seed nor bread-corn, nor the means of procuring either. What rendered this state of things the more dangerous, was the turbulence of the levellers. The Actaeon of revolution was in danger of being devoured by his own hounds. The principles of republicanism which had borne on the Leads of the army, threatened in turn to overwhelm them in their progress amongst the soldiers. It is easier to set in motion revolutionary ideas, than to say to them, "hitherto shall ye go and no further." In all revolutions in the world, the class revolutionising wishes to stop at the point that is most convenient to itself; but other classes beyond this line are equally anxious, and have an equal claim to the benefit of levelling principles. It is only power which limits their diffusion. The power now had passed from the king and the lords, and had centered- in the leaders of the army. It was not convenient nor desirable for them that it should go farther. But the soldiers and the lower officers, with free-born John Lilburne at their head, claimed a republic in its more popular sense. They read in their Bibles, and preached from it in the field, that God was no respecter of persons; that human rights were as universal as the human race. They saw that Cromwell, Ireton, Harrison, and a few others were the men who ruled in the parliament, the council, and the army; and they conceived that they were no longer seeking the common rights of the community, but the aggrandisement of themselves. They suspected them of having put down the tyranny of one man to establish that of half a dozen; and they had no notion of a reform which would only leave the multitude where it was. In fact, communism, the bugbear of to-day, had sprung up, and was in full blow in the commonwealth army, and threatened to scatter it into atoms. Colonel John Lilburne was fast preaching primitive Christianity and equality of rights and of possessions to the regiments, a doctrine very Christian, but very unmilitary. He was pouring out pamphlet upon pamphlet, and disseminating them through the ranks and through the people—"England's New Chains Discovered,"
"The Hunting of the Foxes from Triploe Heath to Whitehall by Five Small Beagles." These foxes were Cromwell, Ireton, Fairfax, &c., who had suppressed the mutiny at Triploe Heath—and the five beagles those who had been made to ride the wooden horse for their insubordination, that is, set upon a sharp three-cornered wooden machine, with weights or muskets tied to their feet. News came to parliament that one Everard, a soldier passing for a prophet, and Winstanley, another, with thirty more, were assembled on St. George's Hill, near Cobham, in Surrey, and were digging the ground and planting it with roots and beans. They said they should shortly be four thousand, and invited all to come and help them, promising them meat, drink, and clothes. Two troops of horse were sent to disperse them, of which they loudly complained, and Everard and Winstanley went to the general, and declared "that the liberties of the people were lost by the coming in of William the Conqueror, and that ever since, the people of God had lived under tyranny and oppression worse than our forefathers under the Egyptians. But now the time of deliverance was at hand, and God would bring his people out of this slavery, and restore them to their freedom in enjoying the fruits and benefits of the earth. There had lately appeared to him (Everard) a vision, which bade him arise and dig and plough the earth, and receive the fruits thereof. That their intent was to restore the earth to its former condition; that, as God had promised to make the barren fruitful, so now what they did was to restore the ancient community of enjoying the fruits of the earth, to distribute them to the poor and needy; that they did not intend to break down pales and destroy inclosures as was reported, but only to till the waste land, and make it fruitful for man; and that the time was coming when all men would willingly come in and give up their lands and estates, and submit to this community of goods."
Here was the communism of the nineteenth century clearly enunciated in the seventeenth; but the revolution of Cromwell and Ireton contemplated nothing so primitive, and there was nothing for it but to trample it out as soon as possible. Lilburne had been engaged in the county of Durham, and to win him over, three thousand pounds were voted to him; but this did not move him for a moment. On his return, he appeared at the bar of the house with a petition against the form of the newly adopted constitution, which the officers had named, "The Agreement of the People," but which the people did not accept as their agreement. Lilliburne protested against the provision that parliament should only sit six months every two years, and that the council should rule the other eighteen. This example was extensively followed, and the table of the house was quickly loaded with petitions from officers and soldiers, demanding a new parliament every year; a committee of the house to govern during the recess; no member of one parliament to be a member of the next; the self-denying ordinance to be enforced; the term of every officers' commission in the army to be limited; "the high court of justice and council of state to be abolished as instruments of tyranny; all proceedings in the courts of law to be in English; lawyers reduced, and their fees too. Excise and customs they required to be abolished, and the lands of delinquents sold to renumerate the well affected. Religion to be "reformed according to the mind of God;" tithes abolished, conscience made entirely free, and the incomes of ministers of the Gospel to be fixed at one hundred and fifty pounds each, and raised by a rate on the parishioners.
There were much sound sense and gospel truth in these demands, but the day of their adoption was much nearer to the millennium than to 1649. It was resolved to send Cromwell to settle the disturbances in Ireland, but it was necessary to quash this communist insurrection first. Money was borrowed of the city, and after "a solemn seeking of God by prayer," lots were cast to see what regiments should go to Ireland. Fourteen of foot and fourteen of horse were selected by this mode. The officers expressed much readiness to go; the men refused. On the 26th of April there broke out a terrible mutiny in Whalley's regiment, at the Bull, in Bishopsgate. The men seized their colours from the cornet, and refused to march without many of the communist concessions. Fairfax and Cromwell hastened thither, seized fifteen of the mutineers, tried them on the spot by court martial, condemned five, and shot one in St. Paul's churchyard on the morrow. This was Lookyer, a trooper, a brave young fellow, who had been in all the war, and was only yet three-and-twenty.
