Hello hello! Welcome back to yet another week of desperately trying to balance theater and this monster. YAY!

Also, for some reason I found myself slowly mutating into Lemony Snicket throughout this chapter. It's a strange narration style, but I had fun with it. Let me know what you think.

Chapter Six

The (Not Quite as Planned) Reunion

March 4th, 1770

Abraham Morris had a very unusual business, at least for the colonies, he supposed. Then again, he did live in Boston, which had one of the biggest ports in the New World; you could sell absolutely anything there. And with a generous supply of manufactured goods coming in from the Mother Country, you could buy absolutely anything there as well. Only in such a city could a business such as Morris' ever survive. You see, it catered to a rather niche clientele, mostly because most people could see just fine without help from Morris' product. Because what he actually sold were eye glasses.

He sold them for quite a sum of money, but that was simply the whole nature of the thing, wasn't it? They had to be unique for each person, which meant they couldn't be mass produced, and required an artisan of particular merit to make. Because of this, they had to be made over the sea in Europe, and were ordered on a person by person basis. Just the shipping cost was pricey, let alone the actual lenses themselves. So Morris didn't make them, he only sold them to the worldly people who could afford such luxury.

Business had been made even more difficult lately by the strange surge of patriotism that had been rapidly spreading around Boston as of late. But not patriotism to the crown, that would make Morris bat an eye, but patriotism to what these stupid youngsters were calling "our country, our America!" This usually wouldn't have bothered him much, except that these revolutionaries had started rejecting all of British-made goods (1), of which eye-glasses were a part of.

Morris always rolled his eyes at such talk of "Independence" and "Revolution". Those crazy "Sons of Liberty" (2) had been making a big stink about these things lately, but Morris just saw them as a bunch of bored schoolboys who needed something better to do than standing around protesting all day and burning official's houses down. He simply couldn't understand why anyone would want to break away from Britain, who gave them everything they could possibly want. These Sons of Liberty were just acting like children who had their lives handed to them on a silver platter, and yet still begged for more.

But luckily, there were still plenty of Loyalists to the crown, many of whom had plenty of money to spend on things like spectacles. Even for those who didn't actually need their vision corrected, you could only afford to buy things such as glasses if you had wealth, which people, being people, often liked to show off. And so Morris was able to keep up a good business.

Although most of his clients happened to be the very wealthy, many people came into Morris' little shop. Old men whose sight had been robbed by age, and sorely missed the joys of reading. Women whose eyes were so tired of staring at small needles in dark, candle-lit rooms that their vision became blurry and fatigued. Soldiers who were worried by their inability to ever hit a target. Mothers that feared for the child who kept running into things like trees and walls.

Morris helped them all. When he could, that is; some people tended to use their "poor vision" as an excuse for problems that they came upon, like the aforementioned soldiers. And even when he couldn't help them, he'd still take their money and order a simple pair of glasses with no correction what-so-ever. Still, oftentimes, to his great surprise, his clients swore that even the plain glass improved their vision, though there had never been problem with their eyesight in the first place. To this he simply chuckled and pocketed his fee.

This particular case, however, was not one of those. The young man who stood in his shop did actually need glasses. His eyes were strangely like an old man's: he could see things just fine from a distance, but put a book under his nose and he'd claim that: "Yeah, those words are totally blurry, dude". Morris had never had a case like this before, but he was admittingly no expert. He just sold the lenses and hoped that they were actually the right kind for that client, so he supposed that the young man's case probably wasn't quite as unique as he thought it was.

There was something off about the young man, though, but Morris simply couldn't place his finger on it. Maybe it was the strange aura that seemed to surround him. He acted so young and carefree, yet seemed to emanate this strange sense of eternity, yes, that was the only word that Morris could have used to describe it. It was as if he was a much older man stuck in the body of a nineteen-year-old boy.

But Morris shook himself, trying to relieve the uneasy feeling that rested in his gut. It must have simply been his mind playing tricks on him. If he was honest, it was probably the man's strange way of speaking that was so off-putting. He used words like "cool" and "awesome" bizarrely out of context, and kept saying that other strange word, "dude", that Morris had never heard before. Maybe he was from New York, down the coast. A lot of Dutch people still lived there (3). Yes, Morris could see it now. With his blonde hair and blue eyes, the man could have very easily been Dutch. He must have been from New York. That was the only possible explanation.

