nger as a foe.

"What do you seek from me?" he shouted. "If it is some merchants'
squabble, you can save your breath, for I am sick of the Shylocks."

I said, very politely, that I was a stranger not half a year arrived in
the country, but that I had been using my eyes, and wished to submit my
views to his consideration.

"Go to the Council," he rasped; "go to that silken fool, His Majesty's
Attorney. My politics are not those of the leather-jaws that prate in
this land."

"That is why I came to you," I said.

Then without more ado I gave him my notions on the defence of the
colony, for from what I had learned I judged that would interest him
most. He heard me with unexpected patience.

"Well, now, supposing you are right? I don't deny it. Virginia is a
treasure house with two of the sides open to wind and weather. I told
the Council that, and they would not believe me. Here are we at war
with France, and Frontenac is hammering at the gates of New York. If
that falls, it will soon be the turn of Maryland and next of Virginia.
England's possessions in the West are indivisible, and what threatens
one endangers all. But think you our Virginians can see it? When I
presented my scheme for setting forts along the northern line, I could
not screw a guinea out of the miscreants. The colony was poor, they
cried, and could not afford it, and then the worshipful councillors
rode home to swill Madeira and loll on their London beds. God's truth!
were I not a patriot, I would welcome M. Frontenac to teach them
decency."

Now I did not think much of the French danger being far more concerned
with the peril in the West; but I held my peace on that subject. It was
not my cue to cross his Excellency in his present humour.

"What makes the colony poor?" I asked. "The planters are rich enough,
but the richest man will grow tired of bearing the whole burden of the
government. I submit that His Majesty and the English laws are chiefly
to blame. When the Hollanders were suffered to trade here, they paid
five shillings on every anker of brandy they brought hither, and ten
shillings on every hogshead of tobacco they carried hence. Now every
penny that is raised must come out of the Virginians, and the
Englishmen who bleed the land go scot free."

"That's true," said he, "and it's a damned disgrace. But how am I to
better it?"

"Clap a tax on every ship that passes Point Comfort outward bound," I
said. "The merchants can well afford