“And you’ve not heard!” repeats Mr. Livingston. Then, with a look at once somber and solemn: “Black news! Black news, indeed! I’m on my way to Hanover Square to have it set in types, and scattered up and down the town. Come; you shall go with me. I’ll talk as we walk along.”
Mr. Livingston takes Planter Paul Jones by the arm.
“Black news!” he resumes. “The Massachusetts men have attacked the British at Lexington and Concord; my despatches, while necessarily meager, declare that the British were disgracefully beaten, and lost, killed and wounded, several hundred soldiers.”
“And you call that black news?” interjects Planter Paul Jones, his eye finely aflame. “To my mind now it is as good news as ever I hope to hear.”
“How can you say so! It fills me with measureless gloom. I cannot but look ahead and wonder where it will end. And yet we should hope for the best.” The speaker heaves a weary sigh. “Possibly the mother country may learn from this experience how bitterly in earnest Americans are, and be thereby led to mitigate the harshness of her attitude toward us.”
Planter Paul Jones looks his emphatic disbelief.
“There will be no softening of England’s attitude. Believe me, sir, I’m not so long out of London, but what I’m clear as to the plans and purposes of King George and his ministers. The Tories have deliberately forced the present situation.”
“Forced the situation! You amaze me!”
“Sir, my name is not Paul Jones, if it be not the deliberate design of King George and his advisers to bring about a clash between England and these colonies.”
“And to what end, pray?”