The man gazed around the small front of the shop, which had several very pricey displays showing off the latest styles of spectacles from Europe, while Morris searched the somewhat cluttered back for the box, arrived just the other day by ship, which contained the man's new spectacles. It took a good minute, controlled chaos would be the word that Morris would use to describe his organizational pattern, but then he found it, and produced a small wooden box from a bunch of other such containers.

"Here it is!" He called, and the man ceased absently tapping the glass of a display case and approached the counter with interest. Morris placed the box on the counter, and with a dramatic flourish which his customers often appreciated, opened it.

The man looked into the box, his blue eyes twinkling. "May I?" He asked, pointing to the glasses. Morris gave the go ahead, and the man reached inside and pulled out a pair of thin-rimmed, round spectacles, the newest style from Paris. He placed them on his nose delicately, as if afraid that he might break them, and did a double-take as his eyes adjusted to the bended light coming through the glass of the spectacles. "Whoa..."

"Are they … Alright, sir?" Morris asked, having no idea if "whoa" was a good or bad term in New York speak.

Taking off the glasses, and then immediately putting them right back on again, the man grinned broadly. "Is this what it's like to actually be able to see?"

"I would imagine so, sir", Morris said diplomatically.

"This is sweet!"

"Um … Sweet?" Morris asked, before deducing that it probably meant something along the lines of "Great".

"Yes, quite", said Morris, shrugging. Dutch people were weird.

The man turned his head this way and that, the cowlick that grew where his hair parted bounced jerkily along with him. "Now, before you go", said Morris, getting that odd uneasy feeling again, "We need to make sure that the lenses are actually correcting your vision properly".

"Okay", the man said good-naturedly.

Morris grabbed a card from under the counter that had large letters at the top which progressively grew smaller as they got further down the paper. He held it in front of the man's face. "See if you can read this".

"S-E-P-I", the man began confidently, "R-T-S … D-N-A", the letters were quite small now, the man was doing well. But now he hesitated. "S-R … … A-T-S?" He had struggled with the last few, but they were all right.

"Very good, sir", Morris said, "I do believe that those are the right lenses".

"Excellent!" The man smiled gormlessly, "Thank you so much". He grabbed Morris' hand to shake it, and Morris had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out at the strength of the man's grip. It was almost inhuman, and Morris was afraid for a moment that the bones in his hand were going to start snapping if the man held on for much longer. But then the man let go and, waving, left the shop, the cheery bell over the door ringing as it closed behind him with a muffled thump. Morris sighed in relief and rubbed his hand, which was a little sore now.

What an awfully strange day this had been. After the general weirdness of today, Morris decided that he could afford to close up early. He turned the sign on the door, and locked it, then proceeded to make sure everything was in order for tomorrow. He exited out the back door as the afternoon sun was beginning to disappear behind the tall buildings of the city.

Yes, it had been a strange day. Little did he know that for the whole of Boston, tomorrow was going to be even stranger.

Alfred sincerely hoped that he hadn't broken that poor merchant's hand. The man had looked a little pained by his grip, but Alfred couldn't help it. Sometimes he just got excited and forgot that he could crush a man's hand just by shaking it too hard. Alfred was often excited, and so he often forgot his own strength.

That was why he'd had to leave Providence last month, because he'd accidentally let the colonists there see that strange, inhuman quality about him. It hadn't even been that big of a deal, really, just some big cement brick about to fall on some poor kid's head. He couldn't just let it happen. But when the people saw him snatch a brick out of the air that two men could barely lift together, they'd all gone silent. It was what they always did when Alfred messed up. They'd go silent and then do something stupid like try to shoot him full of bullets or burn his house down. And then he always had to move.

So now he was back in Boston, at least for the foreseeable future. He'd had to move far less now than when he'd been small. It was easier to lie and stretch your age when you looked nineteen, because then any age between seventeen and twenty-five was at the very least plausible. When you looked eight, you could be seven, maybe ten if you pushed it, maybe. He'd learned that from experience.

It was far easier living in a big city, he'd also learned before long, because there, people were always coming and going, and the large amount of residents allowed for at least some sense of anonymity. Although being in this particular city made him a bit nervous, he had to admit. He hadn't been here for many years. Not since Davie.

Alfred pushed his new glasses upwards on his nose and shook his head, trying to clear it. He'd promised himself that he wouldn't think about sad things like that anymore. He strode out from under the shadow of the spectacle shop's large awning and out onto the busy streets of the city, blending in with the crowd expertly. It still felt strange to be anonymous, because Alfred felt anything but.

But he had gotten quite good at the whole disappearing thing over the years, at acting like he was normal, not at all strange or unusual. Most people never even batted an eye at him. Except children, that is. Children always seemed to be aware that something was odd about him. Sometimes they would act scared and hide behind the nearest parental unit, but often times they were simply curious. Still, Alfred tried to stay clear of them. A child's gaze often made him feel like there was a spotlight on him, and he didn't like it. Sometimes he could imagine, even almost convince himself that he was normal, but kids always reminded him that he was not. He would always be something unnatural in the eyes of most people, if they ever knew. A Demon.

Demon. Every time he screwed up, the colonists called him that. It was kind of uncanny, actually. For a short time, that's what Alfred thought he was: some strange sort of hell spawn that only spread misery to himself, while leaving all other mortals intact. But Demons, witches, that sort of thing, didn't really exist. They were just tales that people told themselves when something was out of place in the world, an excuse, really. Alfred certainly existed. Unless this was all some sort of strange, really, really long dream. But he honestly tried not to think of things like that. They just made his head hurt.

So instead, as he did whenever his thoughts tended to wander to things he didn't want to think about, which was many, Alfred turned his attention to his people. They were always doing things: building, growing. It made him proud in a strange sort of way, like a father watching a child finish building a model. Exhilaration, that was the only word he could have used to describe it. It brought a smile to his face just to watch these people, his people, invent and create, build and think. This truly was an exciting time to be alive.

"What's with the grin, Alfred?" Asked a voice from behind him, and Alfred turned to see a man with a pointed face staring back at him. He was one of Alfred's … well, maybe "friend" wasn't the right word, Alfred really didn't have any of those, but then again, something did seem right about it. He was hesitant about calling someone that because he didn't like getting attached to people; it hurt too much. But if he was honest, that's what Sam, which was his name, was.

Alfred scratched his cheek, embarrassed. "Oh, um, nothing really", he said. How could he possibly explain to a—somewhat infuriatingly, he had to admit—normal person that he remembered living in this city some eighty-odd years ago when it had been half the size and most of the roads that he'd walked along with his brother had been dirt.

His smile faded quickly. That was yet another thing that he'd promised himself he wouldn't think about. Oh well, there was another promise broken, just like the one that someone had made to him on that dock all of those years ago that he still hadn't made good on.

Sam didn't seem to notice the change. He looked a little preoccupied as he glanced this way and that to make sure that no one was watching them. Leaning in close to Alfred, he whispered "You're coming to the meeting tomorrow night, right?"

Alfred momentarily felt the weight of the cold metal that hung from a chain around his neck. "I was planning on it, dude".

On the last word, Sam broke his conspiratorial expression, and raised an eyebrow at him. "Dude?" He asked. "What is that, Dutch?"

"Um …" Alfred thought about it. He didn't really know where he got most of his vocabulary. It just kind of burbled from his mouth of its own accord, so he just tended to go with it. "Yeah, Dutch. That's it".

It wasn't a very convincing explanation, and Sam obviously wasn't buying it. But he just chuckled and patted Alfred on the back. "You, my good sir, are one of the strangest men that I have ever met".

"Thanks?" Alfred said, not sure if it was a compliment or not.

Sam was just about to respond, with something snarky, no doubt, when someone called his name. He turned, and looking over the shorter man's head, Alfred saw that there was a girl across the street. Her long, brown braid blew behind her in the breeze as she waved to Sam, who promptly began grinning like an idiot as he waved back,

"Whoa", Alfred elbowed him, "Does Samuel Gray, the Eternal Bachelor himself, have a lady friend?"

Said bachelor blushed profusely and shoved Alfred playfully, making a good attempt at a scowl, but which ended up as a lop-sided smile. "Shut up, you!"

Alfred laughed. "And what, pray tell, would be this very lovely lady friend's name?" He asked, enjoyed his friend's embarrassment. "Is it, by any chance, Ms. Hoity-Toity Royalist Dipshit?" He pointed out her nice, Britain-made frock, only half joking.

"Her name is Katerina, for your information, Katerina Carter, and she's just as much for independence as I am".

"I didn't know that that was even possible".

"Very funny. It's her family that are all a bunch of Royalists", Sam made a face, to which Alfred laughed uncontrollably,

Ms. Carter gazed at them from across the street as if wondering what on earth was so funny. Sam turned back to her and shouted that he'd be right over. "Anyway", he said to Alfred, "I'll see you at the meeting tomorrow".

"Yeah!" Alfred called as Sam ran to meet his pretty lady friend. The two of them looked happy together, and Alfred smiled. He liked it when people were happy, it made him happy. The whole affair was just one big happiness extravaganza.

But it was time to leave those two alone. Alfred continued to follow the crowd of people down the busy street, not quite sure where he was going. He didn't care. A small smile crossed his face. It was a beautiful spring afternoon, he had new glasses with which to actually see it, and all was right in his world. Unfortunately for him, it would not remain so for much longer.

In fact, right at that very moment Alfred happened to look up, a thing that he later regretted, and came eye to eye with something that made his heart drop to his knees. That something happened to be a man, one that Alfred hadn't seen in years. Just what was he doing here? The man's unusually large eyebrows crinkled in confusion as he looked around the crowd on the street. He seemed completely lost. The city had changed a lot since he'd been here last, Alfred supposed. There was one thing that hadn't been a lie. He had been able to find him, wherever he was. But the man's eyes were trained firmly downwards, as if looking for a child. He probably was looking for a child. Sucked to be him, Alfred thought, somewhat bitterly. That child didn't exist anymore.

Alfred should've just walked by, should've let the man continue looking for that non-existent memory of a person who had worshipped him, called him Big Brother, all of those years ago, but his legs were inexplicably glued to the street beneath him.

Someone bumped into him from behind with an "oof". "Hey, if you're not going to walk, then get off of the road"

"Sorry", Alfred said, stepping to the side and out of the cluster of people hurrying off for various destinations. The man was still there, just a few feet away from Alfred, but not for long. He had to do something, and soon. He should just walk away, walk far away and not look back. This city caused trouble, it always did. Getting out of town would probably be best for everyone involved. He could go to New York, or Charleston, just anywhere but here.

Of course, to leave the city, he first had to move his feet. But they felt heavy as bri— well, that probably wasn't a good analogy, bricks really weren't that heavy at all. Maybe more like, oh, what was something that he couldn't actually lift? A house, that was too heavy for him. So his feet felt heavy as houses. Was that actually the plural of 'house'? It sounded wrong on his tongue. Was it heese? Or housi?

Okay, focus Alfred. He tended to ramble when he was nervous. But what to do about the man, who was now without a doubt his brother? No, former brother. Arthur Kirkland. That was him. Alfred could see for sure now that he was closer. Arthur was going to move in a second and disappear into the crowd. He should let him go, he should. But he didn't, because just as Arthur was about to walk away, Alfred was shocked to discover that his legs were moving towards him instead. Traitors.

"Hey dude, you look lost", he heard his voice say, and Arthur looked up at him, looked up. That was really bizarre, and gave Alfred a peculiar bout of vertigo. He knew he was tall, but in his mind's eye, Arthur had always been taller. Alfred's brain was practically melting out of his ears just thinking that he had somehow managed to grow taller than his distant big brother.

He was going to recognize him. He was going to look up (up!) and see Alfred and immediately know who he was. But to Alfred's amazement, there was no recognition as he turned to him and said "Yes, actually. A little bit".

Alfred simply couldn't bring himself to say the words. As much as he wanted to, his mouth simply couldn't form the syllables to say: "Arthur, It's me, Alfred". So instead he said "Anything I can help you find?"

Arthur's eyes brightened. "Yes!" He said, "I'm actually looking for someone. A small child", Alfred crossed his arms over his chest, becoming slightly peeved now that Arthur didn't know who he was. "He's about yay tall", Arthur continued, heedless to Alfred's discomfort. He gestured the height that Alfred had been so long ago. Had he really been that short? "With blue eyes, blonde hair, and actually quite a distinctive cowli—"

He happened to look upwards then, at the fidgety piece of hair on Alfred's head that would not lay flat regardless of what he did to it, and stopped. "Oh", he said, a little sheepishly. He knew, Alfred knew he knew now. "I've gone and lost track of time again, haven't I?"

Alfred didn't say anything, couldn't physically force any words out of his mouth, so he just nodded.

"How long has it been?"

"Eighty years, give or take", he somehow managed to choke out. He actually knew the exact amount of time: eighty-three years and seven months, but some small, childish part of him didn't want Arthur to know that he'd been counting.

"Really?" Arthur asked, as if hoping that Alfred was pulling his leg. When he saw that he wasn't, he sighed deeply.

"Well, shit".

