Revolution

by Edward Cline

  “I say again: For the Americans, the alternatives to repeal of the navigation laws, as well, beginning with repeal of the Stamp Act, ultimately will be war and independence, or war and conquest. Then the Americans must decide to fight, or to submit. If to fight, and possibly to win, this nation should feel no shame in having lost, for it will be credited with having birthed a giant. If to fight and be conquered by us, then they will simply rise up in another decade. And if to submit, then they will do so ignobly, bitterly, and shamefully, after all the stirring, memorable, and defiant words they had spoken. Then we will have won by default, we will have the colonies in thrall, and we will have a dubious revenue from them, but we should feel no pride whatsoever in that triumph.”

  Jones braced himself for a unanimous, vitriolic counter-rebuke, led by Pitt, whose own words he had employed, but only then realized how much he had the House in his grip. Except for the sounds of voices of spectators in the lobby beyond the chamber’s closed doors, and the sputter of candles in the great candelabrum over the Speaker’s chair, the space was, for a moment, silent.

  On impulse, for the pleasure of hearing the words spoken in the chamber and not drowned out by protests, he said, “Fiat lux.” The words resonated across the space, and he wondered if any he had spoken would find a home in the minds of some of his auditors.

  He nodded once in thanks to the Chair, and sat down. He looked up at the gallery opposite him, and saw Garnet Kenrick. He knew by the Baron’s expression that his sponsor had recognized the words of Jack Frake. The Baron merely smiled in forgiveness of Jones for not having used his son’s pamphlet to make the speech. Most of the other faces in the gallery were cold, opaque masks of aversion, as were most of the faces in the benches across the aisle.

  The silence that followed was the kind accorded a condemned man. Whether its object was the House or the speaker, no one cared to dwell on, beyond knowing that it was a righteous pouting. Rose Fuller stared at the floor for a moment, then surveyed the House in search of another speaker to break that silence. He saw that George Grenville had risen, and eagerly acknowledged the former first minister, even though he was weary of listening to him harp on the ingratitude of the colonies.

  To everyone’s relief, Grenville did not answer Jones, but launched into a tirade that the colonies could afford to pay the tax. After him, others rose to agree or rebut. The debates continued on that note, descending at times into a riotous pandemonium. Jones’s words were not forgotten, but conveniently and mercifully belayed by a more familiar and comfortable obsession with minutiae.

  A little after midnight, a motion was made for a final vote on the resolution for repeal. Rose Fuller seconded it. When he was canvassed, Jones rose to say “Aye.” At 1:45 a.m., the House divided to retain repeal, 275 to 167. When the tally was shortly thereafter announced by a member to the spectators in the lobby, a nearly deafening cheer was heard beyond the doors of the chamber, making it difficult for the House to conclude the business of the day. The cheer wound its way outside through the clogged piazzas and byways around St. Stephen’s Chapel and seemed to rattle the chamber’s icy windows.

  As they made their way out of the chamber into the lobby and then out into the cold night air, Pitt, Conway, and members of the ministry were greeted by a hundred flambeaux and by throngs of jubilant spectators who applauded, huzzaed, and doffed their hats. George Grenville and his allies were greeted with derision, insults, and some roughing up.

  Jones witnessed it all with detached interest. It was all so irrelevant. Nothing was settled. “Nothing whatsoever,” he said to himself as he made his way through the jostling crowds.

  The next day, church bells throughout London rang for hours in celebration of the victory, and on the day after, throughout the land.

  * * *

  Chapter 25: The Repeal

  As the bells rang in London, Sheffield, Birmingham, Leeds, and other towns, and as victory bonfires blazed from coast to coast, thousands of letters were posted by merchants placing orders for the colonies with factors and manufacturers, who reemployed thousands of idled artisans and mechanics, while over two dozen merchantmen in the Pool of London were instructed to lade cargo and prepare to make sail for America.

  A victory supper was held at the home of William Meredith, attended by Barré, Edward Montagu, William Beckford, and other pro-repeal advocates. Jones elected not to attend.

