The cavalier, who delighted in long morning talks over his pipe, paused a moment to rest, and Robert sat wondering what all this could have to do with him. After a moment, Hugh Price resumed:
"The freemen of Virginia number more than eight thousand horse, and are bound to muster monthly in every county, to be ready for the Indians; but the Indians are absolutely subjugated, so there need be no fear of them. There are five forts in Virginia, mounted with thirty cannon, two on James River, and one each on the other three rivers of York, Rappahannock, and Potomac; but we have neither skill nor ability to maintain them. We have a large foreign commerce. Nearly eighty ships every year come out from England and Ireland, and a few ketches from New England, in defiance of the navigation laws, which the people of New England seem more willing to break than are the people of Virginia. We build neither small nor great vessels here, for we are most obedient to all laws, whilst the New England men break them with impunity and trade at any place to which their interests lead them."
"The New England people are prosperous and God-fearing," Robert ventured to put in.
"Yea; but do they not harbor outlaws and regicides. Do not Whalley and Goffe find in that country aiders and abettors in their criminal proceeding?"
"The New Englanders are friendly to the education of the masses."
At this, Hugh Price for an instant lost control of his passion. His master, Sir William Berkeley, in a memorial to parliament, had just said:
"I thank God that there are no free schools, nor printing, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best governments. God keep us from both!"
Virginia was the last province to submit to the commonwealth and first to declare for the returned monarch, and the royalists residing in Virginia despised what the common people insisted in calling freedom. The commonwealth had driven many excellent royalists from England to Virginia, and while Hugh Price seeks to smother his anger in clouds of tobacco smoke, we will make a quotation from John Esten Cooke's "Virginia" in regard to some of them:
"The character of the king's men who came over during the commonwealth period has been a subject of much discussion. They have been called even by Virginia writers as we have seen, 'butterflies of aristocracy,' who had no influence in affairs or in giving its coloring to Virginia society. The facts entirely contradict the view. They and their descendants were the leaders in public affairs, and exercised a controlling influence upon the community. Washington was the greatgrandson of a royalist, who took refuge in Virginia during the commonwealth. George Mason was the descendant of a colonel, who fought for Charles II. Edmond Pendleton was of royalist origin, and lived and died a most uncompromising churchman. Richard Henry Lee, who moved the Declaration, was of the family of Richard Lee, who had gone to invite Charles II. to Virginia. Peyton and Edmund Randolph, president of the First Congress, and attorney-general were of the old royalist family. Archibald Cary, who threatened to stab Patrick Henry if he were made dictator, was a relative of Lord Falkland and heir apparent at his death to the barony of Hunsdon. Madison and Monroe were descended from the royalist families--the first from a refugee of 1653, the last from a captain in the army of Charles I., and Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, afterward the leaders of democratic opinion, were of church and king blood, since the father of Henry was a loyal officer who 'drank the king's health at the head of his regiment'; and the mothers of both were Church of England women, descended from royalist families."
With this brief digression, we will return to Hugh Price, who, having smoked himself into a calmer state, turned his eyes upon his wife's son with a look designed to be compassionate and said: