"Mr. Jones is now the possessor of an estate in Virginia, sirs," I explained.
"And do you find it more to your taste than seafaring, Mr. Jones?" inquired Mr. Chase.
This brought forth a most vehement protest, and another quotation.
"Why, sir," he cried, "to be
'Fixed like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot,'
is an animal's existence. I have thrown it over, sir, with a right good will, and am now on my way to Philadelphia to obtain a commission in the navy soon to be born."
Mr. Chase smiled. John Paul little suspected that he was a member of the
Congress.
"This is news indeed, Mr. Jones," he said. "I have yet to hear of the birth of this infant navy, for which we have not yet begun to make swaddling clothes."
"We are not yet an infant state, sir," Mr. Carroll put in, with a shade of rebuke. For Maryland was well content with the government she had enjoyed, and her best patriots long after shunned the length of secession. "I believe and pray that the King will come to his senses. And as for the navy, it is folly. How can we hope to compete with England on the sea?"
"All great things must have a beginning sir," replied John Paul, launching forth at once, nothing daunted by such cold conservatism. "What Israelite brickmaker of Pharaoh's dreamed of Solomon's temple? Nay, Moses himself had no conception of it. And God will send us our pillars of cloud and of fire. We must be reconciled to our great destiny, Mr. Carroll. No fight ever was won by man or nation content with half a victory. We have forests to build an hundred armadas, and I will command a fleet and it is given me."