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Scalawag on the Web Sectory 04
Page 12
You will, of course, observe that if Mrs. Bentley had sent the snuff-box to the buttery of St. John's College instead of Trinity, it would not have been language, for there would have been no covenant between sayer and sayee as to what the symbol should represent, there would have been no previously established association of ideas in the mind of the butler of St. John's between beer and snuff-box; the connection was artificial, arbitrary, and by no means one of those in respect of which an impromptu bargain might be proposed by the very symbol itself, and assented to without previous formality by the person to whom it was presented. More briefly, the butler of St. John's would not have been able to understand and read it aright. It would have been a dead letter to him--a snuff-box and not a letter; whereas to the butler of Trinity it was a letter and not a snuff-box.
These territorial assumptions on the part of Massachusetts much increased the king's hostility. This probably would not have proved fatal had it not been re-enforced by the determination of the merchants and manufacturers of the mother-country to crush what they feared was becoming a rival power beyond seas. They insisted upon full enforcement of the Navigation Laws, which made America's foreign trade in a cruel degree subservient to English interest. So incorrigible was the colony, it was found that this end could be compassed only by the abrogation of the charter, so that English law might become immediately valid in Massachusetts, colonial laws to the contrary notwithstanding. Accordingly, in 1684, the charter was vacated and the colonists ceased to be free, their old government with its popular representation giving way to an arbitrary commission.
Breakfast was scarcely over at Hanz Toodleburg's before the neighbors, one after another, began to drop in to shake Tite by the hand, and welcome him home, and say "God bless you." Many of them brought little presents, to show how true and heart-felt was the friendship they bore him. And when he went down into the village he found himself surrounded by friends, all anxious to shake his hand, and to welcome him back, and to hear something concerning his voyage. In short, he was an object of curiosity as well as respect, for at that day there was a mysterious interest attached to a young man who had been a voyage round the world, it being associated with spirit and daring of a remarkable kind.
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