it was at that early day sometimes called.

The original paper in which the foregoing facts are recorded has long
been in my possession; and as often as my eye has rested on it, I have
wondered what made that young man swear so; and by what nicety of moral
discrimination he found his justification in blessing the Duke and
cursing the King--"unus et idem"--in the same breath. Who and what was
he? and of what nature were his grievances? Was there any political
significance in that strange mingling of curses and blessings? That his
temper was not of martyr firmness was evident enough from the sudden
change in the current of his thoughts brought about by the tingling of
the horsewhip. All else was mystery. But the commonest knowledge of the
English and colonial history of those days was sufficient to stimulate
conjecture on these points. At the date of the incident recorded James
II had been on the throne more than a year, and for a long time both as
duke and king had been hated and feared on both sides of the ocean. The
Duke of Monmouth's ill-fated adventure for the Crown had failed at
Sedgemoor, and his young life ended on the block, denied expected mercy
by his uncle, the king: ended on the block: but not so believed the
common people of England. They believed him to be still living, and the
legitimate heir to the British crown, and that his unnatural uncle was
only Duke James of England. In those days English affairs were more
closely followed by the colonists than at present, and for obvious
reasons; and it is quite open to conjecture at least that the feelings
of English yeomen and artisans were known to, and shared by, their
cousins in Massachusetts Bay, and that Master Wiswell only gave
expression to a sentiment common to people of his class on both sides
the water.

This, however, is mere conjecture. But there are important facts. On the