Tryon’s face darkened. “Ah,” sneered he, “is it so? Well, we will shortly see how they will welcome the cannon shots that I’ll send about their ears. I doubt if they will then be so overjoyed.”
George Prentiss heard this from the lips of the young ensign who had shown him the way to General Putnam’s headquarters a few weeks before. This young man’s name was Noel, and George, in his few meetings with him, had found him to be a student of the times and of the conspicuous figures therein.
“Quite a setback for old Tryon,” laughed young Noel. “Must have jarred him quite a bit, I’ll warrant you. But the conceit of the wretch, to think that any community would take a step out of its way to cheer him. What else but an uprising could Lord North and the rest of the king’s ministers expect, when they appoint such as he to rule the province?”
“I have heard very little of him,” said George, “except that he is a tyrant.”
“Some ten years ago,” said the ensign Noel, “he was made governor of North Carolina, vice Dobbs deceased. He built a palace at Newberne and gave entertainments that were the talk of the province. And to pay for all this the taxes went up by leaps and bounds; his administration was one black history of crime and extortion; and at last the ‘Regulator’ movement began that ended in his being withdrawn.”
“And not being good enough for North Carolina, they saddled him upon New York,” smiled young Prentiss.
“Precisely. But he’s not for long.”
A number of young militiamen were gathered upon the Parade at the time, and one in the group remarked to George:
“I met your friends Brewster and Cooper to-day. And afterward, some of the Massachusetts men fell to talking of them. Very remarkable young men, I should say.”
“They have seen their share of service,” replied George. “Brewster is from the Wyoming region, and Cooper is his cousin, a Philadelphian. They both got into Boston before the Lexington fight, and there has been little of consequence since that time that they have not had a hand in.”