New York - The Novel

here. I beg you.” And even after he had pointed out the advantages of the thing, she had only become more distressed. “I could not bear to lose my son to this accursed place.”
    When he informed the boy of his mother’s feelings, James said nothing. But he looked so unhappy that John told him to wait a few more days, while he considered.
    And for several more days, John Master did consider the matter, most carefully. He could understand Mercy’s feelings. The thought that he and his son should be parted by three thousand miles, quite possibly for years, was just as painful for him as it was for his mother. Especially after their growing companionship in London, it would probably hurt him even more. On the other hand, James had clearly set his heart on it, and Master had no doubt in his mind that Oxford would be good for his son.
    Set against that, however, must be the condition of his mother. A pregnancy was always dangerous, and as a woman got older, he believed it was more so. Should he and James cause her acute distress at such a time? What if, God forbid, things were to go wrong? A vision came into his mind of Mercy on her sickbed, calling for her son, three thousand miles away. Of Mercy’s silent reproach. Of poor young James’s subsequent guilt.
    He broached the subject gently with Mercy one more time. Her feelings were as strong as ever. And so there was only one decision, he concluded, to be made.
    “You shall return with us to America,” he told James. “And there you’ll remain for some months. But after that time, if you have not changedyour mind, we’ll consider the question of Oxford again. I promise you nothing, but we’ll consider it. In the meantime, my boy, you must make the best of it, put on a cheerful face, and take care not to distress your mother. For if you complain, and distress her,” he added ominously, “then I’ll close the subject forever.”
    He did not tell his son that he had every intention of sending him back to England within the year.
    And whether James guessed this, or whether he simply heeded his words, John Master was greatly pleased that for the remaining weeks of the winter, James was as kind and obliging as any parent could wish their son to be. They continued to enjoy great happiness in London. And finally, after a fond parting from the Albions, the three Masters took ship in the first fine weather of the spring, to make the long voyage back to New York.

Abigail
1765
    M ANY NATIONS HAD followed the imperial dream. But by the 1760s, no reasonable person could doubt that Britain was destined for glory. Soon after the Masters got back to New York, news came that the old king had died, and the modest, well-meaning young Prince of Wales had come to the throne as George III. And every year, new blessings were heaped upon his empire.
    In America, Britain’s armies had driven the rival French from Canada. In 1763, at the Peace of Paris, the French abandoned all their claims to the vast American hinterland, and were allowed only the modest town of New Orleans down in the Mississippi marshes; while their Catholic allies the Spanish had to give up their huge domains in Florida.
    The whole eastern American seaboard was now Britain’s. Except for the presence of the Indians, of course. Recently, when a leader of the Ottawa Indians, named Pontiac, had started a rebellion that had terrified the colonists of Massachusetts, the British Army, aided by local sharpshooters, had smashed the Indians soon enough—a valuable reminder to the colonists of their need for the mother country. But beyond such necessary firmness, the British believed their policy was generous and wise. Let the Indians fear English power, but don’t stir them up. There was still plenty of empty land in the east. Any drive westward into the hinterland could wait for a generation or two. Cultivate the huge garden of the eastern seaboard, therefore, and enjoy its fruits.
    Ben Franklin himself would not have disagreed. Indeed, thanks to hisindefatigable lobbying, the prudent British government had even given him a valuable stake in the great enterprise. For his son William Franklin, with a law degree, but no administrative experience, was now made governor of the colony of New Jersey.
    As for the rest of her far-flung empire and her rivalry with France, Britain now controlled the fabulous riches of India and the rich sugar island of Jamaica. Her navy dominated every ocean. Britannia ruled the