Apothecary, and his Uncle, about the time of the rising of the Counties Kent and Surrey , went secretly from his said Uncle, and is conceived to have engaged in the same, and to be either dead or slain in some of those fights, having never since been heard of, either by his said Uncle or any of his Friends. If any person can give notice of the certainty of the death of the said George Weale , let him repair to the said Mr Graunt his House in Drum-alley in Drury Lane, London ; he shall have twenty shillings for his pains.
This speaks volumes for the peculiarities of the times. Nowadays, in the event of war, anxious relatives are soon put out of their suspense by means of careful bulletins and regular returns of killed and wounded; but who can tell the amount of heart-sickness and hope deferred engendered by the “troubles” of the seventeenth century, or of anxious thought turned towards corpses mouldering far away, among whom was most likely George Weale, perhaps the only one of the obscure men slain in “some of those fights,” whose name has been rescued from oblivion.