OUR distresses in our Religion and Liberties being of late more pressing then we were able to beare; our Supplications and Com­missions, which were the remedies used by us for our reliefe, were after many delayes and repulses, answered at last with the terrors of an Army comming to our borders; A peace was concluded, but not observed: And when we did complain of the breach, and supplicat for the performance, our Commissioners were hardly in­treated; new and great preparations were made for war; and many acts of hostility done against us, both by Sea and land. In this case to send new Commissioners or supplications, were against experi­ence, & hopelesse; To maintain an Army on the borders is above our strength, & cannot be a safety unto us by Sea: To retire homeward, were to call on our Enemies to follow us, & to make our selves & our Countrey, a prey by land, as our Ships & goods are made at Sea. We are therefore constrained at this time to come into England, not to make warre, but for seek­ing our relief and preservation.

Duetie obligeth us to love England as our selves: Your grievances are ours; The preserva­tion or ruine of Religion & Liberties, is common to both Nations: We must now stand or fall together. Suffer not therefore malice & calumnie to prevaile so far as to perswade, that we come to make warre, Wee call Heaven and Earth to witnesse, that we are far from such inten­tions, & that we have no purpose to fight, except we be forced, & in our own defence (as we have more fully expressed in our large Declaration) we come to get assurance of the injoying of our Religion & Liberties in peace against invasion: and that the authors of all our grie­vances & yours being tryed in Parliament, & our wrongs redressed, the two Kingdomes may live in greater love & unitie then ever before, which to our common rejoycing, wee may confidently expect from the goodnes of God, if the wicked counsels of Papists, Prelats and other fire-brands their adherents be not more harkned unto, then our true and honest Declarations.

And where it may be conceived, that an Army cannot come into England but they will waste & spoile; We declare, that no Souldiours shall be allowed to commit any out-rage, or do the smallest wrong, but shalbe punished with severity: That we shal take neither meat nor drink, nor any thing else, but for our moneyes: & when our moneyes are spent, for sufficient surety, which by publique order shalbe given to all such as shall furnish us things necessary. We neither have spared, nor will we spare our pains, fortunes, & lyves in this cause of our assurance & your deliverance: & therefore cannot look from any well-affected to trueth & peace, to be either opposed by force & unjust violence in our peaceable passage, or to be dis­couraged by wilfull or uncharitable with-holding of meanes for our sustentation on our way. We are brethren: Your worthy Predecessors at the time of Reformation, vouch­safed us their help & assistance. We have for many yeares lived in love: we have common desires of the purity of Religion and quietnes of both Kingdomes: our hopes are to see better dayes in this Iland: our Enemies also are common: Let us not upon their suggestions or our own apprehensions, be friends to them, & enemies to our selves: We desire nothing but what in the like extreamity (which we pray God your Nation never find) we would most gladly upon the like Declaration grant unto you, comming with your Supplications to the Kings Majestie, were he living amongst us: and what ye would we should doe unto you, we trust ye will be moved to doe even so unto us, that the blessing of GOD may rest upon both.