Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
Enclosers; that pretend a distinction of possessions, a preservation of woods, indeed to make better and broader their own territories, and to steal from the poor commons; these are horrible thieves.
The poor man’s beast is his maintenance, his sustenance, his life, to take food from his beast, is to take the beasts food from his belly: so he that incloseth Commons is a monstrous thief, for he steals away the poor man’s living and life; hence many a Cottager, nay perhaps Farmer, is fain (as the Indians do to Devils) to sacrifice to the lord of the soil, a yearly bribe for a nenoceat.
For though the law forbids such enclosures: yet (quod fieri non debet, factum valet) when they are once ditched in, say the law what it will, I see no throwing out: force bears out, what fraud hath borne in: let them never open their mouths to plead the Common-wealth’s benefit: they intend it as much as Judas did, when he spake for the poor: no, they are thieves, the bane of the common good, the surfeit of the land, the scourge of the poor: good only to themselves; and that in opinion only: for they do it, to dwell alone, and they dwell alone indeed: for neither God nor good Angel keeps them company: and for a good conscience, it cannot get thorow their quick-sets. ...
For more, see Thomas Adams on the sin of enclosure.
The poor man’s beast is his maintenance, his sustenance, his life, to take food from his beast, is to take the beasts food from his belly: so he that incloseth Commons is a monstrous thief, for he steals away the poor man’s living and life; hence many a Cottager, nay perhaps Farmer, is fain (as the Indians do to Devils) to sacrifice to the lord of the soil, a yearly bribe for a nenoceat.
For though the law forbids such enclosures: yet (quod fieri non debet, factum valet) when they are once ditched in, say the law what it will, I see no throwing out: force bears out, what fraud hath borne in: let them never open their mouths to plead the Common-wealth’s benefit: they intend it as much as Judas did, when he spake for the poor: no, they are thieves, the bane of the common good, the surfeit of the land, the scourge of the poor: good only to themselves; and that in opinion only: for they do it, to dwell alone, and they dwell alone indeed: for neither God nor good Angel keeps them company: and for a good conscience, it cannot get thorow their quick-sets. ...
For more, see Thomas Adams on the sin of enclosure.