  “It was your finest address, Mr. Jones,” said Garnet Kenrick the next afternoon when they met at Shakespeare’s Head tavern in Covent Garden. They had dined here often, and sat at their favorite table.

  “If it is that, I must credit Mr. Frake of Virginia,” answered Jones, lighting a pipe.

  “Will you write him and Hugh about it?”

  “Mr. LeGrand is busy making copies of it as we speak.”

  The Baron sipped his ale. “And there has been no hint of a move to censure you?”

  “None at all.” Jones paused. “That does not surprise me.”

  “It surprises me, Mr. Jones. Yours was a most condemnatory address. Mr. Wilkes was persecuted for a lesser offence, and he did not even make his remarks in the House.”

  “It depends on the scale of one’s perspective. Mr. Wilkes aspersed His Majesty, which was a particular offense, comprehensible to even a village idiot. I aspersed the House in the most biting way, by the crack lay of the indisputable identification of the character of the House and the means of its ways. That was not graspable by an idiot, but was by all present, especially by the rude and spiteful insects.”

  “Have any of those creatures approached you?”

  “No, not as yet.”

  “But dare you return to the House? I am certain that many there would like to put your head on display above the Temple Bar Gate.”

  “I won’t be kept away from it, come what may.” Jones paused. “You must know, milord, that Mr. Frake and your son must ultimately come to conflict on some of these matters. As you know, I am fond of Hugh, but I believe now I am closer in some respect to his friend there on the York River, whom I have never met. Some day, I hope I may.” He shook his head. “I could not help but beggar his words. They were timely, and in harmony with the occasion.”

  “Time will tell, Mr. Jones,” said Garnet Kenrick with a smile. He wagged an admonishing finger at his friend. “And don’t you forget, sir, that it was my son who had a hand in the Resolves that caused all this trouble and speechmaking of late. If Hugh is lagging behind Mr. Frake, it cannot be by far.”

  “That glorious responsibility has never left my mind, milord.”

  “Sir, you are inflexibly serious, and I’ve always found that to be your chief virtue.” The Baron checked his pocket watch. It was two o’clock “Well, let us take a carriage to Lion Key and see how busy Mr. Worley has become. He is likely happy with distraction, now that repeal is a certainty.” The pair finished their ales and early dinner, then hired a passing hackney to take them to the Pool of London.

  Jones did continue to attend the House, but more as a spectator than as a member of it, for everything that followed was, to him, a mere postscript to repeal. He could have no influence on the course of events; he had little to do with them. He did not attempt to speak; did not wish to address the House, for he had said all that needed to be said. Indeed, he knew that he would not be allowed to speak, neither by Rose Fuller, acting as Chair of the Committee, nor by John Cust, Speaker of the House, when it was not sitting in Committee. His presence was noted but studiously ignored. While the House snubbed him, he snubbed the House. It was as though he had never spoken, and the House had never heard him.

  On February 24th the resolutions of the 21st were reported from Committee to the House by Rose Fuller. James Oswald, member for the Dysart burghs, a naval commander and friend of Adam Smith, proposed that the Stamp Act be enforced, but the revenues from its enforcement not be used for the army until colonial debts had been paid. Colonel Barré repeated his opposition to the Act, but modified his stand by sta
ting that further colonial resistance should be in turn resisted, even if it meant using military force. When Jones stared at him in amazement from several places down the bench, Barré averted his eyes. Richard Hussey, member for East Looe and Attorney-General to Queen Charlotte, also excoriated the Stamp Act, but claimed that rioters ought to be punished, and also that if the colonies refused to make the requisitions through their own legislatures to meet necessary revenues, they should be taxed.

  William Blackstone, in an effort to modify Alexander Wedderburn’s earlier proposal to censure any colonial protestation of Parliamentary supremacy, made a motion to limit repeal to those colonies whose assemblies expunged from their records all resolutions contrary to that supremacy. Grenville rose to second the motion. Edmund Burke countered by claiming that such a requirement would surely be resented by the colonials and result in a delay in the resumption of trade, and that, in any event, the physical erasure of such colonial resolutions would not erase them from colonial minds. Blackstone’s motion was voted on and defeated.

