isions, Maud, in one of
her merry humours, had nick-named the three tribes; while her father,
to make the enumeration complete, had classed the serjeant, Mike, and
Jamie Allen, as supernumeraries.

The three tribes, and the three supernumeraries, then, were all
collected on the lawn, as the captain and his family approached. By a
sort of secret instinct, too, they had divided themselves into knots,
the Dutch keeping a little aloof from the Yankees; and the blacks,
almost as a matter of religion, standing a short distance in the rear,
as became people of their colour, and slaves. Mike and Jamie, however,
had got a sort of neutral position, between the two great divisions of
the whites, as if equally indifferent to their dissensions or
antipathies. In this manner all parties stood, impatiently awaiting an
announcement that had been so long delayed. The captain advanced to the
front, and removing his hat, a ceremony he always observed on similar
occasions, and which had the effect to make his listeners imitate his
own courtesy, he addressed the crowd.

"When people live together, in a wilderness like this," commenced the
captain, "there ought to be no secrets between them, my friends, in
matters that touch the common interests. We are like men on a remote
island; a sort of colony of our own; and we must act fairly and frankly
by each other. In this spirit, then, I am now about to lay before you,
all that I know myself, concerning an affair of the last importance to
the colonies, and to the empire." Here Joel pricked up his ears, and
cast a knowing glance at 'the miller,' a countryman and early neighbour
of his own, who had charge of the grinding for the settlement, and who
went by that appellation '_par excellence_!' "You all know,"
continued the captain, "that there have been serious difficulties
between the colonies and parliament, now, for more than ten years;
difficulties that have been, once or twice, partially settled, but
which have as often broken out, in some new shape, as soon as an old
quarrel was adjusted."

Here the captain paused a moment; and Joel, who was the usual spokesman
of 'the people,' took an occasion to put a question.

"The captain means, I s'pose," he said, in a sly, half-honest, half-
jesuitical manner, "the right of parliament to tax us Americans,
without our own consent, or our having any members in their
le_gys_la_toore_?"

"I mean what you say. The tax on tea, the shutting the port of B