The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 345 pages of information about The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth.

The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 345 pages of information about The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth.

20.  The waiters in Storehouses shall deliver the goods in their charge without receiving any money, as they shall receive in their goods without paying any money.

21.  If any waiter in a Storehouse neglect his Office, upon a just complaint, the Overseers shall acquaint the Judge’s Court therewith; and from thence he shall receive his sentence, to be discharged that house and office, to be appointed some other work under the Task-master; and another shall have his place.  For he who may live in Freedom and will not, is to taste of servitude.

LAWS FOR OVERSEERS.

22.  The only work of every Overseer is to see the Laws executed.  For the Law is the True Magistracy of the land.

23.  If any Overseer favour any in their idleness and neglect the execution of the Laws, he shall be reproved, the first time by the Judge’s Court; the second time cashiered his Office, and shall never bear Office more, but fall back into the ranks of young people and servants to be a worker.

24.  New Overseers, at their first entrance into their office, shall look back upon the actions of the Old Overseers of the last year, to see if they have been faithful in their places, and consented to no breach of Law, whereby Kingly Bondage should in any way be brought in.

25.  The Overseers for Trades shall see every Family to lend assistance to plant and reap the fruits of the Earth, to work in their Trades, and to furnish the Storehouses.  And to see that the Waiters in Storehouses be diligent to receive in and deliver out any goods, without buying and selling, to any man whatsoever.

26.  While any Overseer is in performance of his place, every one shall assist him, upon pain of open reproof (or cashiered if he be another Officer) or forfeiture of freedom, according to the nature of the business in hand, in which he refused his assistance.

LAWS AGAINST BUYING AND SELLING.

27.  If any man entice another to buy and sell, and he who is enticed does not yield, but makes it known to the Overseer, the enticer shall lose his freedom for twelve months, and the Overseer shall give words of commendation of him that refused the enticement before all the Congregation, for his faithfulness to the Commonwealth’s Peace.

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN!

28.  If any do buy and sell the Earth, or the fruits thereof, unless it be to or with strangers of another Nation, according to the Law of Navigation, they shall be both put to death as Traitors to the Peace of the Commonwealth.  Because it brings in Kingly Bondage again, and is the occasion of all quarrels and oppressions.

29.  He, or she, who calls the Earth his, and not his brother’s, shall be set upon a stool, with those words written in his forehead, before all the Congregation, and afterwards be made a Servant for twelve months under the Task-master.  If he quarrel, or seek by secret persuasion or open rising in arms to set up such a Kingly Propriety, he shall be put to death.

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The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.