"I've had it with King George! Congress is right! No taxation without representation!" shouted the young man standing on the table. The small Massachusetts town's tavern in which he was speaking was packed full with patriotic men who came here every night to listen to the fiery fellow. Suddenly the speaker's flow of accusations stopped, and all eyes turned towards the door. Standing there was a battered and weary redcoat, looking frightfully at the accusing eyes in front of him.

Promptly the crowd broke out in the typical cries of an angry mob. "Stupid Brit!" "Crazy lobster! Get out of here!" The speaker on the table, who was called Williams, hopped down from his perch. "No, let him in. Every man deserves to sit by a fire in cold weather." He walked over to the redcoat and took him by the arm. "No doubt he is of very interesting opinions and conversation."
"Loyalist rubbish, more like it!" someone called. The Brit's eyes flashed, but one look at the fireplace convinced him to come in and sit down, just for a minute...

"So, old man, where have you been? You look rather worn." said Williams, as he waved away the crowd and led the redcoat, who must have been in his fifties, to a table.
"Boston," was the reply. "I was in what you call the Boston Massacre a month ago. I've been sent to deliver a message, to an officer in New York. I've been riding all day." Williams hailed the innkeeper and asked for two drinks.
"Thanks," said the redcoat, "Perhaps you 'patriots' aren't as thick-headed as I thought." Williams smiled amusedly. The older man looked at him closely and knew instantly that he took the whole situation as a joke. He decided to provide Williams with more amusement. He could play clown, if he had to. He would do anything to stay indoors.

"Now, my boy, let's hear about your views against England. If I know your ideas, perhaps I can convert you," said the redcoat. Williams chuckled slightly. "Well, old man, what have you to say in defense of Parliament? " he asked. "Do you deny the things they've done to us? The taxes they've imposed?"
"Britain needs those taxes for the debts caused by war with France. Parliament has every right to extract taxes from this continent."
"Maybe, but the pure amount of money that goes out of our pockets to pay your war funds! Taxes on stamps, packages, newspapers, envelopes, legal documents, the list goes on! And now on tea as well! We have nothing to do with your argument with France. If England and France want to be eternal enemies, that's their problem. Why rope us into paying for Britain's war expenses?"
"You Americans may think of yourselves as free from the crown, but you are members of the kingdom of Great Britain. I think you so-called patriots are making much ado about nothing. Taxes are taxes. They're part of life," replied the redcoat calmly. He shifted in his chair a little.

"It's more than the taxes!" said Williams heatedly. "Your government has quartered large groups of soldiers among innocent civilians and given them the right to take what they want! Your fellow redcoats have also fired upon our people! You were there at the infamous Boston Massacre last month. You and your companions shot your muskets, didn't you?"
"'Our people'! You speak as though they were your family. Would you not fire at man who was heaving fist-sized rocks at your head? Who was speaking blasphemous things against your king?"
"I have no king," said Williams sullenly. "I bow to no one. I am an independent American!"
"Ha! 'No king'! 'Independent American'! Do you really think you are that special? That King George has no power over you?"
"He does not. A man who chooses not to serve his king is independent, free!"
"A man who chooses not to serve his rightful king is a traitor," responded the redcoat smoothly.

Williams decided it was time for their conversation to come to an end. He said in a chillingly quiet voice, "Someday Congress will declare America's independence. Then it will be official, as if written in stone. Your army may try to crush us then, but you will need more than luck to defeat a people with this much cause." And with that, he led the redcoat very firmly out the door. He told him where to find lodging, then went back inside to fume in private. The old redcoat walked away down the road. He felt sorry for Williams, whom he thought could be a good man. It didn't matter, though. If war did indeed come, the redcoat thought, the British would surely win.