Читать книгу The Carolinian онлайн

33 страница из 72

'Lord Hillsborough is quite definite in his instructions.'

'It's so devilish easy for a politician to be definite in London,' grumbled his lordship.

Captain Mandeville paid no heed to the comment. He lowered his eyes to the sheet he held, and read:

The Government is resolved to make an end, a speedy end, of the ungrateful and unfeeling insubordination of the American Colonies, which is occasioning so much pain to His Majesty's Ministers.

'Oh, damn their pain!' said their South Carolina representative.

The equerry read on:

The excessive leniency hitherto observed must now be definitely abandoned, and coercion must at once be employed to subdue these mutinous spirits.

Therefore, I desire your excellency to act without delay, seizing all arms and munitions belonging to the province, raising provincial troops if possible and making ready to receive the British regulars that will be embarked with the least possible delay.

His lordship laughed. 'Not without humour, Mandeville—of the unconscious kind, that so often has a tragic flavour. I am to raise provincial troops. Gadsmylife! As if the provincial troops were not raising themselves, whilst I look on, acquiescing in the damned comedy; pretending not to know the purpose for which they are being raised; regarding them as the ordinary militia which they scarcely trouble to pretend to be. They swarm in the streets until the place looks like a garrison town. They parade and march and drill under my very nose. Indeed, I marvel that I am not asked to sign their officers' commissions. If I were, I suppose I should have to do it. And Lord Hillsborough, snugly at home in England, writes ordering me to raise provincial troops! My God!'