“Yes. The Molasses Act. It says we may only buy molasses from English traders and English ships. That keeps the price of molasses high and protects the English planters. I do not like it so well, because I also manufacture rum here in New York. I could buy my molasses far cheaper from the French traders, if it were allowed.” He shrugged.

It was now that young John Master chose to speak.

“Except that we do.” He turned to Kate and grinned. “We get molasses from the Frenchies outside the port and smuggle ’em in. ’Tain’t legal, of course, but it’s what Pa does. I go out on those runs,” he assured her, with some pride.

The merchant looked at his son with exasperation.

“That’s enough, John,” he said loudly. “Now what we should all like to hear,” he bowed toward Eliot, “is my cousin’s opinion of tomorrow’s trial.”

Eliot Master looked down at the table. The truth was, he felt a sense of relief. If, before arriving at the house, his secret terror had been that his daughter might take a liking to her handsome cousin, upon entering the house, seeing the young man cleaned up, and realizing that he must be heir to a fortune far larger than his own in Boston, he had been faced with an uncomfortable proposition: whatever his feelings about these New Yorkers and their business, would he really have the right to deny her, if Kate should wish to marry such a rich kinsman? So far, he had been struggling. But now, by his foolish intervention, this boy had just exposed himself and his family for what they were. Not only slavers, but smugglers as well. Their fortune, so much greater than his own, was explained. He would be polite to them, naturally. But as far as Eliot Master was concerned, they were no better than criminals. His duty as a father, therefore, required him only to ensure that his daughter saw this young scoundrel for what he was.

Thus satisfied, he turned his mind to the trial of John Peter Zenger.

If tomorrow’s trial was of great consequence for the American colonies, its origins lay in England. Political events in London never took long to affect Boston and New York. As Dirk Master liked to say: “London gives us laws, wars and whores.” By “whores,” however, he meant the royal governors.