"May it please your excellency, we, the deputies of a certain association well known in upper Carolina as the Regulation, have ventured to present ourselves with a petition from the Regulators, on the strength of a recommendation from your excellency's secretary, Master David Edwards."
"Your association may be well known in the backwoods; but we have yet to learn of it here," the governor cried angrily.
"That you may do by a perusal of this petition, your excellency," Master Howell said quietly as he laid a folded paper on the table in front of Tryon. "Two of our people have been imprisoned without due warrant, and when four hundred or more gentlemen of upper Carolina presented themselves at Hillsborough for the purpose of restoring our friends to liberty, Master Edwards urged us to the present procedure, promising faithfully in your name that this matter, together with others of an unlawful nature, should receive your prompt attention."
At this speech, which savored little of fear, the governor took up the petition, glancing at it carelessly, and then throwing it contemptuously on the table, cried in a voice which quivered with passion:
"Return to your homes, and smother this rebellion in the bud, else the penalty will be great. There shall be no association banded against the laws of his most gracious majesty! See to it that your fellows disperse at once, and have a care how you meet in opposition to our will!"
"I pray your excellency to read that which we have brought at risk of our lives," Master Howell said firmly. "You will see that we do not rebel against his majesty's laws; but rather against those who exceed them unlawfully."
"Go home and pay your taxes, or I will sweep the upper Carolina with my troops till it is a wilderness!" the governor cried as if beside himself with rage, and it appeared to me that he was about to give yet more rein to his passion when an officer entered hurriedly, whispering a few words in the angry man's ear.
"Admit him at once," was the command, and then, to my astonishment and fear, in walked one of those two cavaliers who had opposed our passage and afterward made prisoners of the deputies.
The newcomer had all the appearance of one who has traveled far and fast, and after looking around hurriedly as if to satisfy himself that we were really there, he laid a paper on the table in front of the governor.
Then, at a sign from Tryon, he backed out of the room as if in the presence of royalty itself, and the governor hastily took up the written message.