Plea for George Booth

A PLEA FOR S ^r GEORGE BOOTH, And the Cheshire Gentlemen.

BRIEFLY Stated in a Letter to Sir ARTHUR HESILLRIGGE.

By an unbiassed Friend of Truth and Peace.

TO drive furiously without fear or wit will never render you a good Statesman, and partially to distribut • your acts of justice and of mercy cannot recommend you to the world as a good Christian: If in both you would approve yourself, you ought seriously to weigh, and as one saith, Deliberately taste your words and designs before you can digest and prepare them for action. And to let you know that the Country hath observed your precipitation in the one, and partiality in the other; these lines do now salute you. The Act of Indemnity to the Officers of the Army, and your rigorous proceeding with Sir George Booth, and his Party, do most visibly demonstrate, that you and your fellow-Members, have banished all thoughts of justice or consideration in all your resolutions; and how you will answer it, either at the Court of Heaven, or of the next ensuing Parliament, is past my weak imaginations to conceive; and therefore give me leave (according to my usual plaineness) to present you with my thoughts, in relation to this so unparalleled diversity of your proceedings. And in the first place let me reflect upon Sir George Booth and his Party, and in your language admit them Rebels against you; and were not Fleetwood, Lambert, Desborough, and the rest of the Army Officers so too? And what Logical or rational Statesman can include those within the predicament of passion, and exclude these? 'It is said that the fear of them, was the over-hasty womb, that gave birth unto their Indemnity, and therefore your power over the other hath made you so severe against them; but how unsuitable is this to a true Roman spirit, which delights to make chains and fetters, rather then open and unconquered rebellion, the subject of its mercy. This is the effect of a timorous cowardly soul, the other the most certain product of every truly generous and noble nature. But all this I hint supposing the equality of their crimes, then which nothing can be a more gross and palpable mistake; wherefore Sir if you would deliberate upon these two actions in their authors, and in their ends, and in the circumstances of both, you will find the one a Gnat, the other a Camel, and how you should swallow this and stumble at that, I know no reason, unless it be that of our Savior's to the Pharisees. However now let's compare them, and take a short view of their differences. Sir George Booth and his Party but endeavored and affected to fill up your House with its own (supposed most Legal) Members; The Army-Officers have attempted and effected the subversion of you; or if you will, the one would destroy the part of the body to preserve the major part sound, the other would destroy the part, that we should never hereafter have a whole or part of a Parliament; The one would have perfected you, and made you complete in all your integral parts, the other would not have the least part of a Parliament: In a word, one would have a Parliament but not the minor part thereof, the other (from their hatred of the people's power) abhorred the very name of both; The one were Acted by their Oaths and Covenants to assert, and defend the freedom and privileges of Parliaments; And so their actions may seem to be at most the result of an erring Conscience; The other had no visible impulsive cause, but their own boundless ambition, and insatiable lust after domination; The one would have defended and confirmed, the other would have confounded and subverted all our Laws, Liberties, and Religion; The one were Gentlemen of ancient and considerable Families, and could not better themselves by a War; the other upstarted Mushroms, and could not have risen but by a War; The Estates of the one are the bitter-sweet fruits of cruelty and blood; The Lands of the other the gifts of peaceable Laws and Justice; The one you had provoked by a forcible secluding their Members from their Privileges in Parliament, The other (after your resurrection in May last) you had lately pardoned and after preferred; these were your slaves and servants, Commissionated by your Authority, paid by your Treasuries, and therefore obliged at all times, both day and night to be at your absolute command and obedience, The other free from all such severe obligation, and strict inducements to subjection; The one did rise 150 miles distant from you, hoping that you would consider of a mediation, by a present restoring of them to their most undoubted rights in Parliament, and so have prevented any further mischief; But the other immediately flew at your very faces, and had the confidence of some saucy and rebellious Servants, to take you by the head or throat, and most insolently dragged you out of your own House, and shut your own doors against you, their Sovereign Lord's and Masters: Lastly, The one were and (I dare say) still are most universally beloved and esteemed the true (though unfortunate) Patriots, of their Countries, Laws, and Liberties; The other the very butt or mark against which all true English men do direct and level the Arrows of their hatred and most just deserved indignation. Sir, weigh seriously all these but hinted considerations, and enlarge them in your own more judicious thoughts; And then let me ask you, whether any prudence, reason, or conscience, can honourably persuade you, to affront the whole interest of this English Nation, by ruining their friends and pardoning their enemies: And how shall the people believe, that you will ever trust the Governement in them by succeeding Parliaments, if thus you heighten and enrage their spirits against you. Sir, Be you confident that never any kept his interest from sinking by swimming against the stream; Nor was there any that advantaged himself by a Diametricall opposition to the general humor or genious of the people: And therefore it hath been the prudence of Antiquity, even in full Parliaments themselves, to sedate and compose the spirits of the Nation, rather by a favorable compliance with them, then by an express and open contradiction unto them: Hence it is you have a Parliament Roll styled Rotulum Contrarientium, The reason whereof was, because Thomas Earl of Lancaster (a man singularly beloved) taking part with the Barons against King Edward the second, in hatred of the Spencers: It was not thought safe for the King, in respect of their power and interest in the affections of the people, to name them Rebels and Traitors but Contrarientes. True it is, he that despiseth the people's power knows not his own weakness, and therefore by the neglect of the one and ignorance of the other, suddenly makes himself obnoxious to the miseries of a popular rage and confusion. To conclude then, if it be impossible to have any succeeding Parliaments (though the Royalist be excluded therefrom) that will approve and confirm this your late Act concerning Sir George Booth and his Party (the possibility or impossibility whereof I leave to your own thoughts.) Is it not prudence to look before you leap? and to ground your actions upon the popular interest, and not upon any particular faction; which (like an Ignis fatuus) the contrary winds of private Parties, will easily tumble and toss with a perpetual agitation and inconstancy: Whereas the brightness of a true public interest, will keep its native splendor and glory, maugre all those clouds and storms of opposition, which the blustering spirits of private and partial concernments can raise either to eclipse or weaken it; the undoubted experience whereof, the revolution of a few months, will I hope demonstrate unto as well yourself as unto