Page:Behemoth 1889.djvu/133

 Countries. Whereas the Parliament had a very plentiful contribution, not only from London, but generally from their faction in all other places of England, upon certain propositions (published by the Lords and Commons in June 1642, at what time they had newly voted that the King intended to make war upon them), for bringing in of money or plate to maintain horse and horsemen, and to buy arms for the preservation of the public peace, and for the defence of the King and both Houses of Parliament; for the repayment of which money and plate, they were to have the public faith.

B. What public faith is there, when there is no public? What is it that can be called public, in a civil war, without the King?

A. The truth is, the security was nothing worth, but served well enough to gull those seditious blockheads, that were more fond of change than either of their peace or profit.

Having by this means gotten contributions from those that were the well-affected to their cause, they made use of it afterward to force the like contribution from others. For in November following, they made an ordinance for assessing also of those that had not contributed then, or had contributed, but not proportionably to their estates. And yet this was contrary to what the Parliament promised and declared in the propositions themselves. For they declared, in the first proposition, that no man’s affection should be measured by the proportion of his offer, so that he expressed his good-will to the service in any proportion whatsoever.

Besides this, in the beginning of March following, they made an ordinance, to levy weekly a great sum of money upon every county, city, town, place, and person of any estate almost, in England; which weekly sum (as may appear by the ordinance itself, printed and published in March 1642, by order of both Houses) comes to almost 33,000l., and consequently to above 1,700,000l. for the year. They had, besides all this, the profits of the King’s lands and