There is no reason to doubt that Cromwell sympathised with the soldiers in their desire for a just settlement of their claims, whilst he was still disinclined to support them in their design of gaining influence over the Government. When he reached Saffron Walden he found that the infantry regiments had followed the example of the cavalry, and that a body of Agitators had been chosen to represent the whole army. The result of their conferences with the officers was the production of _A Declaration of the Army_, drawn up on May 16, with which Cromwell appears to have been entirely satisfied, as, while it insisted on a redress of practical grievances, it contained no claim to political influence. If the Houses had frankly accepted the situation, Cromwell and his colleagues would have succeeded in averting, at least for a time, the danger of investing the army with political power. On his return Cromwell found signs that the Parliamentary majority was even less inclined to do justice to the soldiers than when he had left Westminster. During his absence, Parliamentary authority to discipline and train the militia of the City had been given to a committee named by the Common Council of London. The Common Council was a Presbyterian body, and its committee proceeded to eject every officer tainted with Independency. The city militia numbered 18,000 men, and it looked as if the majority in Parliament was preparing a force which might be the nucleus of an army to be opposed to the soldiers of Fairfax and Cromwell. In Scotland, too, there was an army of more than 6,000 men, under the command of David Leslie--no inconsiderable general--which might perhaps be brought to the help of the Parliament against its own soldiers, as Leven's army had, three years before, been brought to its assistance against the King. Charles, too, on May 12--Cromwell being still absent from Westminster--had at last replied to the proposals made to him early in the year, and had offered to concede the militia for ten years, and a Presbyterian establishment for three, the clergy being allowed to discuss in the meanwhile the terms of a permanent settlement. In the very probable event of their disagreeing, it would be easy for Charles, at the end of the three years, to contend that episcopacy was again the legal government of the Church--especially as he was at once to return to Westminster, where he would be able to exercise all the influence which would again be at his command. On May 18 this offer was however accepted by the English Presbyterians, as well as by the Scottish Commissioners, as a fair basis of an understanding with the King. No wonder that the soldiers took alarm, or that on the 19th the Agitators issued an appeal to the whole army to hang together in resistance.