“And you call that black news?” interjects Planter Paul Jones, his eye finely aflame. “To my mind now it is as good news as ever I hope to hear.” “How can you say so! It fills me with measureless gloom. I cannot but look ahead and wonder where it will end. And yet we should hope for the best.” The speaker heaves a weary sigh. “Possibly the mother country may learn from this experience how bitterly in earnest Americans are, and be thereby led to mitigate the harshness of her attitude toward us.” Planter Paul Jones looks his emphatic disbelief. “There will be no softening of England’s attitude. Believe me, sir, I’m not so long out of London, but what I’m clear as to the plans and purposes of King George and his ministers. The Tories have deliberately forced the present situation.” “Forced the situation! You amaze me!” “Sir, my name is not Paul Jones, if it be not the deliberate design of King George and his advisers to bring about a clash between England and these colonies.” “And to what end, pray?” “To give them an excuse for imposing martial law upon us. They will pour a cataract of redcoats upon our shores. Musket in fist, cannon to back them, they will disperse our legislatures, take away our charters of self-government. That blood at Concord and Lexington gives them the pretext for which they schemed. They can now call us ‘rebels;’ and, calling us ‘rebels,’ they will try to reduce us--for all our white skins and freeborn blood--to the slavish status of Hindostan.” Mr. Livingston stares, while this long speech is reeled off. “Do you mean to say,” he asks at last, “that we are the victims of a Tory plot? Am I to understand that Concord and Lexington were aimed at by the king?” “Precisely so; and for one I’m glad the issue’s made. We have now but the one alternative. We may choose between abject slavery and war to the hilts.” Mr. Livingston’s severely pompons face, as the iron truth begins to overcome him, assumes an expression at once noble and high. “Why, then!” says he, “if such be the Tory design, war we shall have.” Then, following a pause: “And what is to be your course in case of war?” “I shall take my part in it, never fear! This very day I shall write to friends who will have seats in the Congress that meets next month in Philadelphia, and ask them to wear my name in their minds. I am theirs so soon as ever they have a plank afloat to put me on.” The pair, earnestly talking, reach Hanover Square, and pause in front of “The Bible and Crown.” “Here we are,” says Mr. Livingston. “Now if you’ll but wait until I give orders to Master Rivington, as to how he shall print and circulate my despatches, I’ll have you up to the house, where we can further consider this business over a bottle of wine.”