Comment by Séamus Ó Dubsláine on March 25, 2013 at 4:00pm

"March 14, 1683. Jonathan Badcock refused to sign the

petition to the king. 

Here were the first rising beams of the dawn of liberty. 

Thus early, twenty years after the corporate existence

of the town, a score of your sires gave distinct testimony

of the spirit that was in them. Two days before,

Rev. Mr. Thacher, the  leader in temporal as well as

spiritual things, had received the customary address of

submission and loyalty to His Royal Majesty, to be

subscribed by all males sixteen years old and upwards.

The fourteenth was training-day in Milton, a public 

holiday, when the whole town came together. Mr. Thacher

was there and read to the town the address to His Majesty,

with the following result: 

Divers signed it, some would not, as J. Daniels, J. Fenno,

Teague Crehore, Stephen Crane, Jonathan Badcock,

John Jordan, David Mimes, Edward Vose, and others,

so I made a speech to them, then took leave. 

Mr. Thacher was a strict, uncompromising royalist. A few

of his flock, who ordinarily heard the Shepherd's voice,

restive under the restraints of royalty, and moved by

stirrings for self-direction and control, refused to

follow, even a century before the yoke was thrown off."

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