of members which it would see carried into execution. The
answer concluded by again acknowledging the obligation that parliament was
under to the City for spending its blood and treasure for the public good,
which the House would ever have in remembrance and would endeavour to
requite.

(M299)

Just as matters were coming to a dead-lock the crisis was averted by the
happy thought of reviving an old ordinance which had already received the
sanction of the Lords, but had hitherto been ignored and laid aside by the
Commons. This ordinance, which proposed to confer unlimited powers on the
committee, was now taken up and passed by the Commons, and thus the old
committee was enabled to meet on the 24th May and continue its work.(644)

(M300)

Parliament was still sadly in need of money, and on the 27th May appointed
a committee, of which the Recorder and one or two of the city aldermen
were members, to consider how best to raise it, "either by particular
securities or companies, or other particular persons beyond seas, or by
mortgaging of any lands, or by putting to sale sequestered lands."(645)
The civil war appeared to be approaching a crisis. The town of Abingdon
had recently been abandoned by the royalists and occupied by Essex, whilst
Waller was advancing in the direction of Wantage, to gain, if possible, a
passage over the Thames above Oxford, and thus cut off Charles from the
west of England. Both generals sent notice of their movements to
parliament, and on the 28th their letters (or an abstract of them) were
read before the Common Council by a deputation of the recently appointed
committee, and a request was made that the City would furnish the House
with a sum of L200,000 or L300,000 upon the security of the estates of
delinquents. Notwithstanding the difficulty the City was then experiencing
in getting in the arrears of the monthly assessment and the weekly meal
account, it at once took steps to carry out the wishes of parliament.(646)

(M301)

For some time past a royalist garrison in Greenland House, near Henley,
had caused considerable annoyance to the country round about it, and had
cut off all communication by way of the Thames between London and the
west. On the 5th June the Common Council was asked to furnish one or more
regiments to assist in reducing the garrison.(647) The council was the
more willing to accede to this request for the reason that the force was
to be placed under the command of a cit