SIXTEENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT TIME. 47 
judgment was given for the king against the parishioners on the 
point in dispute. Mr. Colfe records that John Sherman, of Green- 
wich was foreman of the jury, and that Henry Dobbins and Henry 
Abbott, of Greenwich, and John Leech, of Deptford, were 
members, as though to infer that their judgment was biased for 
fear of offending the holders of the lease. 
Presently the patentees began to make ditches about the 
common and inclosed it, and drove out and killed sundry of the 
cattle of the inhabitants. A crisis had arrived, and the Vicar 
evidently saw that a final effort must be made. He therefore 
called together about a hundred of his parishioners, and, placing 
himself at their head, set out for London to make a_ personal 
appeal to the King. 
Shortly before this (1607) there had been several disturbances 
PLate 10.—A View aT LEWISHAM, 1770. 
‘n the Midlands on the same subject, and King James gave special 
orders to the Commission appointed to enquire into the cause, that 
care was to be taken that the poor received no injury by the 
encroachments of their richer neighbours. The people of Lewis- 
ham may therefore have felt assured of a sympathetic hearing. 
Colfe’s own report is in the following words :—‘‘ Wherefore 
neer 100 people young and old went through y* City of London, 
and a little on this side of Topnam high-crosse petitioned King 
James who very graciously heard y® petition and ordered the 
Lords of his Privy Counsell should take a course that he might 
be no more troubled about it.” 
The other side naturally did not take these proceedings with 
equanimity, and promptly put in a petition :— 
‘Whereas on December 20th 1614 Mr. Abraham Colfe Vicar 
