medicine, experimentally. If they agree with you, very good. If not,
drop them and try others. We are always ready to listen to remedies,
here."

"Ay, if they agree with you!" I exclaimed. "But food for one is poison
for another. Do you know what you are doing? You are pushing home
injustice and tyranny to the millions, for the benefit of the thousands.
For is it not true, gentlemen, that the great masses of England are
against the measures you impose upon us? Their fight is our fight. They
are no longer represented in Parliament; we have never been. Taxation
without representation is true of your rotten boroughs as well as of
your vast colonies. You are helping the King to crush freedom abroad in
order that he may the more easily break it at home. You are committing a
crime.

"I tell you we would give up all we own were the glory or honour of
England at stake. And yet you call us rebels, and accuse us of meanness
and of parsimony. If you wish money, leave the matter to our colonial
assemblies, and see how readily you will get it. But if you wish war,
persist in trying to grind the spirit from a people who have in them
the pride of your own ancestors. Yes, you are estranging the colonies,
gentlemen. A greater man than I has warned you"

And with that I rose, believing that I had given them all mortal
offence. To my astonishment several got to their feet in front of me,
huzzaing, and Comyn and Lord Ossory grasped my hands. And Charles Fox
reached out over the corner of the table and pulled me back into my
chair.

"Bravo, Richard Carvel!" he cried. "Cursed if I don't love a man who
will put up a fight against odds. Who will stand bluff to what he
believes, and won't be talked out of his boots. We won't quarrel with
any such here, my buckskin, I can tell you."

And that is the simple story, my dears, of the beginning of my
friendship with one who may rightly be called the Saint Paul of English
politics. He had yet some distance to go, alas, ere he was to begin
that sturdy battle for the right for which his countrymen and ours will
always bless him. I gave him my hand with a better will than I had ever
done anything, and we pressed our fingers numb. And his was not the only
hand I clasped. And honest Jack Comyn ordered more wine, that they might
drink to a speedy reconciliation with America.

"A pint bumper to Richard Carvel!" said Mr. Fitzpatrick.

I pledged Brooks's Club in another pint. Upon which they swore tha