But
as yet we see nothing is done, nor any man that goeth about it. We
have spent all we have; our trading is decayed; our wives and
children cry for bread; our lives are a burden to us, divers of us
having 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 in family, and we cannot get bread for one of
them by our labor. Rich men's hearts are hardened; they will not
give us if we beg at their doors. If we steal, the Law will end our
lives. Divers of the poor are starved to death already; and it were
better for us that are living to die by the Sword than by the
Famine. And now we consider that the Earth is our Mother; and that
God hath given it to the children of men; and that the Common and
Waste Grounds belong to the poor; and that we have a right to the
common ground both from the Law of the Land, Reason and Scriptures.
Therefore we have begun to bestow our righteous labor upon it, and
we shall trust the Spirit for a blessing upon our labor, resolving
not to dig up any man's propriety until they freely give us it. And
truly we have great comfort already through the goodness of our
God, that some of those rich men amongst us that have had the
greatest profit upon the Common have freely given us their share
in it ... and the country farmers have profered, divers of them, to
give us seed to sow it; and so we find that God is persuading
Japhet to dwell in the tents of Shem.
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