“Speak to us, judge. It is your words we are waiting for.” His hat was in his hand, and his bare head, crowned with close, clustering curls, was lifted to the judge. For one moment his eyes sought out Sapphira, and she caught the glance, and it went to her heart like a ray of sunshine. Yet it was into her father’s face she smiled as she gently touched his arm. Then he spoke as if a burning coal had been laid on his lips, and the very air felt as if set on fire by his words: “My neighbours, and my fellow citizens!” he cried, “I have hitherto been bitterly against this war with England; but now, I am for it. With all my heart and soul, with all my body, with every shilling of my estate I am for it. I have always been a true and consistent Federalist. But now, there are no Federalists! there are no Republicans! We are all Americans! Dutch and English and French and Scotch, all are to-day Americans! America is the mother of us all. She has nursed us at her breast. She has made us free from all ancient tyrannies. She has given us homes and wives and children, filled our granaries with the finest of the wheat, and set before us the commerce of the whole earth. Shall we not love her? Shall we not defend her when she is insulted and wronged and threatened?” A roar of enthusiastic assent answered these questions. “If we must fight we will strike no soft blows in battle. We will give our enemy and the whole world this lesson--that no foreign warships can safely come blustering and pillaging our coasts. New York is to be defended, and New Yorkers are the men to defend their native city. Will you do it?” He was answered by a shout of affirmation. “To the last gun?” “Yes.” “To the last man?” “Yes! Yes! You will stand with us, Bloommaert?” “Living or dead I will stand with you.” Then he took reverently in his hands the faded glorious rag that Christopher Bloommaert held. “Look,” he said, in a voice as tender as a woman’s--“look at the flag that never waved over a coward, the flag to which we lifted our eyes when all was dark, and saw victory in its stars. It is a flag made for free men; will you ever let England--ever let any enemy--take it from you?” “We will die for it!” “No, you will live for it! You will carry it from victory to victory and fly it in the face of all the world--the flag of a free country--the flag of men that will have nothing else, and nothing less--than absolute liberty and absolute independence.” As he spoke these words he lifted the old banner to his lips, and then held it out to the people.