Great Britain would seem to be, 'Do no right and suffer no wrong.'
They search our ships; they impress our seamen; they impose taxes
through a Parliament in which we are not represented, and if we
threaten resistance they would have us tried for treason. Nero used to
say that he wished that the inhabitants of Rome had only one neck, so
that he could dispose of them with a single blow. It was a rather
merciful wish, after all. A neck had better be chopped off than held
under the yoke of tyranny."

"Sir, England shielded, protected, us from French and Indians," Mr.
Pinhorn declared with high indignation.

"It protected its commerce. We were protecting British interests and
ourselves. Connecticut had five thousand under arms; Massachusetts,
seven thousand; New York, New Jersey and New Hampshire, many more.
Massachusetts taxed herself thirteen shillings and four pence to the
pound of income. New Jersey expended a pound a head to help pay for
the war. On that score England is our debtor."

The horn sounded. The travelers arose from the tables and hurried out
to the coach.

"It was a good dinner," Mr. Adams said to Jack when they had climbed to
their seat. "We should be eating potatoes and drinking water, instead
of which we have two kinds of meat and wine and pudding and bread and
tea and many jellies. Still, I am a better philosopher after dinner
than before it. But if we lived simpler, we should pay fewer taxes."

As they rode along a lady passenger sang the ballad of John Barleycorn,
in the chorus of which Mr. Adams joined with much spirit.

"My capacity for getting fun out of a song is like the gift of a weasel
for sucking eggs," he said.

So they fared along, and when Jack was taking leave of the
distinguished lawyer at The Black Horse Tavern in Philadelphia the
latter invited the boy to visit him in Boston if his way should lead
him there.

2

The frank, fearless, sledge-hammer talk of the lawyer made a deep
impression on the boy, as a long letter written next day to his father
and mother clearly shows. He went to the house of the printer, where
he did not receive the warm welcome he had expected. Deborah Franklin
was a fat, hard-working, illiterate, economical housewife. She had a
great pride in her husband, but had fallen hopelessly behind him. She
regarded with awe and slight understanding the accomplishments of his
virile, restless, on-pushing intellect. She did not know how to enjo