“And you, great Officers of the Army and Parliament, love your common Soldiers (I plead for Equity and Reason) and do not force them, by long delay of payment, to sell you their dearly bought Debentures for a thing of nought, and then to go and buy our Common Land, and Crown Land, and other Land that is the spoil, one of another therewith.  Remember you are Servants to the Commons of England, and you were volunteers in the Wars, and the Common People have paid you for your pains largely....  As soon as you have freed the Earth from one entanglement of Kingly Power, will you entangle it more?  I pray you consider what you do, and do righteously.  We that are the Poor Commons, that paid our money and gave you free-quarter, have as much right in those Crown Lands and Lands of the spoil as you.  Therefore we give no consent that you should buy and sell our Crown Lands and Waste Lands; for it is our purchased inheritance from under oppression! it is our own, even the poor Common People’s of England....  We paid you your wages to help us recover it, but not to take it yourselves and turn us out, and to buy and sell it among yourselves....  If you do so, you uphold the Kingly Power, and so disobey both Acts of Parliament, and break your Oath; and you will live in the breach of these two commandments, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, by denying us the Earth which is our livelihood, and thereby killing us by a lingering death.”

Winstanley then summarises his contentions, as follows: 

“Well, the end of all my speech is to point out the Kingly Power where I spy it out.  And you see it remains strongly in the hands of Lords of Manors, who have dealt so discourteously with some who are sincere in heart, though there have some come among the Diggers that have caused scandal, but we disown their ways.[137:1]

“The Lords of Manors have sent to beat us, to pull down our houses, spoil our labours; yet we are patient, and never offered any violence to them again these forty weeks past, but wait upon God with love till their hearts thereby be softened.  All that we desire is but to live quietly in the Land of our Nativity by our righteous labour upon the Common Land, which is our own; but as yet the Lords of the Manors, so formerly called, will not suffer us, but abuse us.  Is not that part of the Kingly Power?  In that which follows I shall clearly prove it is; for it appears so clear that the understanding of a child does say, ’It is tyranny; it is the Kingly Power of Darkness.’  Therefore we expect that you will grant us the benefit of your Act of Parliament, so that we may say—­Truly England is a Common-wealth, and a Free People indeed.”

Winstanley then declares that despite all their trouble and anxiety the Diggers were still “mightily cheerful,” and resolved “to wait upon God to see what He will do ... taking it a great happiness to be persecuted for righteousness’ sake by