This letter was laid before the House with a request that it would endeavour to prevent Fairfax quartering his army on the city, thereby enhancing the price of provisions, and this request was acceded to. At the same time a new committee of safety, composed of members of both Houses, was appointed to join the reformed Committee of Militia of the city in taking all necessary steps to secure "the safety of the parliament and the city."(759) The committee established itself at the Guildhall and commenced preparing lists of disbanded officers willing to serve the parliament. (M367) The City in the meantime drafted a reply(760) of its own, and this was despatched to the army on the 12th, after receiving the approval of the House. In it the City disavowed any animosity towards the army. The citizens had only put themselves into a state of defence against unlawful violence. So far were they from opposing the just demands of the army, they had themselves presented a humble address to parliament that these might be granted. If the officers would only keep the army at a distance of thirty miles from London, and so give no occasion for disorder or rise in the price of victuals in the city, it would go far to prove the sincerity of the intentions expressed in their letter. (M368) This letter found the army at St. Albans. The deputation that carried it thither returned with two missives, one addressed to the commissioners of the city of London and the other to the mayor, aldermen and Common Council.(761) In the first Fairfax and the "council of war" declared the utter impossibility of removing the army to a distance of thirty miles from London so long as enlistments were being made in the city and suburbs in addition to the usual trained bands and auxiliaries. A stop must be put to this, otherwise the army would have to take the matter in hand. In the second the officers informed the civic authorities that the movements of the army would greatly depend upon the action parliament took with respect to certain "papers" now to be submitted to it. (M369) By "papers" the writers were referring to a document styled _The Declaration of the Army_, which had that morning been placed in the hands of the parliamentary commissioners to be forwarded to the Lords.(762) This declaration sought to establish the right of the army to speak in the name of the English people, and demanded the banishment from office of all who spoke ill of it. To this was added a further demand, viz., the expulsion from the House of those who had proved themselves unworthy of their seats. This last demand was followed by a formal charge laid in the name of the army against eleven members of the House of Commons (of whom Glyn, the city’s Recorder, was one) of having prejudiced the liberties of the subject, misrepresented the army and raised forces for a new war. (M370)