“Now, Sirs, our case is this, for we appeal to you, for you are the only men that we are to deal withal in this business:  Whether the common people, after all their taxes, free-quarter and loss of blood to recover England from under the Norman yoke, shall have the freedom to improve the Commons and Waste Lands free to themselves, as freely their own as the Enclosures are the propriety of the elder brothers?  Or whether the Lords of Manors shall have them, according to their old custom, from the King’s will and grant, and so remain Task Masters still over us, which was the people’s slavery under conquest?

“We have made our appeal to you to settle this matter in the Equity and Reason of it, and to pass the sentence of freedom to us, you being the men with whom we have to do in this business, in whose hands there is power to settle it, for no Court can end this controversy but your Court of Parliament, as the case of this Nation now stands.”

After emphasising his fundamental contention that in Equity and by the Law of Righteousness all should have the freedom of the Earth granted unto them, he summarises the causes that have conspired to place the Members of the House of Commons in power, as follows: 

“You of the Gentry, as well as we of the Commonalty, all groaned under the burden of the bad government and burdening laws of the late King Charles, who was the last successor of William the Conqueror.  You and we cried for a Parliament, and a Parliament was called, and wars, you know, presently began between the king that represented William the Conqueror and the body of the English people that were enslaved.  We looked upon you to be our Chief Council to agitate business for us, though you were summonsed by the king’s writ, and choosen by the Freeholders, who are the successors of William the Conqueror’s soldiers.  You saw the danger so great that without a war England was likely to be more enslaved, therefore you called upon us to assist you with plate, taxes, free-quarter and our persons:  and you promised us, in the name of the Almighty, to make us a Free People.  Thereupon you and we took the National Covenant with joint consent, to endeavour the freedom, peace, and safety of the people of England.  And you and we joined person and purse together in the common cause, and Will. the Conqueror’s successor, which was Charles, was cast out; thereby we have recovered ourselves from under that Norman yoke.  And now unless you and we be merely besotted with covetousness, pride and slavish fear of men, it is and will be our wisdom to cast out all those enslaving laws which was the tyrannical power the king pressed us down by.[108:1] O shut not your eyes against the light; darken not knowledge by dispute about particular men’s privileges, when Universal Freedom is brought to be tried before you; dispute no further when truth appears, but be silent and practice it.  Stop not your ears against the secret moanings of the oppressed, under these expressions, lest the Lord see it and be offended, and shut His eyes against your cries, and work a deliverance for His waiting people some other way than by you.”

He then summarises the prevailing ills, and indicates their manifest and immediate duty, as follows: