"He may be in truth in the service of Mr. Oglethorpe--a gallant gentleman who served under Prince Eugene, and is, they say, recommended for a Generalship--yet how can he have obtained such service? He has been highwayman, if all told of him is true--perhaps, for that reason he wished not to encounter Mr. Peter Buck--guinea dropper and kidnapper--as with Gerald. Nay, Heaven only knows what he has not been, to say nothing of 'political agent' on both sides. Well. Well. Let us hope he has turned honest at last. Let us hope so." That an intimacy should spring up between us and Mr. Kinchella was not to be wondered at, nor, indeed, that he also became popular among many other families in the counties before mentioned. For, independently of his own merits, the case of Mr. Roderick St. Amande and our charity and friendliness to him, as well as his base repayment of them, had made much talk in all the country round, not only with the gentry but among others. Even the convicts, we knew, talked about it, as did the bond-servants; and Christian Lamb, my maid, told me that her brother had often seen the late lord who died in such poverty ruffling it in London, where he was well known in gay circles. Indeed, Mr. Kinchella became mightily liked everywhere and was always welcome at the houses of his flock. For, besides his gifts of writing-verses and playing the fiddle and singing agreeably--which, simple accomplishments as they were, proved mighty acceptable in a community like ours, where we found the winter evenings long, and the summer ones, too, for the matter of that--besides all these, I say, and far above them, was his real goodness as well as sound piety. His sermons were easy and flowing, suitable alike to the educated and the simple; he expounded the Word most truthfully, and he never failed to exhort us to remember that we were Christian English folk, although in a new land, and that we owed it as a duty to our ancestors to remain such and to be a credit to the country which had sent us forth. Thus he struck a note that found an echo in all our hearts, since nothing was felt more strongly in Virginia than the sense of loyalty to our old home and home-government. 'Tis true that, in other states farther north, there were to be found those who talked wildly, and as though their minds must be distraught, of forming what they termed an American Union which should cast off the rule of our mother country; but their words were as idle breath and not to be regarded nor considered seriously. King George II. was firmly seated on his throne--as anyone might see who read the beautiful odes and other things written by Mr. Cibber, which were printed in the London news-journals, and, so, occasionally reached us--and all Virginians who went to and fro betwixt here and London spake highly of that great monarch, and of how he received the colonists graciously and spoke them fair.