was broke then and there. You may say George Cartwright drove you out;
but what did he do that could justify your flight? I must be plain with
you: with all outward and visible signs of power you gave way before
three open boats and a mouldy ruin."

"We gave way," said Lempriere with an indignant flush, "because we were
forsook by them on whom we leaned."

"I know it," pursued Prynne, "I say it not to blame you, but to blame
the lukewarm weakness of those who held authority there on the part of
the Commonwealth: for had Lydcott been ever so able and willing he
lacked support from hence. We had our hands full of graver business.
Only I neither desire nor expect such things should be done a second
time. There be those now in power that will take better order. The
future of your islands, the ties that bind them to us, were not known
six years ago; and our friends--as I have already said--had other
matters, more pressing, to attend to. But now is not then. Now, that a
violent policy that I cannot altogether undertake to defend hath shorn
the strength of tyranny, and that fair deceiver the late King--whom none
could safely trust or utterly despise--is by that blow taken out of our
path, we are free to set matters straight around us. It is therefore not
to be endured that your small wasps' nest yonder should continue to
infest our ambient ocean with her petty and poisonous alarms. This is
the word I have to give thee--friendly meant, though thou mayest have
been hitherto no friend to me. Jersey will be brought under the power of
the Commonwealth, and you will be among the instruments of its
reduction. I seek a word from you in return for mine."

"Sir," said the bewildered exile, "you have spoken hardly, but, I
believe, with a meaning kinder than seemed: a good intent makes amends