the nature of amiability and sincerity, for occasional
exhibitions of what the English rated as social impropriety and
bad taste. Often, at the English lofty derision of colonials, at
the English air of self-evident superiority, the English pretence of
politely concealed shock or pain or offence at some infringement of a
purely superficial conduct-code of their own arbitrary fabrication,
he ground his teeth in silence; for in one respect, he had as good
manners as the English had then, or have now,--when in Rome he did
not resent or deride what the Romans did. He began to think that the
lot of a self-respecting American among the English, even if he
were himself made an exception of and well dealt with, was not the
most enviable one. And, after he joined the army, he thought this
more and more every day. But he would show them what a colonial
could rise to! Yet that would prove nothing for his countrymen, as
he would always, on his meritorious side, be deemed an exception.

His military ambition, however, predominated, and he had no thought of
leaving the King's service.

The disagreement between the King and the American Colonies grew,
from "a cloud no bigger than a man's hand," to something larger.
But Harry heard little of it, and that entirely from the English
point of view. He received but three or four letters a year from
his own people, and the time had not come for his own people to write
much more than bare facts. They were chary of opinions. Harry
supposed that the new discontent in the Colonies, after the repeal of
the Stamp Act and the withdrawal of the two regiments from Boston
Town to Castle William, was but that of the perpetually restless,
the habitual fomenters, the notoriety-seeking agitators, the mob,
whose circumstances could not be made worse and might be improved by
disturbances. Now the Americans, from being a subject of no
interest to English people, a subject discussed only when some rare
circumstance brought it up, became more talked of. Sometimes, when
Americans were blamed for opposing taxes to support soldiery used
for their own protection, Harry said that the Americans could protect
themselves; that the English, in wresting Canada from the French,
had sought rather English prestige and dominion than security for the
colonials; that the flourishing of the Colonies was despite English
neglect, not because of English fostering; that if the English had
solicitude for America, it was for Amer