Confident, however, in their own power, the majority in the house[a]
[Footnote 1: Hobbes, Behemoth, 587. Berkeley, 359. This, however, was not
the first appearance of the agitators. "The first time," says Fairfax, "I
took notice of them was at Nottingham (end of February), by the soldiers
meeting to frame a petition to the parliament about their arrears. The
thing seemed just; but not liking the way, I spoke with some officers
who were principally engaged in it, and got it suppressed for that
time."--Short Memorials of Thomas Lord Fairfax, written by himself.
Somers's Tracts, v. 392. Maseres, 446.]
[Footnote 2: Several bodies of troops in the distant counties had been
disbanded; but the army under Fairfax, by enlisting volunteers from both
parties, royalists as well as parliamentarians, was gradually increased by
several thousand men, and the burthen of supporting it was doubled.--See
Journals, ix. 559-583.]
[Sidebar a: A.D. 1647. April 27.]
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.
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