"Robert, it is the great love I bear you, which causes my anxiety about your welfare. I trust that your recent sojourn in New England hath not established the seeds of republicanism and Puritanism in your heart. I trust that any fallacious ideas you may have formed during your absence will become, in the light of reason, eradicated."
"He who is not susceptible of reason is unworthy of being called a reasonable being," Robert answered.
"I am glad to hear you say as much. Now permit me to return to the original subject. Virginia is on the verge of a political irruption, and your arrival may be most opportune or unfortunate."
"I hardly comprehend you."
"There is some dissatisfaction with Governor Berkeley's course with the Indians. Some unreasonable people think that he should prosecute the war against them more vigorously."
"Why does he not?"
"He has good reasons."
"What are they?"
"He has dealings with the Indians in which there are many great fortunes involved. To go to war with them would be sure to lose him and his friends these profits. I am one concerned in these speculations, and it would be a grievous wrong to me were the war prosecuted."
Robert knew something of the savage outrages in Virginia. He had learned of them while on shipboard, and he had some difficulty in restraining his rising indignation, so it was with considerable warmth that he answered: