To his Highness the Lord Protector the humble petition of the sea-men, belonging to the ships of the Commonwealth of England. This text is an enriched version of the TCP digital transcription A94428 of text R212329 in the English Short Title Catalog (Thomason 669.f.19[33]). Textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. The text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with MorphAdorner. The annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). Textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. This text has not been fully proofread Approx. 4 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-IV TIFF page image. EarlyPrint Project Evanston,IL, Notre Dame, IN, St. Louis, MO 2017 A94428 Wing T1369 Thomason 669.f.19[33] ESTC R212329 99870960 99870960 163371 2240953304

This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A94428) Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 163371) Images scanned from microfilm: (Thomason Tracts ; 246:669f19[33]) To his Highness the Lord Protector the humble petition of the sea-men, belonging to the ships of the Commonwealth of England. 1 sheet ([1] p.) s.n., [London : 1654] Imprint from Wing. Annotation on Thomason copy: "nouemb 4 1654". Reproduction of the original in the British Library. eng Sailors -- England -- Early works to 1800. Great Britain -- History -- Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649-1660 -- Early works to 1800. Great Britain -- History, Naval -- 17th century -- Early works to 1800. A94428 R212329 (Thomason 669.f.19[33]). civilwar no To his Highness the Lord Protector: the humble petition of the sea-men, belonging to the ships of the Commonwealth of England, anon. 1654 1 585 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 A This text has no known defects that were recorded as gap elements at the time of transcription. 2007-06 Assigned for keying and markup 2007-06 Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2007-08 Sampled and proofread 2007-08 Text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 Batch review (QC) and XML conversion
To his Highness the Lord Protector : The Humble Petition of the Sea-men , belonging to the Ships of the Commonwealth of ENGLAND , SHEWETH ,

THat many of your Petitioners have served the Commonwealth of England in the Parliaments service for divers years last past , during the War against the Cavileers , both in England , Scotland and Ireland ; and also , in the late sharp War with the Dutch .

That your Petitioners have been very free in hazarding themselves both at Sea and Land , and have suffered great hardship : divers of your Petitioners fellow-Sea-men having sacrificed themselves ; and some of our limbs are mangled , and blood spilt , especially in those late conflicts with that inraged and powerful Enemy of the Netherlands ; besides great diseases and distempers , sometimes occasioned through bad Victual , which in time of expected service , your Petitioners have been necessitated to ear , their stations being not then quitted .

That the Parliament declared , They intended to maintain and enlarge the Liberties of the free-people of England where infringed : which we were in great hopes of , and the more encouraged to wait and expect , because the Army also often declared for the same .

That your Petitioners notwithstanding continue under very great burthens , being imprested , and haled on board the Commonwealths Ships , turned over and confined there , under a degree of thraldom and bondage , to the utter ruine of some of your Petitioners poor families . That pay appointed them being also detained , sometimes ten , twelve , sixteen , and twenty months from them .

That many of your Petitioners fellow-Sea-men are sent abroad upon forraigne service , since the War with the Dutch , and some numbers more of us are designed abroad , as we hear ; and the rest of us we know not how soon may be either appointed to such service , or turned over to those Ships that are going : and so our Relations will be left in a perishing condition , as divers of those are , that spent themselves in the late Wars .

The Premises considered , your Petitioners humbly pray , That they may be relieved in those grievances , and may reap some fruits of all their bloodshed and hardships , and that they may not be imprested to serve ; they humbly apprehending it to be inconsistent with the Principles of Freedom and Liberty , to force men to serve in Military imployments , either by Sea or Land ; and that your Petitioners may be as free as the Dutch Sea-men , against whom they have been such instruments in the Lord's hand , for the good of their Country ; but that if the Commonwealth have occasion to imploy any of your Petitioners , they may be hired as the Dutch are , and that they or their lawful Attorney may be paid every six months at the furthest ; and that such other incouragements to their Relations may be assured , in case they are slain in the service , as shall be agreeable with justice , & as their necessity calls for : and that all other Liberties and Priviledges due to your Petitioners , as freemen of England , may be granted and secured .

And your Petitioners shall , as there is occasion , faithfully serve and pray .