Moreover, there was a rising
political spirit which gave me a keen interest in the men who breathed the
quick vital air of this vigorous new England. In many respects I found
myself back in the times of Smite-and-spare-not Wheatman, captain of horse
in the army of the Lord-General. The genuine, if somewhat narrow, piety of
the Bostoneers reminded me of him, and still more their healthy critical
attitude towards rulers in general and kings in particular. They had the
old Puritan stuff in them too, for some eight months before they had
captured Louisberg from the French, a famous military exploit which the
great Lord-General would have gloried in.
My days were all twins to each other. Every morning, after breakfast, I
went abroad and always the same way: past the quaint Town House, down King
Street, and so on to the Long Wharf to see if a ship had come in from
England, and to ask the captain thereof if he had brought a letter for one
Oliver Wheatman at Mr. Peter Faneuil's. I got no letter and no news. Then,
always a little sad in heart, I strolled back, and looked in at Wilkins'
book-shop, where some of the town notables were always to be found, and
where, one May morning, as I was higgling over the purchase of a fine
Virgil, I made the acquaintance of a remarkable young gentleman, Mr.
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