  The repeal and declaratory bills thus went through several readings in the full House. Jones merely sat back and listened, took occasional notes, and did not interfere. He smiled in irony when a few members, on March 4th, pointed out the contradictory nature of the declaratory bill. Pitt opposed a declaratory bill, but seeing that the House was determined to pass one, subsequently limited his opposition to one of its clauses, “in all cases whatsoever,” perhaps forgetting that it was he who introduced it early in the session. Grenville and others objected to its omission, claiming that without such a clause, the colonists might assume the Parliament had surrendered its supremacy. Some twenty speeches were made for and against Pitt’s proposal, which was defeated. Pitt contented himself with the warning that enforcement of the Stamp Act could cause a civil war, and that His Majesty would be compelled “to dip the royal ermine in the blood of his British subjects in America.”

  As everyone expected him to, George Grenville rose for a last time to insist that the Americans could pay the tax. Jones yawned, as did many other members.

  The wording of the declaratory bill was voted on and passed. At 11 p.m. on March 4th, the repeal bill passed a divided House, 250 to 122.

  The Stamp Act, proclaimed the bill, was “repealed and made void to all intents and purposes whatsoever” as of May 1st. The declaratory bill sustained the power of the sovereign, on the “advice and consent” of both Houses, to “have full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America…in all cases whatsoever.” In addition, it declared all colonial resolutions and assertions to the contrary to be “utterly null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever.”

  Speaker John Cust ordered the bills prepared for Lords. On the next day, nearly two hundred members escorted the bills as they were formally committed to the House of Lords. Jones secured copies of both bills and showed them to Garnet Kenrick in Chelsea. “Whatsoever,” sighed the Baron after he had finished reading them. “You were right to rail against the notion, Mr. Jones.”

  “I’ve a good mind to propose to the gentleman that he make it his epitaph. Think how it would perplex the pilgrims to his graveyard or Westminster Abbey, where he is sure to be interred.”

  After the Commons committed the bills to Lords, Jones barely took notice of what other immediate but delayed business was taken up by the House, which was budget and private bills unrelated to the Stamp Act. He was not privileged to observe the proceedings in Lords, which lasted a mere week and a half, but relied on reports from Chesterfield, the Duke of Richmond, and other peers friendly to repeal. The peers were also conscious of the contradictory nature of the bills, but, like the Commons, regarded it as irrelevant.

  The Duke of Bedford’s bloc in Lords was as stubborn in its disapproval of repeal as Grenville’s was in the Commons. Lord Suffolk, echoing Lord Mansfield, saw repeal as encouragement to the colonists to free themselves of other “acts more disagreeable and detrimental to them.” Lord Halifax defended the Stamp Act, claiming it would enforce itself, if given a chance. Lord Temple defended not only the Act, but the wisdom of his brother, George Grenville, for having authored and championed it. Lord Northington warned that repeal would sanction rebellion.

  Lord Camden, in a series of acrimonious exchanges with Mansfield, privately declared both the Stamp Act and the declaratory bill unconstitutional, then in the House that the Act would cause hardship in the colonies to the detriment of trade, and caught Mansfield citing two nonexistent laws in support of his argument. Camden on March 10th heatedly debated Mansfield again, asserting that it was a waste of time to debate the details of the declaratory bill since it was “illegal, absolutely illegal, contrary to the fundamental laws of nature, contrary to the fundamental laws of this constitution.” After midnight on March 11th, the peers approved the repeal bill by 105 to 71. The Bedford and Bute blocs signed a protest against the motion. Over the next few days, the bills went in and out of committee, until, on the evening of March 17th, both bills were passed in Lords by comfortable margins. That day, Chesterfield wrote his son in Baden, “The repeal of the Stamp Act is at last carried through. I am glad of it, and gave my proxy for it, because I saw many more inconveniences from the enforcing than from the repealing of it.”

  George the Third attended Lords the next day to give his royal assent to the bills, and they became Acts. Throngs cheered him as he left Westminster, and as he returned to St. James’s Palace. Jones studiously boycotted the ceremony and the jubilant crowds. Lord Chancellor Northington ordered official copies of the Acts prepared for the Board of Trade, the Privy Council, and colonial governors.

