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'Aye,' grumbled his excellency. 'The fellow's a nasty thorn in our flesh. If the province were rid of him and that firebrand Gadsden, there'd be more hope of a settlement.'

'So speak your mind freely about him,' the equerry invited. 'What is there between you?'

'Just a matter of some fifty acres the grasping scoundrel has filched from my bounty lands, by artful shifting of boundaries.'

Williams's voice quivered with scorn. 'There's a noble gentleman for you. A man as rich as Dives, and not above thieving land from a Lazarus like myself. But that's the spirit of these rebels. They're all alike. Where there's no loyalty to the King, there's no fear of God, nor virtue of any kind.'

'But there's a law to which you can appeal,' Lord William reminded him, shocked by this revelation of turpitude.

'A law!' Dick Williams laughed outright. 'The law's dispensed by such men as Mr. Latimer in South Carolina. The province is ruled by these wealthy planters. And they'll never legislate against one another.'