By W. W. Ravenhill, Esq. 85 



Major-General Browne threw fresh fuel on the fire by discoursing 

 of his personal grievances, (December, 1649). 



Disbrowe and others followed against or for the reception of the 

 petition. 



Sir A. Hazelrigge was permitted to speak again to the matter of 

 the petition, and he did so warmly in the following words : — 



"The tenderness of liberty is great; specially in times of peace. We have 

 had no war these 7 years. 'Twere a little rebellion, [the Rising in the West] an& 

 some suffered. Blessed be God we have had none since. These men deny that 

 they were ever sentenced, charged, or in arms. Some were acquitted by igno- 

 ramus. These men are now sold into slavery amongst beasts. I could hardly 

 hold from weeping when I heard the petition. 



The Cavaliers case to-day may be the Roundheads to-morrow. Do you not 

 remember the abhorrence of the Parliament of the hanging of a man by Mar- 

 tial Law in the French Expedition [1627]. I am no Cavalier but if our liberties 

 are come to this we have fought fair and caught a frog." 



And after a speaker or two 1 (one of whom told of the sending 

 abroad of two or three thousand protestants — the Dunbar prisoners, 

 1651), General Ludlow said 



" If the man had been in prison, he would not have moved for his liberty. The 

 matter should be referred to a Committee." 



And so the debate went on from hour to hour till " the chair 

 broke through and rose without a question ! " ; but we gather from 

 the above debate, what a wretched life those who went to Barbadoes 

 experienced. Some appear to have been bound by deed to serve for 



1 Clarendon State Papers. Yol. iii., p. 447. 



Mr. Bever to the Lord Chancellor Hyde. 



" The House i6 now upon a petition delivered to them from 50 gentlemen that were sold for slaves 

 to the Barbadoes, by one North that belonged to his late Highness, and the Secretary Thurloe is 

 accused for having a hand in it ; whereupon Mr. Secretary said he had not thought to have lived to 

 this day to see euch a thing as this brought before a Parliament, that was so justly and legally done 

 by lawful authority, and that for reasons of State they must find 200 men, who they had notice were 

 come over. Sir Henry Vane made reply, that he must use his own words, that he did not think to 

 have lived to see the day that freeborn Englishmen (by their own countrymen) should be sold for 

 slaves by such an arbitrary Government. Mr. Secretary presses what he can to possess the House 

 that there is a plot ir» hand, and therefore he would have the Parliament set out an Act of Banish- 

 ment, but as yet it is refused ; and further, he relates that whilst the Cavaliers are petitioning for 

 redress to the House, they are plotting to destroy both His Highness and them; whereupon one 

 made answer, that he did believe that gentleman that spake last, would bring all men under the 

 notion of Cavaliers, that did seek redress for the injuries done them by this arbitrary Government. 



This is all I shall trouble you with at present, but only that I am cordially Sir, 



Yours, &o. 



April 1, 1659." 



(Mr. Bever apparently dives into the anonymous) 



F 2 



