Governor
Nicholson had come from New York not many months before with a great
repute for ill-temper and harsh dealing; but I liked the look of his
hard-set face and soldierly bearing, and I never mind choler in a man
if he have also honesty and good sense. So I waited upon him at his
house close by Middle Plantation, on the road between James Town and
York River.
I had a very dusty reception. His Excellency sat in his long parlour
among a mass of books and papers and saddle-bags, and glared at me from
beneath lowering brows. The man was sore harassed by the King's
Government on one side and the Virginian Council on the other, and he
treated every stranger as a foe.
"What do you seek from me?" he shouted. "If it is some merchants'
squabble, you can save your breath, for I am sick of the Shylocks."
I said, very politely, that I was a stranger not half a year arrived in
the country, but that I had been using my eyes, and wished to submit my
views to his consideration.
"Go to the Council," he rasped; "go to that silken fool, His Majesty's
Attorney. My politics are not those of the leather-jaws that prate in
this land."
"That is why I came to you," I said.
Then without more ado I gave him my notions on the defence of the
colony, for from what I had learned I judged that would interest him
most.
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