ent and captivity, I think this Brutus of a woman would scarce
have appealed against the sentence.

CHAPTER LXXXVII. The Last of God Save the King

What perverse law of Fate is it that ever places me in a minority?
Should a law be proposed to hand over this realm to the Pretender of
Rome, or the Grand Turk, and submit it to the new sovereign's religion,
it might pass, as I should certainly be voting against it. At home in
Virginia, I found myself disagreeing with everybody as usual. By the
Patriots I was voted (as indeed I professed myself to be) a Tory; by the
Tories I was presently declared to be a dangerous Republican. The time
was utterly out of joint. O cursed spite! Ere I had been a year in
Virginia, how I wished myself back by the banks of the Waveney! But the
aspect of affairs was so troublous, that I could not leave my mother,
a lone lady, to face possible war and disaster, nor would she quit the
country at such a juncture, nor should a man of spirit leave it. At his
Excellency's table, and over his Excellency's plentiful claret, that
point was agreed on by numbers of the well-affected, that vow was vowed
over countless brimming bumpers. No: it was statue signum, signifer!
We Cavaliers would all rally round it; and at these times, our Governor
talked like the bravest of the brave.

Now, I will say, of all my Virginian acquaintance, Madam Esmond was the
most consistent. Our gentlefolks had come in numbers to Williamsburg;
and a great number of them proposed to treat her Excellency, the
Governor's lady, to a ball, when the news reached us of the Boston Port
Bill. Straightway the House of Burgesses adopts an indignant protest
against this measure of the British Parliament, and decrees a solemn day
of fast and humiliation throughout the country, and of solemn prayer to
Heaven to avert the calamity of Civil War. Meanwhile, the invitation to
my Lady Dunmore having been already given and accepted, the gentlemen
agreed that their ball should take place on the appointed evening, and
then sackcloth and ashes should be assumed some days afterwards.

"A ball!" says Madam Esmond. "I go to a ball which is given by a set of
rebels who are going publicly to insult his Majesty a week afterwards!
I will die sooner!" And she wrote to the gentlemen who were stewards for
the occasion to say, that viewing the dangerous state of the country,
she, for her part, could not think of attending a ball.

What was her surprise th