bury themselves from
the world, that from the year 1660, till the romance of Scott[37] again
brought the name of Whalley before the world, it may be doubted whether
any thing was known in England of lives, which in another hemisphere
were protracted almost into another generation. Nobody dreamed there
was yet an American chapter in the history of the regicides.

Yet, considering the known disposition of the colonies, and their
inaccessible fastnesses, it is remarkable that only three of the
fugitives found their way across the Atlantic. Another, indeed, there
was, a mysterious person, of whom it is only known, that though
concerned in the regicide, he was not probably one of "the judges." He
lived in Rhode Island till he was more than a hundred years old,
begetting sons and daughters, to whom he bequeathed the surname of
Whale. Whoever he was, he seems to have been a sincere penitent, whose
conscience would not let him rest. He slept on a deal board instead of a
bed, and practised many austerities, accusing himself as a man of blood,
and deprecating the justice of God. The particulars of his guilt he
never disclosed; and as his name was probably an assumed one, it is
difficult to surmise what share he had in the murder of his king. There
was in Hacker's regiment one Whalley, a lieutenant; and Stiles, the
American writer, thinks this Whale may have been the same man. But then,
what did this Whalley perpetrate to account for such horrible remorse?
Considering Hacker's active part in the bloodiest scene of the great
tragedy, and the conflicting testimony in Hulet's trial,[38] as to the
man that struck the blow; and coupling this with the fact, that an
effort was made to procure one of several lieutenants to do the
work,[39] I confess I once thought there was some reason to suspect that
this fellow's accusing conscience was terribly earned, and that he at
least had been one of the masks that figured on the scaffold. This
surmise, though shaken by nothing that came out on the state trials, I
have since discharged, in deference to the opinion of Miss
Strickland,[40] who is satisfied that the greybeard was Hulet, and the
actual regicide, Gregory Brandon.

The American history of the regicides begins with the 27th of July
following the Restoration, when Whalley and Goffe landed at Boston,
bringing the first news that the king had been proclaimed, of which it
seems they had tidings before they were clear of the Channel. Proscr