"_Fourthly_, You have granted a judgement against us, and are proceeding to an execution, and this is contrary likewise to your own laws, which say that no plaint ought to be received or judgement passed, till the cause be heard, and witnesses present, to testify the plaint to be true, as Sir Edward Coke, 2nd part of Institutes upon the 29 chap. of Magna Charta, fol. 51-53. The Mirror of Justice." Then, as if ashamed of appealing to mere conventional man-made Laws, he at once acknowledges what he and his comrades have done, and justifies their action in the following dignified words: "But that all men may see that we are neither ashamed nor afraid to justify that cause we are arrested for, neither to refuse to answer to it in a righteous way, therefore we have here delivered this up in writing, and we leave it in your hands, disavowing the proceedings of your Court, because you uphold prerogative oppression, though the kingly office be taken away, and the Parliament hath declared England a Common-wealth, so that prerogative cannot be in force, unless you be besotted by your covetousness and envy. "We deny that we have trespassed against those three men, or Mr. Drake either, or that we should trespass against any, if we should dig up and plough for a livelihood upon any of the waste land in England. For thereby we break no particular Law made by any Act of Parliament, but only an ancient custom bred in the strength of kingly prerogative, which is that old Law or Custom by which Lords of Manors lay claim to the Commons, which is of no force now to bind the people of England, since the kingly power and office was cast out. And the Common People who have cast out the oppressor, by their purse and person, have not authorised any as yet to give away from them their purchased freedom; and if any assume a power to give away or withhold this purchased freedom, they are Traitors to this Common-wealth of England; and if they imprison, oppress, or put to death any for standing to maintain this purchased freedom, they are murderers and thieves, and no just rulers. "Therefore in the light of Reason and Equity, and in the light of the National Covenant which Parliament and People have taken with joint consent, all such prerogative customs, which by experience we have found to burden the Nation, ought to be cast out with the kingly office, and the Land of England now ought to be a Free Land and a Common Treasury to all her children, otherwise it cannot properly be called a Common-wealth." He then continues: