in order to be at home about the date of their arrival. Pearson took
him in his canoe to the end of the lake and accompanied him to the
settlement, whence he was able to obtain a conveyance to Detroit.
Here he took a passage in a trading boat and made his way by water to
Montreal, thence down through Lake Champlain and the Hudson River to
New York, and thence to Boston.

The journey had occupied him longer than he expected, and Mr. and
Mrs. Wilson were already in their home at Concord when he arrived.
The meeting was a joyful one. His parents had upon their return home
found letters from Mr. Welch and his wife describing the events which
had happened at the farm, speaking in the highest terms of the
courage and coolness in danger which Harold had displayed, and giving
him full credit for the saving of their daughter's life.

Upon the day after Harold's return two gentlemen called upon Captain
Wilson and asked him to sign the agreement which a number of
colonists had entered into to resist the mother country to the last.
This Captain Wilson positively refused to do.

"I am an Englishman," he said, "and my sympathies are wholly with my
country. I do not say that the whole of the demands of England are
justifiable. I think that Parliament has been deceived as to the
spirit existing here. But I consider that it has done nothing
whatever to justify the attitude of the colonists. The soldiers of
England have fought for you against French and Indians and are still
stationed here to protect you. The colonists pay nothing for their
land; they pay nothing toward the expenses of the government of the
mother country; and it appears to me to be perfectly just that people
here, free as they are from all the burdens that bear so heavily on