“Well, the British use the right to govern us like a baby rattle and they find us a poor toy.  This petty island, compared with America, is but a stepping stone in a brook.  There’s scarcely enough of it out of water to keep one’s feet dry.  In two generations our population will exceed that of the British Isles.  But with so many lying agents over there what chance have they to learn anything about us?  They will expect to hear you tell of people being tomahawked in Philadelphia—­a city as well governed as any in England.  They can not understand that most of us would gladly spend nineteen shillings to the pound for the right to spend the other shilling as we please.”

“Can they not be made to understand us?” Jack inquired.

“The power to learn is like your hand—­you must use it or it will wither and die.  There are brilliant intellects here which have lost the capacity to learn.  I think that profound knowledge is not for high heads.”

“I wonder just what you mean.”

“Oh, the moment you lose humility, you stop learning,” the Doctor went on.  “There are two doors to every intellect.  One lets knowledge in, the other lets it out.  We must keep both doors in use.  The mind is like a purse:  if you keep paying out money, you must, now and then, put some into your purse or it will be empty.  I once knew a man who was a liberal spender but never did any earning.  We soon found that he had been making counterfeit money.  The King’s intellects have often put me in mind of him.  They are flush with knowledge but they never learn anything.  They can tell you all you may want to know but it is counterfeit knowledge.”

“How about Lord North?”

“He has nailed up the door.  The African zebra is a good student compared to him.  It is a maxim of Walpole and North that all men are equally corrupt.”

“It is a hateful notion!” Jack exclaimed.

“But not without some warrant.  You may be sure that a man who has spent his life in hospitals will have no high opinion of the health of mankind.  He and his friends are so engrossed by their cards and cock fights and horses and hounds that they have little time for such a trivial matter as the problems of America.  They postpone their consideration and meanwhile the house is catching fire.  By and by these boys are going to get burned.  They think us a lot of semi-savages not to be taken seriously.  Our New England farmers are supposed to be like the peasants of Europe.  The fact is, our average farmer is a man of better intellect and character than the average member of Parliament.”

“The King’s intellects would seem to be out of order,” said Jack.

“And too cynical.  They think only of revenues.  They remind me of the report of the Reverend Commissary Blair who, having projected a college in Virginia, came to England to ask King William for help.  The Queen in the King’s absence ordered her Attorney-General to draw a charter with a grant of two thousand pounds.  The Attorney opposed it on the ground that they were in a war and needed the money for better purposes.