assume

the Tower of London."
Harvey hesitated, then nodded. He began to add something, but Strafford shook his head.
"No, that doesn't solve the problem. Obviously, they wouldn't want to poison themselves at the same time. But who is to say they don't have an antidote of some kind already with them? We've never searched their rooms or their luggage, you know. Nor, given the need to maintain at least the appearances of diplomatic niceties, am I prepared to order such a search. I am violating established custom badly enough as it is, by keeping them sequestered."
The doctor was silent. Strafford kept studying him. "And I would remind you, doctor, that according to the accounts we've received—three of them, now, from independent sources—the Americans did not hesitate to use some sort of fiendish incendiary weapon against the Spanish troops they trapped in the Wartburg."
Again, Harvey began to speak; but, again, Strafford shook his head. "No, doctor, that won't do either. I am aware, also, that the Americans seem to have taken care at the Wartburg to keep the Spanish casualties to a minimum. I am not suggesting these people are a new tribe of Tatars. Still, we cannot make too many assumptions about what they will and won't do. It seems odd to me that they make such a fuss about some forms of what they call 'chemical warfare,' but don't seem to have any qualms about roasting a man to death with another. Contradictory, that is, from any philosophical or theological or ethical standpoint I can imagine. So, at least, it seems to me."
Harvey was silent. Finally, Strafford allowed a little smile to come to his face. "Oh—say it, doctor. I am not trying to browbeat you. Simply, if you will, playing the good sophist by arguing the other side of the case."
Harvey returned the smile with one of his own. "Nor, for that matter, should you assume I am their partisan, my lord. There was much about the Americans that, frankly, I found quite distasteful. But the fact remains—"
He squared his shoulders a bit. "The fact remains that one thing I did notice, while I was there—impossible not to notice it, save you were a blind man—was the great care they take of children. Much better care, to be honest, that we often do in our own kingdom."
Strafford's lips tightened, but he did not argue the point. He had often been appalled himself, since his youth, at the condition of many of England's children.