"
"Nay, I fear 'tis past hoping for that the people will be contented
with anything the convention may have done, however well considered,"
said Dr. Partridge. "They have set their hearts on some such miracle
as that whereby Moses did refresh fainting Israel with water from the
smitten rock. The crowd over yonder will be satisfied with nothing
short of that from the convention," and the doctor waved his hand
toward the people on the green, with a smile of tolerant contempt on
his clean-cut, sarcastic, but not unkindly face.
"I much err," said Squire Woodbridge, "if the stocks and the
whipping-post be not the remedy their discontent calls for. I am told
that seditious and disorderly speech is common at the tavern of
evenings. This presumption of the people to talk concerning matters
of government, is an evil that has greatly increased since the war,
and calls for sharp castigation. These numskulls must be taught their
place or t'will shortly be no country for gentlemen to live in."
"A letter that I had but a day or two ago from my brother at Hatfield,"
said Dr. Partridge, "speaks of the people being much stirred up in
Hampshire, so that some even fear an attempt of the mob to obstruct
the court at Northampton, though my brother opined that their insolence
would not reach so far.
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