Needless to say, their reunion didn't go quite as either of them had planned. But even if it doesn't need to be said, I'm going to talk about it anyway. We all, of course, know how Arthur imagined it, having been in his head several times before. He had pictured a small child smiling up at him with that gormless admiration of his, but was instead confronted by a very tall young man, who seemed to have all of the awkwardness but only half of the charisma that that child had had.

Alfred, for his part, had been expecting Arthur to recognize him right away, at the very least, maybe with a nice "Oh, hullo Alfred. Sorry I was gone so long. That last war had just been a bloody battlefield". But he instead reunited with a rather short stranger who also happened to have a rather short temper.

So when, after a few minutes of terribly awkward stammering, one of them—they later wouldn't remember who—suggested that they move their conversation to the nearby tavern, they were both grateful. It would be far easier to ignore each other when things got inevitably awkward in a crowded bar.

And, in a cruel and ironic twist, a certain tavern happened to be right across the street. Arthur and Alfred both walked across that street to the Eagle and Crown with trepidation, each wondering just what the other was thinking. That in itself creates a rather interesting paradox, but thinking about how they were thinking about what the other was thinking in an endless cycle is just making my head hurt, so I should really just bloody well get on with it, shouldn't I?

The feeling of déjà vu passed over both of them like a wave as they stepped through the door of the Eagle and Crown. It looked exactly the same as it had that one evening, when they had both come in shaken from the fire and chilled to the bone, so long ago. Candle flames danced on their wax pedestals in greeting, causing a cheery glow to emanate from the bar at the back of the room. Not one single thing had changed. It was like stepping back in time for Arthur, who half-expected to look down and see a little boy clinging to his coat.

The déjà vu, though very much present, wasn't quite as dramatic for Alfred, who had been a lot shorter the last time he had been here. His extra height combined with the old familiar setting was severely off-putting, and Alfred felt a little queasy.

A bar-maid, a different one obviously, the old one must have been long dead by now, looked up from the bar and smiled. "Hello there, gentlemen", she said as the two of them approached. "What can I get'cha?"

"Whiskey, please", Arthur said, maybe a little desperately, which Alfred didn't fail to notice. They sat down on two stools at the bar, still not quite able to look at each other.

The bar-maid turned to Alfred. "Oh. No, I'm okay", he said. Alfred didn't drink. There was no particular reason, he'd just never really felt the need for it.

"So", Arthur began, but only after the bar-maid had placed a shot of whiskey in front of him and he'd downed it with a tip of his head. "It's been a … long time".

"Yeah", said Alfred, who looked down at the truly fascinating pattern of the wooden counter's grain. "Eighty years".

"Has it really been that long?" Arthur asked, running a hand through the same unkempt hair that hadn't changed in all of these years. Actually, it seemed to Alfred that everything about him was exactly the same as it had when he'd left Alfred on the dock eighty years ago. And yet, there was something essential that was different. When Alfred had been younger, his brother could do no wrong. He had been invincible, a hero, but now Alfred could see that he was just a man. An incredibly old, unfathomable, immortal man, but a man none the less. Maybe it wasn't so much that he had changed as that Alfred had changed.

"It seems like just yesterday you were this small", Arthur continued, using a hand to gesture, "And such a … a …"

"Child?" Alfred managed to choke out through constricted vocal cords. His lungs seemed to be full of black, liquideous confusion. He was drowning in it. It was as if the world had tilted one degree to the side. Not so much as to cause panic, but just enough that something was fundamentally wrong with this whole picture.

The bar-maid had since placed another shot of whiskey in front of Arthur, which he drank just as quickly as the first. "And look at you now! So grown up", he said, "If I'd known you'd grow this quickly, I'd have come back sooner".

"Why?" The word was out of Alfred's mouth like a shotgun blast; he couldn't have stopped it if he'd tried. He hadn't been going to ask, but the word had been sitting on his tongue since he'd seen Arthur out on the street. Alfred looked up for the first time since coming into the tavern, stared right into Arthur's eyes.

Arthur blinked. "Beg pardon?" He asked, seeming to not understand the question.

"Why didn't you come back?" Alfred elaborated, his stomach busy twisting itself into knots. Now that the question was out, he wasn't sure that he wanted to know the answer.

"I … " Arthur stammered, "I meant to come back. I really did, but then things" (Read: wars) "Happened and I just kind of … got caught up in it all".

"But you could've written or something", Alfred said, becoming agitated now.

