e.vtirpate pr·elacy, not to lease it.' They acknowledg'd to him that the conditions were not so secure as they ought to be ; but in regard of the growing power and insolence of the army, it was best to accept them. 'They further say'd, that they enjoying those trusts and places, which they had secur'd for themselves and other honest men, should be able to curb the king's exorbitances; and such other things they say'd, wherewith the collonell dissatisfied, oppos'd their proceedings as much as he could. When the vote was past, he, telling some men of understanding, that he was not satisfied in conscience to be included with the maior part, in this vote, which was contrary to their former engagements to God, but thought it fitt to testifie their publick dissent, he and fome more enter'd into the house.book a protestation against that night's votes and proceedings.' Whether it yett remains there, or o There is, among Clarendon's State Papers, .a 1etter from the queen to the king, assuring him that those with whom he had to deal were too perietrating to be duped by this artifice; if they were, or pretended to be, the queen was not. P Ludlow says he wished to do this very thing, but could not .
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=