o 'sit down and consider the cost' before
engaging in any enterprise."

"Why will you be so quick to take offence?" said Bacon. "Do I not know
that fear is a stranger to your breast?--else why confide in you as I
have done? But I spoke not of the danger attending our enterprise. To me
danger is not a matter of indifference, it is an object of desire. They
who would bathe in a Stygian wave, to render them invulnerable, are not
worthy of the name of heroes. It is only the unmailed warrior, whose
form, like the white plume of Navarre, is seen where danger is the
thickest, that is truly brave and truly great."

"You are a singular being, Bacon," said Hansford, with admiration, "and
were born to be a hero. But tell me, what is it that you expect or hope
for poor Virginia, when all your objects may be attained? She is still
but a poor, helpless colony, sapped of her resources by a relentless
sovereign, and expected to submit quietly to the oppressions of those
who would enslave her."

"By heavens, no!" cried Bacon, impetuously. "It shall never be. Her
voice has been already heard by haughty England, and it shall again be
heard in thunder tones. She who yielded not to the call of an imperious
dictator--she who proposed terms to Cromwell--will not long bear the
insulting oppression of the imbecile Stuarts. The day is coming, and now
is, when on this Western continent shall arise a nation, before whose
potent sway even Britain shall be forced to bow. Virginia shall be the
Rome and England shall be the Troy, and history will record the annals
of that haughty and imperious kingdom chiefly because she was the mother
of this western Rome. Yes," he continued, borne along impetuously by his
own gushing thoughts, "there shall come a time when Freedom will look
westward for her home, and when the oppressed of every nation shall
watch with anxious eye that star of Freedom in its onward course, and
follow its bright guidance till it stands over the place where
Virginia--this young child of Liberty--is; and oh! Hansford, will it
then be nothing that we were among those who watched the infant
breathings of that political Saviour--who gave it the lessons of wisdom
and of virtue, and first taught it to speak and proclaim its mission to
the world? Will it then be nothing for future generations to point to
our names, and, in the language of pride and gratitude, to cry, there go
the authors of our freedom?"

So spake the young enthusiast, th