The issue of the committee left at Derby was a petition to Parliament in the name of "the Officers under the command of the Right Honourable the Lord Lambert in the late northern expedition." The petition was to be presented to Parliament when fully signed; but meanwhile a copy of it was sent up to Colonel Ashfield, Colonel Cobbet, and Lieutenant-Colonel Duckinfield, then in London, to be given, with a letter, to Fleetwood as Commander-in-chief, that so it might be brought before the General Council of Officers.

On the 22nd the House, having heard of the nature of the Petition, required that the original document should be forthcoming for inspection, and that Fleetwood should at once produce his copy.

The copy sufficed for all purposes of information.

The Petition consisted of a Preamble and five Articles.

It was full of a spirit of dissatisfaction, with complaints of the prevalence everywhere of "apostates, malignants, and neuters"; but its specific demands were two.