“So, now, at last,” said Laurence, “New England had gained her wish.  Canada was taken!”

“And now there was nobody to fight with, but the Indians,” said Charley.

Grandfather mentioned two other important events.  The first was the great fire of Boston, in 1700, when the glare from nearly three hundred buildings, all in flames at once, shone through the windows of the Province House, and threw a fierce lustre upon the gilded foliage and lion’s head of our old chair.  The second event was the proclamation, in the same year, of George the Third as king of Great Britain.  The blast of the trumpet sounded from the balcony of the Town House, and awoke the echoes far and wide, as if to challenge all mankind to dispute King George’s title.

Seven times, as the successive monarchs of Britain ascended the throne, the trumpet-peal of proclamation had been heard by those who sat in our venerable chair.  But, when the next king put on his father’s crown, no trumpet-peal proclaimed it to New England!  Long before that day, America had shaken off the royal government.

Chapter XI

Now that Grandfather had fought through the Old French War, in which our chair made no very distinguished figure, he thought it high time to tell the children some of the more private history of that praiseworthy old piece of furniture.

“In 1757,” said Grandfather, “after Shirley had been summoned to England, Thomas Pownall was appointed governor of Massachusetts.  He was a gay and fashionable English gentleman, who had spent much of his life in London, but had a considerable acquaintance with America.  The new governor appears to have taken no active part in the war that was going on; although, at one period, he talked of marching against the enemy, at the head of his company of cadets.  But, on the whole, he probably concluded that it was more befitting a governor to remain quietly in our chair, reading the newspapers and official documents.”

“Did the people like Pownall?” asked Charley.

“They found no fault with him,” replied Grandfather.  “It was no time to quarrel with the governor, when the utmost harmony was required, in order to defend the country against the French.  But Pownall did not remain long in Massachusetts.  In 1759, he was sent to be governor of South Carolina.  In thus exchanging one government for another, I suppose he felt no regret, except at the necessity of leaving Grandfather’s chair behind him.”

“He might have taken it to South Carolina,” observed Clara.

“It appears to me,” said Laurence, giving the rein to his fancy, “that the fate of this ancient chair was, somehow or other, mysteriously connected with the fortunes of old Massachusetts.  If Governor Pownall had put it aboard the vessel in which he sailed for South Carolina, she would probably have lain wind-bound in Boston harbor.  It was ordained that the chair should not be taken away.  Don’t you think so, Grandfather?”