This last word was a distinct challenge to Clinton, who lowered his glass long enough to look squarely at Carlisle and remark spiritedly:
“There is no use to waste words, my Lord. We cannot afford to sacrifice the reputation of English arms; it would be suicidal. Treat with the rascals? Yes, when they have felt the force of our power. Now that they have formed an alliance with our ancient enemy we must deal them a crushing blow, first.”
Carlisle, however, was insisting upon the right of the commissioners to dictate the policy, yet he did not care how the results were attained so long as his mission to America was successful. Fox and Selwyn would see that he was properly rewarded, provided the Colonies were not lost.
“Very good, Sir Henry,” retorted Carlisle, when the General stood before him in an attitude of defiance, “but the longer that we wait, the farther apart we drift. I am intent upon activities in one way or another.”
“There she comes to,” continued Sir Henry, as he resumed his spying investigations. “By the speed that she comes up the bay, I believe that she may be the Prince Harry, the fastest cruiser of the Admiralty’s register.”
“How deluded these rebels are to hold out against such odds on the sea,” exclaimed Sir Henry, with animation. “How magnificent to behold the seamanship of our sailors! Behold them swarm the yard-arms! There go the anchors to the catheads! She swings to the cable! Her sails are stowed in a twinkling! What discipline! I maintain our sovereignty of the seas and we have no business to beg a settlement except at our own terms,” concluded General Clinton as he turned upon Lord Carlisle, waving his little fat hands and arms majestically.
Carlisle saw where Sir Henry had placed him when he appealed to an Englishman’s vanity, his ships; but he looked at General Clinton through those blue eyes for an instant and fell back upon the only argument that an Englishman could never withstand.
“But, Sir Henry, you do not comprehend,” argued Carlisle, “what an expenditure of treasure this war has already cost the King’s exchequer. Mr. Prince, the Governor of the Bank of England, says: ‘We shall all be paupers by this everlasting drain on our gold.’ Sir Henry, I represent the financial side of this problem.”
“Well, my Lord,” retorted Sir Henry, “all that I can say to your argument is, that with your money power, as now constituted, having your Bank Governor at the throat of our nation, you will make cowards of us all. We shall lose the toil of two centuries and the sacrifices of twenty generations of Englishmen in colonizing a wilderness. For what? For the dross called pounds sterling! The Colonists are unruly children. Chastise them and then bring them back home and treat them generously.”
Carlisle now paced nervously up and down the portico, evidently thinking of how he would turn the last argument of Sir Henry, when the little fat body of the General fairly bubbled over with pugnacity as he grew red in the face and exclaimed: