protracted the final decision to so late an hour that evening, that it is utterly impossible that the change of the design of a march northward to that of an "_attack to be made under cover of the night_," could have been that _morning_ no secret in Bridgwater. But our readers see it was necessary for Mr. Macaulay to raise this fable, in order to account for the poor girl's knowing so important a secret. So far we have argued the case on Mr. Macaulay's own showing, which, we confess, was very incautious on our part; but on turning to his authority we find, as usual, a story essentially different. Kennett says-- A brave Captain in the Horse Guards, now living (1718), was in the action at Sedgemoor, and gave me the account of it:--That on _Sunday morning, July 5_, a young woman came from Monmouth's quarters to give notice of his design to surprise the King's camp _that night_; but this young woman being carried to a chief officer in a neighbouring village, she was led upstairs and debauched by him, and, coming down in a great fright and disorder (as he himself saw her), she went back, and her message was not told.--_Kennett_, in. 432. This knocks the whole story on the head. Kennett was not aware (Wade's narrative not being published when he wrote) that the King's troops did not come in sight of Sedgemoor till about three o'clock P.M. of that Sunday on the early morning of which he places the girl's visit to the camp, and it was not till late that same evening that Monmouth changed his original determination, and formed the sudden resolution with which, to support Kennett's story, the whole town must have been acquainted at least twelve hours before. These are considerations which ought not to have escaped a philosophical historian who had the advantage, which Kennett had not, of knowing the exact time when these details occurred....