  As church bells rang again, post office couriers placed hundreds of letters aboard mail packets and dozens of merchant vessels preparing to sail again for America, letters to friends, relatives, and merchant correspondents, all excitedly reporting the passage of repeal.

  The Marquis of Rockingham had preserved the Empire.

  * * *

  The following day, Colonel Thomas Molyneux appeared with two other army officers at the door of Jones’s rooms on Chancery Lane. Winslow LeGrand, who was assisting Jones with a King’s Bench case, answered the knock, and returned to report the colonel’s presence. Jones rose from his labors and went to the door.

  Without preface, Molyneux exclaimed to him, “If the House will not bother itself to censure you, sir, I will!” Whereupon he produced a silk glove and whipped it across Jones’s face.

  “It was so kind of you to wait until all was said and done,” answered Jones with humor. “Unfortunately for you, sir, I will not oblige you with swords or pistols. I spoke a truth that night in the House. You must accustom yourself to it.”

  Stunned by this rejoinder, Molyneux glanced at his companions, then boomed, “I will have satisfaction, you cad!” Again he slapped Jones with the glove. “Name your weapon! Pistols or swords!”

  Jones grinned again. “Then you must satisfy your honor by penning a pamphlet, sir, one that will explicate your position vis-à-vis my own. Refute me, if you can. I promise to read it. That is the only kind of duel I recognize. Good day to you, sir.” He then gently closed the door in the colonel’s face. Returning to his desk, he instructed an amazed LeGrand to ignore the pounding on the door.

  Over the next few days, a succession of members — officers, country squires, even another barrister from the Common Pleas — climbed the narrow stairs to his rooms and appeared at Jones’s door to offer the same challenge. He would not admit them, and rejected their challenges with the same verve.

  He remarked to the Kenricks and Roger Tallmadge over supper one evening in Chelsea, “If I were able to keep all the gloves that have so violently warmed my cheek, I should be able to open a shop on the Strand. They have been of the very best quality, I have noted.”

  “Take care, Mr. Jones,” cautioned Effney Kenrick. “These men are not to be trifled with.”

  “Yes,�
� said Roger Tallmadge. “Your notions of courage and honor are foreign to them.”

  “Their notion of courage is but a trifle,” Jones replied. “Some of them may have fought battles in Germany and burglars at home, but none of them has faced judge and jury at the King’s Bench!”

  Alice Kenrick ventured, “These men are a mean sort! Uncle Dog is courageous and honorable! Why, did he not smart the cheek of the whole House, and did they not deny him any satisfaction?”

  Jones smiled lovingly at her. “My compliments to you, milady. You alone have grasped my experiment in reciprocal justice.”

  “This is true, my girl.” Garnet Kenrick raised a glass and beamed proudly at his wife, Effney. “My paladin of liberty sits there.” They went on to discuss new mischief brewing in the House, a revenue bill that would contradict repeal in turn and assert the intent of the Declaratory Act.

  “Has he not accepted any of their challenges, Mr. Hunt?” asked the Earl one afternoon.

  “No, sir. He has laughed at the gentlemen. They are all somewhat bollixed by his behavior.”

  Basil Kenrick had heard from Crispin Hillier and Sir Henoch Pannell of a cabal in the Commons among some members to challenge Sir Dogmael Jones to a duel of honor, even though dueling had been outlawed years ago. He subsequently assigned his secretary the task of witnessing the certain demise of his brother’s protégé. “Mr. Hunt” — the alias of Jared Turley, the Earl’s bastard son by a servant girl — had just returned from Chancery Lane after observing the furious departure of the latest challenger. He stood before his father’s desk in the study at Windridge Court, waiting.

  The ornate ebony Tompion bracket clock that sat atop the fireplace ticked away in the long silence, causing Mr. Hunt to count the seconds before his master responded to his information. He risked a glance at the annoying machine, and found himself entranced by how beautifully the flames below it reflected off the clock’s gold and brass facing and mounts.