Whereas the good folk of the City had been charged for taxes and tallages above all others in the Commons, and whereas they had lent the King at Durghdreit [Dordrecht] more than £60 000, and many merchants were in arrear and many had delivered more wool than was due owing to the difference between the standard weight at Durghdreit and in England, to their great loss; and whereas they had lent for the King's use at one time £5,000, and, at another £2,000, which had not been repaid; and whereas they had lent for the King's use when before Calais and elsewhere the sum of £40 000, paying the same to Walter of Chiriton and his companions on the security of two patents in the Chancery sealed with the great Seal, and at divers other times more than £30 000, which had not been repaid; and whereas they had been greater charges than others of the Commons in respect of the King's expeditions to Scotland, Gascony, Brabant, Flanders, Brittany, and France, as well as the siege of Calais, and against the Spaniards in providing men-at-arms, archers, and ships in aid of the war; and whereas carriages, victuals, and merchandise, both within the City and without, have been taken by divers purveyors without payment, contrary to the liberties of the City; and whereas by reason of death of the richer inhabitants of the City at the time of the pestilence [the Black Death in 1348-49], and their property having fallen into the hand of the Holy Church, the City had become impoverished and more than one-third of it empty; they pray to take these matters into consideration, as also the manner in which the City had been at all times loyally kept and the peace preserved, thus setting an example to the whole realm.