It is reasonable to conclude, that the article copied from _Chambers'
Edinburgh Journal_, in No. 13., furnishes the strongest evidence that
can be adduced in support of the opinion, that the book in the
possession of Dr. Anster is the one found on the Duke of Monmouth when
captured, after his defeat at Sedgemoor; and, if so, it is impossible to
admit the hypothesis, because a portion of the contents of the real book
has been given to the world and contains matter far too important to
have been passed over by Dr. Anster, had it existed in his volume. In
the 6th edition of Dr. Welwood's _Memoirs of the most material
Transactions in England for the last Hundred Years preceding the
Revolution in 1688_, printed for "Tim. Goodwin, at the Queen's Head,
against St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street, 1718," the following
passage is to be found at p. 147.:--
"But of the most things above mentioned there is an infallible
proof extant under Monmouth's own hand, in a little pocket-book
which was taken with him and delivered to King James; which by
an accident, as needless to mention here, I have leave to copy
and did {398} it in part. A great many dark passages there are
in it, and some clear enough that shall be eternally buried for
me: and perhaps it had been for King James's honour to have
committed them to the flames, as Julius Cæsar is said to have
done on a like occasion. All the use that shall be made of it
is, to give in the Appendix some few passages out of it that
refer to this subject, and confirm what has been above related."