"The humble petition of Richard Ingle, showing That whereas the petitioner, having taken the covenant, and going out with letters of marque, as Captain of the ship Reformation, of London, and sailing to Maryland, where, finding the Governor of that Province to have received a commission from Oxford to seize upon all ships belonging to London, and to execute a tyrannical power against the Protestants, and such as adhered to the Parliament, and to press wicked oaths upon them, and to endeavor their extirpation, the petitioner, conceiving himself, not only by his warrant, but in his fidelity to the Parliament, to be conscientiously obliged to come to their assistance, did venture his life and fortune in landing his men and assisting the said well affected Protestants against the said tyrannical government and the Papists and malignants. It pleased God to enable him to take divers places from them, and to make him a support to the said well affected. But since his return to England, the said Papists and malignants, conspiring together, have brought fictitious acts against him, at the common law, in the name of Thomas Cornwallis and others for pretended trespass, in taking away their goods, in the parish of St. Christopher's, London, which are the very goods that were by force of war justly and lawfully taken from these wicked Papists and malignants in Maryland, and with which he relieved the poor distressed Protestants there, who otherwise must have starved, and been rooted out. "Now, forasmuch as your Lordships in Parliament of State, by the order annexed, were pleased to direct an ordinance to be framed for the settlement of the said province of Maryland, under the Committee of Plantations, and for the indemnity of the actors in it, and for that such false and feigned actions for matters of war acted in foreign parts, are not tryable at common law, but, if at all, before the Court and Marshall; and for that it would be a dangerous example to permit Papists and malignants to bring actions of trespass or otherwise against the well affected for fighting for the Parliament. "The petitioner most humbly beseecheth your Lordships to be pleased to direct that this business may be heard before your Lordships at the bar, or to refer it to a committee to report the true state of the case and to order that the said suits against the petitioner at the common law may be staid, and no further proceeded in."