day following, before there
was any trial of our cause, for there was none suffered to speak
but the Plaintiff, they passed a judgement, and after that an
execution. Now their Jury was made of rich Freeholders, and such as
stand strongly for the Norman power. And though our digging upon
that barren Common hath done the Common good, yet this Jury brings
in damages of L10 a man, and the charges of the Plaintiff in their
Court, twenty-nine shillings and a penny: and this was their
sentence and the passing of the execution upon us."

Winstanley then mentions one instance descriptive of the way he and his
comrades were "boycotted" by his neighbours, and of the men responsible
therefor. He says:

"Before the report of our digging was much known, I bought three
acres of grass from a Lord of the Manor, whom I will not here name
because I know the counsel of others made him prove false to me.
For when the time came to mow, I brought money to pay him
beforehand, but he answered me that I should not have it, and sold
it to another before my face. This was because his Parish Priest
and the Surrey Ministers have bid the people neither to buy nor to
sell us, but to beat us, imprison us, or to banish us."

He then relates that two days later "they sent to execute the execution,
and they put Harry Bickerstaffe in prison, but after three days Mr.
Drake released him again, Bickerstaffe not knowing of it till the
release came. They seek after Thomas Star to imprison his body, who is
a poor man, not worth ten pounds." He continues:

"Then they came privately by day to Gerrard Winstanley's house and
drove away four cows, I not knowing of it. They took away the cows
which were my livelihood, and beat them with their clubs that the
cows' heads and sides did swell, which grieved tender hearts to
see. And yet," he pathetically but somewhat humourously adds,
"these cows never were upon George Hill, nor never digged upon that
ground, and yet the poor beasts must suffer because they gave milk
to feed me. But strangers made rescue of those cows, and drove them
astray out of the Bailiffs' hands, so that the Bailiffs lost them.
But before the Bailiffs had lost the cows, I, hearing of it, went
to them and said--'Here is my body, take me, that I may speak to
those Normans that have stolen our land from us; and l