"Yet notwithstanding, there be three men (called by the people
Lords of Manors), viz., Thomas Lord Wenman, Ralph Verney Knight,
and Richard Winwood Esq., have arrested us for a trespass in
digging upon the Commons, and upon the arrest we made our
appearance in Kingstone Court, where we understood we were arrested
for meddling with other men's rights; and, secondly, they were
encouraged to arrest us upon your Act of Parliament (as they tell
us) to maintain the old laws. We desired to plead our own cause,
the Court denied us, and to fee a lawyer we cannot, for divers
reasons, as we may show hereafter.
"Now, Sirs, our case is this, for we appeal to you, for you are the
only men that we are to deal withal in this business: Whether the
common people, after all their taxes, free-quarter and loss of
blood to recover England from under the Norman yoke, shall have the
freedom to improve the Commons and Waste Lands free to themselves,
as freely their own as the Enclosures are the propriety of the
elder brothers? Or whether the Lords of Manors shall have them,
according to their old custom, from the King's will and grant, and
so remain Task Masters still over us, which was the people's
slavery under conquest?
"We have made our appeal to you to settle this matter in the Equity
and Reason of it, and to pass the sentence of freedom to us, you
being the men with whom we have to do in this business, in whose
hands there is power to settle it, for no Court can end this
controversy but your Court of Parliament, as the case of this
Nation now stands.
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