“I tell you we would give up all we own were the glory or honour of England at stake.  And yet you call us rebels, and accuse us of meanness and of parsimony.  If you wish money, leave the matter to our colonial assemblies, and see how readily you will get it.  But if you wish war, persist in trying to grind the spirit from a people who have in them the pride of your own ancestors.  Yes, you are estranging the colonies, gentlemen.  A greater man than I has warned you”

And with that I rose, believing that I had given them all mortal offence.  To my astonishment several got to their feet in front of me, huzzaing, and Comyn and Lord Ossory grasped my hands.  And Charles Fox reached out over the corner of the table and pulled me back into my chair.

“Bravo, Richard Carvel!” he cried.  “Cursed if I don’t love a man who will put up a fight against odds.  Who will stand bluff to what he believes, and won’t be talked out of his boots.  We won’t quarrel with any such here, my buckskin, I can tell you.”

And that is the simple story, my dears, of the beginning of my friendship with one who may rightly be called the Saint Paul of English politics.  He had yet some distance to go, alas, ere he was to begin that sturdy battle for the right for which his countrymen and ours will always bless him.  I gave him my hand with a better will than I had ever done anything, and we pressed our fingers numb.  And his was not the only hand I clasped.  And honest Jack Comyn ordered more wine, that they might drink to a speedy reconciliation with America.

“A pint bumper to Richard Carvel!” said Mr. Fitzpatrick.

I pledged Brooks’s Club in another pint.  Upon which they swore that I was a good fellow, and that if all American Whigs were like me, all cause of quarrel was at an end.  Of this I was not so sure, nor could I see that the question had been settled one way or another.  And that night I had reason to thank the Reverend Mr. Allen, for the first and last time in my life, that I could stand a deal of liquor, and yet not roll bottom upward.

The dinner was settled on the Baptist, who paid for it without a murmur.  And then we adjourned to the business of the evening.  The great drawing-room, lighted by an hundred candles, was filled with gayly dressed macaronies, and the sound of their laughter and voices in contention mingled with the pounding of the packs on the mahogany and the rattle of the dice and the ring of the gold pieces.  The sight was dazzling, and the noise distracting.  Fox had me under his especial care, and I was presented to young gentlemen who bore names that had been the boast of England through the centuries.  Lands their forebears had won by lance and sword, they were squandering away as fast as ever they could.  I, too, was known.  All had heard the romance of the Beauty and Castle Yard, and some had listened to Horry Walpole tell that foolish story of Goble at Windsor, on which he seemed to set such store.