o far to degenerate.

"3. We find in the Scriptures, that the Prophets and Apostles have
left it upon record, That in the last day the oppressor and proud
man shall cease, and God will restore the waste places of the Earth
to the use and comfort of man, and that none shall hurt nor destroy
in all His Holy Mountain.

"4. We have great encouragement from these two righteous Acts,
which the Parliament of England have set forth, the one against
Kingly Power and the other to make England a Free Common-wealth.

"5. We are necessitated from our present necessity to do this, and
we hope that our actions will justify us in the gate, when all men
shall know the truth of our necessity:

"We are in Wellinborrow in one parish 1169 persons that receive
alms, as the Officers have made it appear at the Quarter Sessions
last. We have made our case known to the Justices; the Justices
have given order that the Town should raise a stock to set us on
work, and that the Hundred should be enjoyned to assist them. But
as yet we see nothing is done, nor any man that goeth about it. We
have spent all we have; our trading is decayed; our wives and
children cry for bread; our lives are a burden to us, divers of us
having 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 in family, and we cannot get bread for one of
them by our labor. Rich men's hearts are hardened; they will not
give us if we beg at their doors. If we steal, the Law will end our
lives. Divers of the poor are starved to death already; and it were
better for us that are living to die by the Sword than by the
Famine. And now we consider that the Earth is our Mother; and that
God hath given it to the children of men; and that the Common and
Waste Grounds belong to the poor; and that we have a right to the
common ground both from the Law of the Land, Reason and Scriptures.
Therefore we have begun to bestow our righteous labor upon it, and
we shall trust the Spirit for a blessing upon our labor, resolving
not to dig up any man's propriety until they freely give us it. And
truly we have great comfort already through the goodness of our
God, that some of those rich men amongst us that have had the
greatest profit upon the Common have freely given us their share
in it ... and the country farmers have profered, divers of them, to
give us seed to