In this way was a great revolution effected in the colony of the crater.  At one time, the governor thought of knocking the whole thing in the head, by the strong arm; as he might have done, and would have been perfectly justified in doing.  The Kannakas were now at his command, and, in truth, a majority of the electors were with him; but political jugglery held them in duress.  A majority of the electors of the state of New York are, at this moment, opposed to universal suffrage, especially as it is exercised in the town and village governments, but moral cowardice holds them in subjection.  Afraid of their own shadows, each politician hesitates to ‘bell the cat.’  What is more, the select aristocrats and monarchists are the least bold in acting frankly, and in saying openly what they think; leaving that office to be discharged, as it ever will be, by the men who—­true democrats, and not canting democrats—­willing to give the people just as much control as they know how to use, or which circumstances will allow them to use beneficially to themselves, do not hesitate to speak with the candour and manliness of their principles.  These men call things by their right names, equally eschewing the absurdity of believing that nature intended rulers to descend from male to male, according to the order of primogeniture, or the still greater nonsense of supposing it necessary to obtain the most thrifty plants from the hotbeds of the people, that they may be transplanted into the beds of state, reeking with the manure of the gutters.

The governor submitted to the changes, through a love of peace, and ceased to be anything more than a private citizen, when he had so many claims to be first, and when, in fact, he had so long been first.  No sovereign on his throne, could write Gratia Dei before his titles with stricter conformity to truth, than Mark Woolston; but his right did not preserve him from the ruthless plunder of the demagogue.  To his surprise, as well as to his grief, Pennock was seduced by ambition, and he assumed the functions of the executive with quite as little visible hesitation, as the heir apparent succeeds to his father’s crown.

It would be untrue to say that Mark did not feel the change; but it is just to add that he felt more concern for the future fate of the colony, than he did for himself or his children.  Nor, when he came to reflect on the matter, was he so much surprised that he could be supplanted in this way, under a system in which the sway of the majority was so much lauded, when he did not entertain a doubt that considerably more than half of the colony preferred the old system to the new, and that the same proportion of the people would rather see him in the Colony House, than to see John Pennock in his stead.  But Mark—­we must call him the governor no longer—­had watched the progress of events closely, and began to comprehend them.  He had learned the great and all-important political truth, THAT THE MORE A PEOPLE