Dispatch to New York

American Trail. American Trail. Lazed in blood, defended in blood. Chapter 1, dispatch to New York. 1776.

There is no longer room for hope. If we want to be free, we must fight. I repeat, tell him to fight. And appeal to arm. And the God of Host is all the left to us.

In 1787, almost nine years later, a stage coach hurtled along the rough lanes that led from New York to Virginia. Inside the coach sat Tom Farrell, a newspaper reporter from New York City. As he sat there, he planned how he would write the story.

He would soon send back to his newspaper. It's back to the New York Packet, Stateline March 18, 1787. Your humble servant, being considered by his bettors, fit to report the events to occur and Philadelphia in May of this year, and having at his disposal a few weeks to spare is now taking an opportunity to travel by stagecoach to Virginia, there to interview

one Patrick Henry, an aggressive opponent of the new American Constitution. Why have the honor of addressing Mr. Patrick Henry? You do. I'm Tom Peralta, a journalist from New York. New York, eh? Well, I can't blame you for wanting to come to Virginia.

Sit down. Thank you, sir. And let me tell you something, I'm not an overly cautious man, so you'd best mind what you asked me and speak up while I pour a glass of satyr. Sir, is it true that you oppose the signing of the Constitution?

It is, would you care to say why? Not at all. The 13 American colonies did not wage a bloody war to win their independence from a foreign king in order to calmly surrender that independence to a central government.