In the spring of 1650 an attempt was made to extend the digging propaganda--for the planting of St. George’s Hill was doomed--and some of Winstanley’s disciples made a tour through the counties of Middlesex, Bedford, Hertford, Huntingdon, and Northampton, settling down at last on some waste ground near Wellingborough. Here they were very soon arrested by a local justice of the peace, the Council of State ordered their prosecution, and the movement was suppressed. To the Council of State these Diggers were “Levellers,”[127] “intruders upon other men’s properties,” “seditious and tumultuous,” against whom the public peace must be preserved. Of Winstanley’s future, when the days of the digging were over, nothing seems to be known. Only one pamphlet is issued by him after 1650--“The Law of Freedom in a Platform; or, True Magistracy Restored”--an open letter to Oliver Cromwell, February, 1652. With this final manifesto on the land question, and on the whole social question, as he saw it, Gerrard Winstanley disappears from history. In the multitude of prophets and preachers, visionaries and practical reformers of the Commonwealth, Winstanley is little heeded by his contemporaries. The importance of his mission is seen more clearly to-day, when statesmen, politicians, and philanthropists all urge agrarian changes and the excellence of land culture. As to Winstanley’s claim on behalf of the people to the common lands, the advantage of possession of these lands was realized by the landowners in the eighteenth century, and from 1760 to 1830 more than a thousand acts of parliament were passed for enclosing these lands.[128] In “The Diggers Song,” (of unknown authorship[129]), the outlook of Winstanley and his followers is expressed in popular form: You noble Diggers all, stand up now, stand up now, You noble Diggers all, stand up now, The waste land to maintain, seeing Cavaliers by name, Your digging do disdain; and persons all defame. Stand up now, stand up now. Your houses they pull down, stand up now, stand up now, Your houses they pull down, stand up now; Your houses they pull down to fright poor men in town, But the Gentry must come down, and the poor shall wear the crown. Stand up now, Diggers all! With spades, and hoes, and plowes, stand up now, stand up now, With spades, and hoes, and plowes, stand up now; Your freedom to uphold, seeing Cavaliers are bold To kill you if they could, and rights from you withhold. Stand up now, Diggers all! Their self-will is their law, stand up now, stand up now, Their self-will is their law, stand up now; Since tyranny came in, they count it now no sin To make a gaol a gin, to starve poor men therein. Stand up now, stand up now.