"It is liberty"-"Well, then, I have my liberty. I have liberty to buy and to sell, to go

to my own kirk, to sail the 'Great Christopher' when and where I will.

My house, my wife, my little children, nobody has touched."

"Pray, sir, what of your rights? your honour?"

"Oh, indeed, then, for ideas I quarrel not! Facts, they are different.

Every man has his own creed, and every man his own liberty, so say

I.--Come here, Alida," and he waved his hand imperiously to a little

woman of four years old, who was sulking at the window, "what's the

matter now? You have been crying again. I see that you have a

discontented temper. There is a spot on your petticoat also, and your

cap is awry. I fear that you will never become a neat, respectable

girl--you that ought to set a good pattern to your little sister

Femmetia."

Evidently he wished to turn the current of the conversation; but as soon

as the child had been sent to her mother, Joris resumed it.

"If you go not yourself to the fight, Batavius, plenty of young men are

there, longing to go, who have no arms and no clothes: send in your

place one of them."

"It is my fixed principle not to meddle in the affairs of other people,

and my principles are sacred to me."

"Batavius, you said not long ago that the colonists were leaving the old

ship, and that the first in the new boat would have the choice of oars."

"Bram, that is the truth. I said not that I would choose any of the

oars."

"A fair harbour we shall make, and the rewards will be great, Batavius."

"It is not good to cry 'herrings,' till in the net you have them. And to

talk of rowing, the colonists must row against wind and tide; the

English will row with set sail. That is easy rowing. Into this question

I have looked well, for always I think about everything."

"Have you read the speeches of Adams and Hancock and Quincy? Have you

heard what Colonel Washington said in the Assembly?"

"Oh, these men are discontented! Something which they have not got, they

want. They are troublesome and conceited. They expect the century will

be called after them. Now I, who punctually fulfil my obligations as a

father and a citizen, I am contented, I never make complaints, I never

want more liberty. You may read in the Holy Scriptures that no good

comes of rebellion. Did not Absalom sit in the gate, and say to the

discontented, 'See thy matters are good and right; but there is no man

deputed of the king to hear thee;' and, moreover, 'Oh, that I were made

a judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might

come unto me, and I would do him justice'? And did not Sheba blow a

trumpet, and say, 'We have no part in David, neither have we

inheritance in the son of Jesse. Every man to his tents, O Israel'?

Well, then, what came of such follies? You may read in the Word of God

that they ended in ruin."




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