had evidently come to Winstanley's knowledge. He had not signed the
foregoing letter, so felt himself at liberty to supplement it by another
and more forcible one, which opens as follows:

"WINSTANLEY'S SECOND LETTER TO LORD FAIRFAX.[124:2]

"TO MY LORD GENERAL AND HIS COUNCIL OF WAR.

"SIR,--I understand that Mr. Parson Platt with some other gentlemen
have made report to you and the Council of State that we that are
called Diggers are a riotous people, and that we will not be ruled
by the Justices, and that we hold a man's house by violence from
him, and that we have four guns in it to secure ourselves, and that
we are drunkards, and Cavaliers waiting an opportunity to bring in
the Prince, and such like. Truly, Sir, these are all untrue
reports, and as false as those which Hamaan of old brought against
sincere-hearted Mordecai to incense king Ahasuerus against him. The
conversation of the Diggers is not such as they report; we are
peaceable men and walk in the light of righteousness to the utmost
of our power."

He then expounds their aims, and justifies their action in the manner
with which our readers will by now be familiar, and continues:

"We know that England cannot be a free Common-wealth, unless all
the poor Commoners have a free use and benefit of the land. For if
this freedom be not granted, we that are the poor commoners are in
a worse case than we were in the King's days; for then we had some
estate about us, though we were under oppression, but now our
estates are spent to purchase freedom, and we are under oppression