The front room of the Boston residence of Mr. John Adams, Esq.

          Mr. Adams read my lettre from King George very carefully. 

          He lowered the page and glared at me.

          Then he read it again.  And again.  And again.

          Then he sat down, slowly, folded the page, then handed it back to me. 

          “Is this real? Is he serious?”

          I nodded.

          “King George wants to hand complete control of this colony to you?”

          I nodded.

          John sighed deeply, and stared at the floor.  “I suppose it’s come to this. I hope you’ll do a better job than the previous governors.”

          “Well, I will not be so much a governor as I’ll be a…”  I stopped talking.  John’s face turned gray as his eyes met mine.

          “A dictator,” he said.

          I nodded.

          “King George is asking you to become a dictator over this colony. He’s offering you complete authority to abrogate our Charter, imprison and execute anyone you suspect of disturbing the peace, and free-reign to create what laws you wish, whether they are consistent with English common law or not.”

          He signed deeply again.

          “Well,” he continued, “The people may be in an uproar over this, but I, at least, trust you and shall give you my full support.”

          “I’m not going to do it, John.”

          He looked surprised.  “And why not? You’ve been wanting for the past decade to restore peace and law to Boston, and now here is your chance?”

          “Because, John, to do so I’d have to hang your cousin and Mr. Hancock.”

          John grew even more silent, mulling over his thoughts.  It was a minute or so before he spoke again.

          “So who shall receive the post if you decline?”

          “General Gage, but he will not have the powers offered to me – yet.”

          “That sounds like a threat, man.”

          “It is, John. News of this tea dumping shall reach London any day, and Fat Georgie will not lightly countenance being affronted thus. He’ll take this as a personal insult. He’ll push Parliament to recall the civil authority and hand Gage all the authority he needs to turn Massachusetts into one enormous army camp. Your cousin will not be able to bully him the way he did Hutchinson. Gage will not restrained behind a weak civilian government.”

          John nodded silent assent.  After a moment, I rose to leave.

          “There will be bloodshed,” he said as I pulled on my gloves.

          “There’s already been bloodshed. For years Boston has been controlled by the lawless, self-appointed defenders of the public liberty, who have lied, bullied, and assaulted their way to power. Whatever moral high-ground they had vanished the instant that they poured scalding tar on other human beings, and denied others their rights while singing loudly for their own. These men do not have the fear of God before their eyes. I smelled the burning flesh of their victims, John. I felt it tear off their bodies in my hands. If I hanged Sam Adams and John Hancock, they’d get the just reward for their crimes, but their cronies and foot-soldiers would rise up and start a war. I won’t have that on my hands. But neither can I accept the position the King offered without hanging those two. Hypocrisy by my hand in government is not what I want.”

          “So what do you want?”

          I paused at the door. “Well, I loathe the Sons of Liberty, and I despise the English government. I suppose I’m stuck.”

          John smiled. “You could become a third-party candidate.”

          “Not in such a tightly controlled two-party system in which both sides strangle out the voices of reason and truth in order to promote their own self-interested claims to rule and power.”

          “Merciful heavens, man, do you ever shut off?”

          So I left Mr. Adams, and stepped out into the streets of Boston.  The streets were crowded, and the fish in the harbour were still strung-out on the ton of caffeine dropped onto them by the colonists last month.

          Pathos found me.

          “Afternoon, Sir. Where we off to?”

          “I don’t know, Pathos.  It’s hard to get around these crowded streets. What are your thoughts?”

          “Well, we could dig tunnels under the streets and transport people that way, perhaps on some sort of self-propelled ox cart?”

          I glared hard.

          “No, Pathos, I meant what are your thoughts on where we should go?”

          “Ah.  Well, not Faneuil Hall. The government is still after you about that little matter of the tea in the harbour.”

          “All their mamas. Let’s go get cannoli.”

And go get cannoli we did.