So, very simply, moved this obscure love-affair of long ago. Yet the thought that its consequences might involve the destinies of nations may often have passed through its hero’s mind—a mind essentially intriguing and filled with keen ambition untrammelled by doubt. Nor was the man’s assurance without its legitimate base. Trusted, on the one hand with an important mission in his country’s service, promised the care of affairs of yet greater weight, and cognizant of a multitude of secrets of state, Hynson wielded no inconsiderable power. And when, on the other hand, the chief ministers of the throne completed the circle of his influence by making him an object of flattering solicitations, he felt that his hour was indeed come, and wrote, in frank exultation: “I now think myself a man of consequence, and am very happy.” And now for the bias of the man. In the matter of politics, Hynson, like many a greater statesman, hoped for reconciliation without separation. Colonial independence thrown into the scale, his respect for the integrity of the kingdom weighed heavily against it, and this delicate balance of his public principles gave to his private interests a possibly decisive importance. England, the centre of royal government, commanded his abstract veneration. England, Isabella’s home, held his heart and his pleasure. “He hopes ... to entitle Himself to a Competence and to sit down in England, where he has a Connection which he is anxious to resume,” the King learned from his agents. To that tune the royal money-bags forthwith jingled cunningly. II. Though the name of neither Hynson or his sweetheart figures in any of the serious histories of the day, only an unforeseen incident prevented his, at least, from being there recorded. Isabella’s influence was to change all his original program. It now remains to show how serious were the results of Hynson’s uncertain faith, and with what measure of plausibility Isabella Cleghorn may be called an actual though humble and unconscious factor in the creation of the American republic.