[137:1]
"The Lords of Manors have sent to beat us, to pull down our houses,
spoil our labours; yet we are patient, and never offered any
violence to them again these forty weeks past, but wait upon God
with love till their hearts thereby be softened. All that we
desire is but to live quietly in the Land of our Nativity by our
righteous labour upon the Common Land, which is our own; but as yet
the Lords of the Manors, so formerly called, will not suffer us,
but abuse us. Is not that part of the Kingly Power? In that which
follows I shall clearly prove it is; for it appears so clear that
the understanding of a child does say, 'It is tyranny; it is the
Kingly Power of Darkness.' Therefore we expect that you will grant
us the benefit of your Act of Parliament, so that we may say--Truly
England is a Common-wealth, and a Free People indeed."
Winstanley then declares that despite all their trouble and anxiety the
Diggers were still "mightily cheerful," and resolved "to wait upon God
to see what He will do ... taking it a great happiness to be persecuted
for righteousness' sake by the Priests and Professors that are the
successors of Judas and the bitter spirited Pharisees that put the man
Christ to death." He then again advances the reasons on which he bases
the equal claims of all to the use of the earth, denounces the sources
whence the exclusive claims of the few have sprung, more especially the
tyrannical claims of Lords of Manors, boldly claiming that from this
tyranny of man to man England should have been freed by the recent
casting out of kingly power--and continues:
"Therefore I say, the Common Land is my own Land, equal with my
Fellow Commoners; and our true propriety by the Law of Creation.
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