resolved that the several regiments should be disbanded on the receipt of a small portion of their arrears.  This vote was scarcely past, when a deputation from the agitators presented to the Commons a defence of the remonstrance.  They maintained that by becoming soldiers they had not lost the rights of subjects; that by purchasing the freedom of others, they had not forfeited their own; that what had been granted to the adversaries of the commonwealth, and to the officers in the armies of Essex and Waller, could not in justice be refused to them; and that, as without the liberty of petitioning, grievances are without remedy, they ought to be allowed to petition now in what regarded them as soldiers, no less than afterwards in what might regard them as citizens.  At the same time the agitators addressed to Fairfax and the other general officers a letter complaining of their wrongs, stating their resolution to obtain redress, and describing the expedition to Ireland as a mere pretext to separate the soldiers from those officers to whom they were attached, “a cloak to the ambition of men who having lately tasted of sovereignty, and been lifted beyond their ordinary sphere of servants, sought to become masters, and degenerate into tyrants.”  The tone of these papers excited alarm; and Cromwell, Skippon, Ireton, and Fleetwood were[a] ordered to repair to their regiments, and assure them that ordinances of indemnity should be passed, that their arrears should be audited, and that a considerable payment should be made previous to their dismissal from the service.[b] When these officers announced, in the words of the parliamentary order, that they were come to quiet “the distempers in the army,” the councils replied, that they knew of no[b]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1647.  April 30.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1647.  May 8.]

distempers, but of many grievances, and that of these they demanded immediate redress.[1]

Whitelock, with his friends, earnestly deprecated a course of proceeding which he foresaw must end in defeat; but his efforts were frustrated by the inflexibility or violence of Holles, Stapleton, and Glyn, the leaders of the ruling party, who, though they condescended to pass[a] the ordinance of indemnity, and to issue[b] money for the payment of the arrears of eight weeks, procured[c] instructions for the lord general to collect the several regiments in their respective quarters, and to disband them without delay.  Instead of obeying, he called together the council of officers, who resolved, in answer to a petition to them from the agitators, that the votes of parliament were not satisfactory; that the arrears of payment for eight weeks formed but a portion of their just claim, and that no security had been given for the discharge of the remainder; that the bill of indemnity was a delusion, as long as the vote declaring them enemies of the state was unrepealed; and that, instead of suffering themselves to be disbanded in their separate