“But the other colonies’?”
“Mr. Morris of Philadelphia, as well as Mr. Pynckney of Charleston, agrees with the gentlemen I’ve quoted. They say, sir, there will soon be an outbreak in Boston.”
“In Boston!” repeats Mr. Hurst doubtfully.
“Have the Massachusetts men the courage, think you?”
“Courage, ay! and the strength, my friend! Both Colonel Washington and Mr. Jefferson assured me that, although slow to anger, they are true sons of Cromwell’s Ironsides.
“And what shall be our attitude?”
“We must sustain them at all hazards, sir—sustain them to the death!”
It is now that a knot of English officers drift up—a little flushed of wine, are these guests of honor. They, too, have been talking, albeit thickly, of a possible future full of trouble for the colonies.
“I was observing,” says Lieutenant Parker, addressing Planter Paul Jones and Mr. Hurst, “that the insolence of the Americans, which is more or less in exhibition all the way from Boston to Savannah, will never get beyond words. There will be no blows struck.”
“And why are you so confident?” asks Planter Paul Jones, eye agate, voice purringly soft. “Now I should say that, given provocation, the colonies would strike a blow, and a heavy one.”