I had this brainstorm for a column after reading a rather silly thing on one of my favorite websites about Benjamin Franklin.

I thought of this grand time machine piece where I'm back in Halifax near the time leading up to the crafting of the Halifax Resolves, eating mutton, playing hide the thimble with Gwyneth of Paltrow and drinking lots of cowslip and gooseberry wine.

I don't know whether Thomas Jefferson's hemp played a part in any of this. At the time the crop was legal so I'm sure there were rowdy boys ripping daddy's breeches and tearing sails from ships so they could go behind the Tap Room and put the remnants in clay pipes.

Reports in my colonial newspaper tended to focus on tories running amuck, powdered wig and chicken thefts and a move to make Eagle Tavern a music and entertainment venue called Carolina Crossroads where chamber orchestras could play and Colonial comedians could perform King George jokes.

Although this column is quite ridiculous, I firmly believe it is important we remember one of the most important documents in our nation's history was crafted and signed right here as the first call for freedom from British rule.

In writing this I'm limiting the use of S's that look like F's becaufe fpellcheck would roll around like a Britifh loyalift with hif head cut off, fomething I have witneffed feveral timef in my career af a Colonial journalift .

So in 1776, I'm sitting in my breeches, waistcoat off, powdered wig to cover my baldness thrown haphazardly on my desk.

I'm stressed because, by post rider, several readers of Halifax Fpin have sent correspondence complaining I didn't have mugshots of The Tory 15 in last week's edition.

Egads, I shrilly scream, after reading the last dispatch, thinking what by thunder is a mugshot and by what device, other than artist's hand, could such caricatures even be rendered?

These dispatches are thrown on top of a pile of older correspondence, most using quite harsh language, suggesting The Tory 15 should be freed.

My feeling, quite frankly, is to hellfire and damnation with them, treasonous conspirators they are, scheming to topple what we have made for ourselves here.

As I so eloquently wrote soon after their detention, anything less than public hanging would be a travesty unto the laws of heaven and earth.

A few missives come in suggesting it is time to tear down the Union Jack because of the oppression it represents and I couldn't agree more. Then there's that one colonist who swears it's time to build a new school and draw new lines to keep the bloody tories out.

I shake off those imps clawing at my brain, don my waist coast, grab my powdered wig and rush out of the Halifax Fpin office.

I do not want to be late for my rendezvous with fair Gwyneth of Paltrow, where we are to dine in the Tap Room with ale, an undercooked leg of lamb and boiled arrowroot pudding.

Sensing my uneasiness, young Gwyneth takes my hand and says, “I sense your uneasiness,” to which I reply, “Thank you for sensing my uneasiness for I am at un-ease.”

I explain to her the source of my “un-ease” and she tells me we should discuss it at her place over gooseberry wine.

The gooseberry wine invigorated me as did other things about the evening with Gwyneth of Paltrow, namely our rousing game of hide the thimble.

Bright and early, evened out from ingesting some tea straight from Jefferson's farm, I go to the office and see a correspondence under the door saying, and I quote, “Fome really big ftuff if about to go down in Halifax. Expect difpatch from Corneliuf Harnett.”

“Zounds!” I cried out loud and soon learned our bustling hub of commerce was about to become the place where the spirit of independence was born.

When I broke the story in a special edition, the town crier took it near and far and post riders were soon delivering correspondence to my office.

Excited, I opened the correspondence and, to my dismay, found they were only letters demanding The Tory 15 be freed and where are the mugshots, except for one which read, “We got thif! Go Halifax Refolvef! Go freedom.”

There were a few more letters demanding the furling of the Union Jack and one suggesting a license plate be designed honoring the occasion, although no one really knew what a licenfe plate was because there were no cars.

It did my soul wonders, however, that one patriot cared.

Finally, in the weeks leading up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, people forgot about The Tory 15 because they were all hanged and I finally found an artist good enough to draw their mugshots.

Happy Independence Day! Celebrate with some gooseberry and cowslip wine and remember it all started here — Lance Martin