had hitherto contended against mighty odds, and together they bore down
upon the enemy--ay, and rooted him, too. For John Paul had an air about
him and a natural gift of oratory to command attention, and shortly the
dining room after dinner became the scene of such contests as to call up
in the minds of the old stagers a field night in the good days of Mr.
Pitt and the second George. The bailiff often sat by the door, an
interested spectator, and the macaroni lodgers condescended to come
downstairs and listen. The captain attained to fame in our little world
from his maiden address, in which he very shrewdly separated the
political character of Mr. Wilkes from his character as a private
gentleman, and so refuted a charge of profligacy against the people's
champion.

Altho' I never had sufficient confidence in my powers to join in these
discussions, I followed them zealously, especially when they touched
American questions, as they frequently did. This subject of the wrongs
of the colonies was the only one I could ever be got to study at King
William's School, and I believe that my intimate knowledge of it gave the
captain a surprise. He fell into the habit of seating himself on the
edge of my bed after we had retired for the night, and would hold me
talking until the small hours upon the injustice of taxing a people
without their consent, and upon the multitude of measures of coercion
which the King had pressed upon us to punish our resistance. He
declaimed so loudly against the tyranny of quartering troops upon a
peaceable state that our exhausted neighbours were driven to pounding
their walls and ceilings for peace. The news of the Boston massacre
had not then reached England.

I was not, therefore, wholly taken by surprise when he said to me one
night: