Letters had come from Margaret giving him the welcome news that Lionel Clarke had recovered and announcing that her own little revolution had achieved success. She and her father would be taking ship for Boston in December. Jack had urged that she try to induce him to start at once, fearing that December would be too late, and so it fell out. When the news of the Congress reached London, the King made new plans. He began to prepare for war. Sir Benjamin Hare, who was to be the first deputy of General Gage, was assigned to a brigade and immediately put his regiments in training for service overseas. He had spent six months in America and was supposed, in England, to have learned the art of bush fighting. Such was the easy optimism of the cheerful young Minister of War, and his confrères, in the House of Lords. After the arrival of the King William at Gravesend on the eighth of December, no English women went down to the sea in ships for a long time. Thereafter the water roads were thought to be only for fighting men. Jack's hope was that armed resistance would convince the British of their folly.
"A change of front in the Parliament would quickly end the war," he was wont to say. Not that he quite believed it. But young men in love are apt to say things which they do not quite believe. In February, 1775, he gave up his work on The Gazette to aid in the problem of defense. Solomon, then in Albany, had written that he was going the twentieth of that month on a mission to the Six Nations of The Long House.
It was unusual for the northern tribes to hold a council in winter--especially during the moon of the hard snow, but the growing bitterness of the white men had alarmed them. They had learned that another and greater war was at hand and they were restless for fear of it. The quarrel was of no concern to the red man, but he foresaw the deadly peril of choosing the wrong side. So the wise men of the tribes were coming into council.
"If we fight England, we got to have the Injuns on our side er else Tryon County won't be no healthy place fer white folks," Solomon wrote. "I wished you could go 'long with me an' show 'em the kind o' shootin' we'll do ag'in' the English an' tell 'em they could count the leaves in the bush easier than the men in the home o' the south wind, an' all good shooters. Put on a big, two-story bearskin cap with a red ribband tied around it an' bring plenty o' gewgaws. I don't care what they be so long as they shine an' rattle. I cocalate you an' me could do good work."
Immediately the young man packed his box and set out by stage on his way to the North. Near West Point, he left the sleigh, which had stopped for repairs, and put on his skates and with the wind mostly at his back, made Albany early that evening on the river roof. He found the family and Solomon eating supper, with the table drawn close to the fireside, it being a cold night.
"I think that St. Nicholas was never more welcome in any home or the creator of more happiness than I was that night," he wrote in a letter to Margaret, sent through his friend Doctor Franklin. "What a glow was in the faces of my mother and father and Solomon Binkus--the man who was so liked in London! What cries of joy came from the children! They clung to me and my little brother, Josiah, sat on my knee while I ate my sausage and flapjacks and maple molasses. I shall never forget that supper hour for, belike, I was hungry enough to eat an ox. You would never see a homecoming like that in England, I fancy. Here the family ties are very strong. We have no opera, no theater, no balls and only now and then a simple party of neighborhood folk. We work hard and are weary at night. So our pleasures are few and mostly those shared in the family circles. A little thing, such as a homecoming, or a new book, brings a joy that we remember as long as we live. I hope that you will not be appalled by the simplicity of my father's home and neighborhood. There is something very sweet and beautiful in it, which, I am sure, you would not fail to discover.
"Philadelphia and Boston are more like the cities you know. They are getting ambitious and are beginning to ape the manners of England but, even there, you would, find most people like my own. The attempts at grandeur are often ludicrous. In Philadelphia, I have seen men sitting at public banquets without coat or collar and drinking out of bottles."
Next day, Jack and Solomon set out with packs and snow-shoes for The Long House, which was the great highway of the Indians. It cut the province from the Hudson to Lake Erie. In summer it was roofed by the leaves of the forest. The chief villages of the Six Tribes were on or near it. This trail was probably the ancient route of the cloven hoof on its way to the prairies--the thoroughfare of the elk and the buffalo. How wisely it was chosen time has shown, for now it is covered with iron rails, the surveyors having tried in vain to find a better one.
Late in the second day out, they came suddenly on a young moose. Jack presented his piece and brought the animal down. They skinned him and cut out the loins and a part of each hind quarter. When Solomon wrapped the meat in a part of the hide and slung it over his shoulder, night was falling.
"Cat's blood an' gunpowder! The ol' night has a sly foot," said Solomon. "We won't see no Crow Hill tavern. We got t' make a snow house."