Oppression, but reserve some part of the Kingly Power to advance their own particular interest, whereby some of their friends are left under as great slavery to them as they were under the Kings, those Officers are not faithful Commonwealth’s Soldiers, they are worse Thieves and Tyrants than the Kings they cast out, and that Honor they seemed to get by their Victories over the Commonwealth’s Oppressor, they lose again by breaking Promise and Engagement to their oppressed friends who did assist them.

“For what difference is there between a professed Tyrant, who declares himself a Tyrant in words, laws and deeds, as all Conquerors do, and him who promises to free me from the power of the Tyrant if I’ll assist him; and when I have spent my estate and blood, and the health of my body, and expect my bargain by his engagements to me, he sits himself down in the Tyrant’s Chair, and takes the possession of the Land to himself, and calls it his and none of mine, and tells me he cannot in conscience let me enjoy the Freedom of the Earth with him, because it is another man’s right.”

HIS ACCOUNT OF HIS OWN CIRCUMSTANCES.

“And now my health and estate is decayed and I grow in age, I must either beg or work for day-wages, which I was never brought up to, for another; when the Earth is as freely my Inheritance and Birth-Right as his whom I must work for.  And if I cannot live by my weak labors, but take where I need, as Christ sent and took the Asses Colt in his need, there is no dispute, but by the Kings and Laws, he will hang me for a thief.”

THE TRUE FUNCTION OF A COMMONWEALTH ARMY.

“A Monarchial Army lifts up mountains and makes valleys, viz., advances Tyrants and treads the oppressed in the barren lanes of poverty.  But a Commonwealth’s Army is like John the Baptist, who levels the Mountains to the Valleys, pulls down the Tyrant, and lifts up the Oppressed:  and so makes way for the Spirit of Peace and Freedom to come in to rule and inherit the Earth.

     “By this which has been spoken an Army may see wherein they may do
     well and wherein they may do hurt.”

THE OFFICE OF THE POST-MASTER.

Under this heading Winstanley describes an office by which he evidently thought the social bonds uniting the whole Nation might be strengthened and all parts thereof be brought into closer and more intimate relations one with the other.  He describes its functions as follows: 

“In every Parish throughout the Commonwealth shall be chosen two men (at the time when the other Officers are chosen), and these shall be called Post-Masters.  And whereas there are four parts of the Land, East, West, North, South, there shall be chosen in the chief City two men to receive what the Post-Master of the East Country brings in”; and so on.