to flag and drop: Therefore if the hearts
of any be stirred up to drop anything into this Treasury,
to buy victuals to keep the men alive, and to
buy Corn to cast into the ground, it will keep
alive the Spirit of Public Freedom to the whole
Land, which otherwise is ready to die again for want
of help. And if you hear hereafter that
there was a people appeared to stand up to advance
Public Freedom, and struggled with the Opposing Power
of the Land, for that they begin to let them alone,
and yet these men and their public work were
crushed, because they wanted assistance of food
and corn to keep them alive: I say, if you hear
this, it will be trouble to you when it is too
late, that you had monies in your hand, and would
not part with any of it to purchase Freedom,
therefore you deservedly groan under Tyranny, and no
Saviour appears. But let your Reason weigh
the excellency of this work, and I am sure you
will cast in something.
“And because there were some treacherous persons drew up a note and subscribed our names to it, and by that moved some friends to give money to this work of ours, when as we know of no such note, nor subscribed our names to any, nor ever received any money from such collection. Therefore to prevent such a cheat, I have mentioned a word or two in the end of a printed book against that treachery, that neither we nor our friends may be cheated. And I desire if any be willing to communicate of their substance unto our work, that they would make a collection among themselves, and send that money to Cobham to the Diggers’ own hands, by some trusty friend of your own, and so neither you nor we shall be cheated.
“The Bearers hereof,
Thomas Haydon and Adam Knight, can relate by
word of mouth more largely
the condition of the Diggers and their
work, and so we leave
this to you to do as you are moved.
“Jacob Heard, Jo. South junior, Henry Barton, Tho. Barnard, Tho. Adams, Will Hitchcocke, Anthony Wren, Robert Draper, William Smith, Robert Coster, Gerrard Winstanley, Jo. South, Tho. Heydon, Jo. Palmer, Tho. South, Henry Handcocke, Jo. Batt, Dan Ireland, Jo. Hayman, Robert Sawyer, Tho. Starre, Tho. Edcer, besides their wives and families, and many more if there were food for them.”
Then follows this detailed account of their travels:
“A COPY OF THEIR TRAVELS,
that was taken with the four men at
Wellingborow.
“Out of Buckinghamshire into Surrey; from Surrey to Middlesex, from thence to Hartfordshire, to Bedfordshire, again to Buckinghamshire, so to Berkshire, and then to Surrey, thence to Middlesex, and so to Hartfordshire, and to Bedfordshire, thence into Huntingdonshire, from thence to Bedfordshire, and so into Northamptonshire, and there they were apprehended.
“They visited these towns to promote the business: Colebrook,
Hanworth, Hounslow, Harrowhill, Watford, Redburn,