"Go to the Council," he rasped; "go to that silken fool, His Majesty's Attorney. My politics are not those of the leather-jaws that prate in this land."
"That is why I came to you," I said.
Then without more ado I gave him my notions on the defence of the colony, for from what I had learned I judged that would interest him most. He heard me with unexpected patience.
"Well, now, supposing you are right? I don't deny it. Virginia is a treasure house with two of the sides open to wind and weather. I told the Council that, and they would not believe me. Here are we at war with France, and Frontenac is hammering at the gates of New York. If that falls, it will soon be the turn of Maryland and next of Virginia. England's possessions in the West are indivisible, and what threatens one endangers all. But think you our Virginians can see it? When I presented my scheme for setting forts along the northern line, I could not screw a guinea out of the miscreants. The colony was poor, they cried, and could not afford it, and then the worshipful councillors rode home to swill Madeira and loll on their London beds. God's truth! were I not a patriot, I would welcome M. Frontenac to teach them decency."
Now I did not think much of the French danger being far more concerned with the peril in the West; but I held my peace on that subject. It was not my cue to cross his Excellency in his present humour.
"What makes the colony poor?" I asked. "The planters are rich enough, but the richest man will grow tired of bearing the whole burden of the government. I submit that His Majesty and the English laws are chiefly to blame. When the Hollanders were suffered to trade here, they paid five shillings on every anker of brandy they brought hither, and ten shillings on every hogshead of tobacco they carried hence. Now every penny that is raised must come out of the Virginians, and the Englishmen who bleed the land go scot free."
"That's true," said he, "and it's a damned disgrace. But how am I to better it?"
"Clap a tax on every ship that passes Point Comfort outward bound," I said. "The merchants can well afford to pay it."
"Listen to him!" he laughed. "And what kind of answer would I get from my lord Howard and His Majesty? Every greasy member would be on his feet in Parliament in defence of what he called English rights. Then there would come a dispatch from the Government telling the poor Deputy-Governor of Virginia to go to the devil!"
He looked at me curiously, screwing up his eyes.