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    tend to their very enemies ? Those that have designed to prey tipon the people ' s estates and liberties , have put the frightful visard of levelling upon those men ' s

    faces , and most people are aghast at them , like children at Rawhead and Bloody-bones , and dare not ask who thby are , or peep tinder " theitf vizard , to see their

    true faces , principles and designs . Doubtless , if the people durst but look behind them upon the bugbear from which they fly , they would be ashamed of their own

    childish fear of the Leveller ' s desigtis , to make all men ' s estates to be equal , and to divide the land by telling noses . They would easily discern ( if they durst consider it ) that no number of men

    out of Bedlam , could resolve upon a thing so impossible , that every hour would alter by the birth of some child , if it were possible once to make out equal shares ;

    nor upon a thing so brutish and destructive to all ingenuity and industry , as to put the idle , useless drone into as good condition as

    the laborious , useful bee . Neither could the people think that any number of men fit , to be feared , rather than scorned and pitied ,

    could gain by levelling estates , for they can never have power and interest enough to disquiet the nation , unless their estates be much greater than they can be possible upon an equal division ;

    and surely it is a bug-bear fit for none but * children , to fear any men ' s designs , to reduce their own estates to little better than nothing ; for so it would be , if all the land were distributed like a threepenny dole .

    But to satisf y such as desire to know what they arc who are now

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    for distinction ' s sake , though formerly by their enemies scandalously called Levellers ; and what their designs are ; I shall tell you their fundamental doctrines or

    maxims concerning our government , and from thence you may make a true judgment of all their plots , and either fear them or favour them accordingl y * '

    First , they assert as fundamental , thai the government of England ought to be by laws , and not by men . They say , the laws ought to be the protectors and thfc preservers , under God , of all our

    persons and estates , and that everyman may challenge that protection as his right , without a ticket from a major-general , and live under that protection and safely without fear of a red coat or a

    pursuivant from Whitehall . They say , that Englishmen ought to fear nothing but God , and the breach of the laws , not to depend upon the will of a court and their

    council for the security of them * selves and . their , estates - They say , the laws ought to judge of all offences and offenders , and all penalties , and punishments to be

    inflicted upon criminals ; and that the pleasure of his highness or his council , ought ' n 6 t to make whom they please offenders , and punish and imprison whom they please , and during their

    pleasure . They say also , that the laws ought to decide all controversies , and repair every man ' s injuries

    and that the rod of the people ' s supreme judicature ought to be over the magistrates , to prevent their corruption , or turning aside from the laws ; but that the magistrates for executing the laws should not hold their office * at

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    24 Principles of the Levellers , 1659 .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1811, page 24, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2412/page/24/