“I thank you, Madam; it will be not your pleasure alone, but mine.”
In times of war very little of the drawing-room satisfied the men of affairs; so, when the ladies and the macaronis were fairly aglow with gossip over the tea-cups, John Adams, Dr. Greydon and Charles Thompson found themselves together in the doctor’s office and began to discuss serious affairs over their pipes and mugs of home ale.
“By thunder! That trading house of Milling and FitzMaurice brought home a fat prize, William,” remarked Charles Thompson. “One of their privateers secured a British ship worth eighty thousand pounds sterling.”
“Is it possible? No wonder they can live in luxury. They are growing fat out of the war. That one prize would pay back one half that they have loaned to Congress,” continued John Adams.
“I always was opposed to war on general principles,” argued Dr. Greydon, “but if we must fight, all right. Yet, when private individuals can go out on the high seas and take other private individuals’ substance it seems like licensed robbery.”
“I venture to say riches thus gained will never profit the gainer. Robert FitzMaurice has made fabulous riches out of his piratical enterprise but he will lose it all, some day,” reasoned the Secretary of Congress.
“Heigho there!” exclaimed John Adams, “do you know that FitzMaurice and Milling are now planning to start a bank and to do all the financing for Congress? They want a charter.”
“That’s fine,” began Dr. Greydon. “First, Congress grants letters of Marque and Reprisal to these enterprising merchants, in order for them to hold up their neighbors’ ships and rob them; now, when they grow rich out of the war, we will license them to hold our hands when they can go into our pockets and rob us. Oh! That’s a fine scheme to throttle our war. They could tell us then to lay down our arms if the bank was not pleased. Never let us get into the clutches of these financiers. The power of the purse must always belong to Congress, the representatives of the people.”
Thus spoke Dr. Greydon, and then Charles Thompson added:
“The money of our Congress maybe depreciated, but if the people of our country accept it, which the patriots do—maybe the Tories do not—we will prosper; but if we give ourselves into the hands of the bank, they would take nothing but specie for payment and we would be paralyzed. We could do nothing but surrender.”