"I didn't know where you were", Arthur was very quickly turning red, although if that was from the conversation or the whiskey was anyone's guess. "You could have been anywhere! In the bloody Artic for all I knew!" He was making excuses, clearly nervous, with no idea what to say to this man who he'd only known briefly as a child.

Alfred gritted his teeth, angry. He opened his mouth to say something when Arthur interrupted, clearly wanting to change the subject. "Anyway, look, there's a reason I'm in the colonies".

Oh! Of course he had to have a reason. He wouldn't come all of the way across the sea just to see his brother. But Alfred wanted to fight just as much as Arthur did, which was not at all, so he expelled the breath he realized he'd been holding and simply said "Yeah?"

"It's about this silly talk of independence that's been going around the city. Do you know what that's about?"

"Maybe it's because they're suddenly being intruded upon by all of your soldiers and new laws after being left alone for so many years", Alfred muttered and cast a dark look over in Arthur's direction, who seemed oblivious to the gesture.

"What, you mean with the taxes? They know that we had to implement those, don't they?" Arthur asked as he drank another shot, "We were in debt from the war, and we did protect your sorry hides from becoming property of ruddy France, didn't we?"

Alfred shook his head. He couldn't believe that Arthur couldn't see the big issue at hand. It wasn't really about the taxes at all. "That's not how we see it", he said quietly. "We see it as getting your debts handed to us without any say in the matter". He clenched his hands into fists, mostly because if he clutched the edge of the bar any harder the wood would have snapped.

"Is this that idiotic 'No Taxation without Representation' nonsense?" Arthur rolled his eyes.

"It's not nonsense", said Alfred, "As British citizens, we should have representation in parliament, should we not? Is that too much to ask?"

"Yes, actually. It is", Arthur growled through his teeth. "If I gave you representation, then I'd have to do the same with all of my colonies, wouldn't I? And that would just cause a right mess".

Standing up, Alfred towered over Arthur, yet he still somehow felt very small indeed. This man he was standing before was a titan, an empire, and he was just a collection of a few colonies that were always fighting with each other. "But I was your first colony, your little brother, wasn't I? Or does that mean nothing to you?"

"Of course it does", said Arthur, "But—"

"No", Alfred interrupted. "Look". He reached under his shirt, and pulled out the cold metal medallion that hung from a chain around his neck. "You see this?" He asked, holding it in front of Arthur's disbelieving eyes. "You know what this is?"

Arthur's mouth opened, but no sound came out. "Yes", he finally managed to get out, "But that's … you can't be a—"

"Son of Liberty? (4)" Alfred snarled. "Yeah, I am".

Arthur stood up too, green eyes flashing dangerously. "I demand you take that off right now. You don't know what you're playing at".

Alfred paused, then slowly, but deliberately, he said "No". He would not back down. "You know, I was on the fence about this whole independence thing. I kept thinking to myself: should I really be doing this? I owe so much to Britain. But I've made my decision now".

"Oh?" Arthur asked. He leaned close, less than an inch away from Alfred's face. "And just what did you decide?"

Alfred stared him right into his eyes. "That I want to become a country. I'm going to become a country. And there's nothing that you can do about it". He turned on his heels, and fists clenched, walked out of the Eagle and Crown without another word.

The bar had gone silent, and Arthur realized that the whole room was staring at him. He sat down, blushing. "Well, that could have gone better", he sighed, and turned to the bar-maid, who had frozen in the middle of polishing a glass.

"I'll pay my tab now, thank you".

Historical Notes:

(1) Partially due to all of the trouble with British-imposed taxes around this time, but also partially because the more independent-inclined colonists were trying to separate themselves from the "Mother Country", they had begun to make homespun cloth and other such homemade things and refused to buy them from Britain.

(2) The Sons of Liberty were at first a fairly laid-back group opposing the Stamp Act, which was a British tax on paper, but even when that law was repealed and the group officially disbanded, several other groups around the colonies, also calling themselves the Sons of Liberty, sprung up, and some of these groups were a lot more "radical" with their protesting than others.

(3) New York was originally a Dutch colony, but was conquered by the British in 1664, joining the original thirteen colonies.

(4) A group of the SoL in Boston wore medallions to protests and the like, which were actually made by Paul Revere.

It was only going to be so long until a Hamilton song made song of the week, giving the content of this story and all, so my song of the week is "You'll be Back", mostly just because I crack myself up thinking of a (really crazy) Arthur singing it to Alfred. Hahahahaha!