As Grey departed, James sighed. The letter wasn’t going to be easy. Though he always added a brief note to the regular reports Albion sent his father, he realized with shame that he hadn’t written a proper letter to his parents in over a year. The letter he must now compose had better be long, and he hoped it would give them pleasure. The real reason for writing, however, he would save until the end.

He wasn’t sure they were going to like it.

“My dear parents,” he wrote, then paused. How should he begin?

John Master had never had a quarrel with his wife. Yet on this bright spring day, he was very close to it. How could she think of such a thing? His look signaled reproach, but in fact he was furious.

“I beg you not to go!” he protested.

“Thee cannot mean such a thing, John,” she answered.

“Can’t you see it makes me look a damn fool?”

How could she not understand? Last year, when they’d invited him to be a vestryman at Trinity, he’d been flattered. The appointment carried prestige, but also obligations—one of which, quite certainly, was not to have your wife openly attending a meeting with a mob of Dissenters. Five years ago, it mightn’t have been so bad, but times had changed. Dissenters were trouble.

“Please do not blaspheme, John.”

“You are my wife,” he burst out. “I demand that you obey me.”

She paused, looking down, weighing her words carefully.

“I am sorry, John,” she said quietly, “but there is a higher authority than thee. Do not forbid me to hear the word of God.”

“And you want to take Abigail?”

“I do.”

He shook his head. He knew better than to argue with his wife’s conscience. He had enough on his mind without dealing with that.

“Go then,” he cried in exasperation. “But not with my blessing.” Or my thanks, he added under his breath. And he turned his back on her until she left.

As John Master surveyed his world in the spring of 1770, he was sure of one thing. There had never been a time when the colony had greater need of good men, with good will, and cool heads. Five years ago, when Livingston and De Lancey from the Assembly had spoken of the need for the gentlemen to control the Liberty Boys, they’d been right. But they hadn’t managed to do it.