“Do these men obey the Parliament’s Acts, to throw down Kingly Power? O no! The same unrighteous doing that was complained of in King Charles’ days, the same doing is among them still. Money will buy and sell Justice still. And is our eight years’ war come round about to lay us down again in the Kennel of Injustice as much or more than before? Are we no farther learned yet? O ye Rulers of England, when must we turn over a new leaf? Will you always hold us in one lesson? Surely you will make Dunces of us; then all the Boys in other Lands will laugh at us! Come, I pray, let us take forth and go forward in our learning!”
Winstanley’s zeal for the cause he had espoused was, however, too real to allow him to continue long in this strain, so he immediately adopts a more persuasive tone, as follows:
“You blame us who are the Common People as though we would have no government. Truly, Gentlemen, we desire a righteous government with all our hearts. But the Government we have gives freedom and livelihood to the Gentry, to have abundance, and to lock up Treasures of the Earth from the Poor; so that rich men may have chests full of gold and silver, and houses full of corn and goods to look upon, while the Poor who work to get it can hardly live; and if they cannot work like slaves, then they must starve. Thus the Law gives all the Land to some part of mankind, whose predecessors got it by conquest, and denies it to others, who by the Righteous Law of Creation may claim an equal portion. And yet you say this is a Righteous Government, but surely it is no other than selfishness.”
His indignation again gets the mastery of him, and he continues bitterly:
“England is a prison; the varieties of subtilties in the Laws preserved by the Sword are the bolts, bars and doors of the prison; the Lawyers are the Jailers; and Poor Men are the prisoners. For let a man fall into the hands of any, from the Bailiff to the Judge, and he is either undone or weary of his life. Surely this power, the Law, which is the great Idol that people dote upon, is the burden of the Creation, a nursery of idleness, luxury and cheating, the only enemy of Christ, the King of Righteousness! For though it pretends Justice, yet the Judges and Law Officers buy and sell Justice for money, and say it is my calling, and never are troubled at it.”
He then makes the following manly appeal to his persecutors:
“You Gentlemen of Surrey, and Lords of Manors, and you Mr. Parson Platt especially ... my advice to you is this, hereafter to lie still and cherish the Diggers, for they love you and would not have your finger ache if they could help it, then why should you be so bitter against them? O let them live beside you. Some of them have been Soldiers, and some Countrymen that were always friends to the Parliament’s cause, by whose hardships and means you enjoy the creatures about you in peace. And will you now destroy part of them that have preserved your lives? O do not do so; be not so besotted with the Kingly Power.... Bid them go and plant the Commons. This will be your honor and your comfort; for assure yourselves that you can never have true comfort till you be friends with the Poor. Therefore, come, come, love the Diggers, make restitution of their land you hold from them; for what would you do if you had not such laboring men to work for you?”
A pertinent question, truly, and one which those whom he addressed, as well as those who are to-day in their places, would find it somewhat inconvenient to answer.
He then appeals to the Officers of the Army in the following bold and manly words:
“And you, great Officers of the Army and Parliament, love your common Soldiers (I plead for Equity and Reason) and do not force them, by long delay of payment, to sell you their dearly bought Debentures for a thing of nought, and then to go and buy our Common Land, and Crown Land, and other Land that is the spoil, one of another therewith. Remember you are Servants to the Commons of England, and you were volunteers in the Wars, and the Common People have paid you for your pains largely.... As soon as you have freed the Earth from one entanglement of Kingly Power, will you entangle it more? I pray you consider what you do, and do righteously. We that are the Poor Commons, that paid our money and gave you free-quarter, have as much right in those Crown Lands and Lands of the spoil as you. Therefore we give no consent that you should buy and sell our Crown Lands and Waste Lands; for it is our purchased inheritance from under oppression! it is our own, even the poor Common People’s of England.... We paid you your wages to help us recover it, but not to take it yourselves and turn us out, and to buy and sell it among yourselves.... If you do so, you uphold the Kingly Power, and so disobey both Acts of Parliament, and break your Oath; and you will live in the breach of these two commandments, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, by denying us the Earth which is our livelihood, and thereby killing us by a lingering death.”