. And truly this is a
stain to Christian religion in England [a stain not yet removed]
that we have so much land lie waste and so many starve for want.
Further, if this freedom be granted, the whole Land will be united
in love and strength, that if a foreign enemy, like an army of rats
and mice, come to take our inheritance from us, we shall all rise
as one man to defend it.

"Then, lastly, if you will grant the poor commoners this quiet
freedom to improve the common land for our livelihood, we shall
rejoice in you and the Army in protecting our work, and we and our
work will be ready to secure that, and we hope that there will not
be any kingly power over us, to rule at will and we to be slaves,
as the power has been, but that you will rule in love as Moses and
Joshua did the children of Israel before any kingly power came in,
and that the Parliament will be as the elders of Israel, chosen
freely by the people to advise for and to assist both you and us.

"And thus in the name of the rest of those called Diggers and
Commoners through the land, I have in short declared our mind and
cause to you in the light of righteousness, which will prove all
these reports made against us to be false and destructive to the
uniting of England into peace.

"Per me Gerrard Winstanley, for myself and in the behalf of my
fellow commoners.

"_December the 8th, 1649._"

Amongst Winstanley's disciples was one Robert Coster, who appears to
have been the poet of the Digger Movement, and the next pamphlet which
issued from their camp, on December 18th, some ten days after the date
affixed to the above vigorous letter, was from his pen. It is entitled:

"_A Mite cast into the Common Treasury_:[126:1] Or Queries
propounded (for all Men to consider of) by him who desireth to
advance the work of Public Community. By Robert Coster."

In it Coster first recapitulates Winstanley's main arguments and
contentions, and then shows that he for one fully realised their
far-reaching scope, by indicating their probable effects in the
following words:

"As, 1. If men would do as aforesaid rather than to go with cap in
hand and bended knee to Gentlemen and Farmers, begging and
entreating to work with them for 8d. or 10d. a day, which doth give
them an occasion to tyrannise over poor people, who are their