“Then we must hope that slavery will not be abolished too soon, I fear.”
Book Five: A Poor Man
at the Gate Series
Chapter Four
Matthew Star stood at the wheel of Tugging Boat number seven, peering through the clouds of smoke obscuring most of the deck. They were steaming into the wind on a wet morning, the smoke laying close to the sea rather than rising high into the air. It was as bad as a battle after the first couple of broadsides had blinded them with powder smoke.
In battle he could at least rely on his lookouts up in the rigging, but the tugging boats had no sails, no need for tall masts. He needed to be higher himself, the quarterdeck raised like the old galleons had been, a tall stern castle in fact.
He had to be at the stern because the wheel had to be close to the rudder – long ropes would stretch and the slack would make the steering loose and imprecise, which would not be very desirable in narrow channels. But it would not be a very good idea to overburden the stern with top structure, and it might not be sensible to balance stern and bows to make both draw extra water – the tugging boat was already heavily laden with coal and engine and it was supposed to work shallow harbours.
He could shout his orders to the coxswain, of course – perhaps he could be on a higher platform amidships. He would talk to Joseph and Mr Fraser about some way of creating the height he wanted without affecting the boat’s stability or causing it to draw too much water. Placing the new deck directly above the paddle boxes should solve the problems of stability, but the noise of the paddles would make it difficult to shout his helm orders. Difficult!
That word described his life since he had ended his naval career, except for his marriage which was a source of joy to him. Not perhaps unalloyed joy – coming to an accommodation with Charlie had involved a number of quite vigorous arguments, but making up had been worthwhile! They were both strong-minded people, she constrained by a different set of conventions than he had become used to in the Navy, but they had both learnt, and grown. Now, there would be a child in a very few months, a blessing both welcomed. But his business career, that was still a worry, and, he was learning, must be so until the day he retired.
The problem was that the Navy had rules – almost every possible eventuality had been foreseen, or actually met up with, and there was a formula that would provide a satisfactory solution. It would be fair to say, in fact, that on board His Britannic Majesty’s ships nothing was new. An officer could memorise almost everything he would ever need to know and do, extemporising only slightly to meet new circumstances.
In the business world, nothing was the same from one day to the next. Yesterday’s problems had been solved, today’s were different, tomorrow’s could not even be guessed at. There was never the comfort of routine, it was never possible to turn to one’s nearest subordinate and say ‘Carry On’.
He had discovered that steam ships could not be made efficiently by simply discarding the masts and adding paddle wheels. The new means of propulsion demanded differently shaped hulls because of the weight and bulk of engine and coal belowdecks and, as he was just finding out, a change from the old quarterdeck. The steam engines also demanded steam engineers, some of whom must be officers, in the nature of things, but with an entirely separate set of skills to the general run of sailormen. An engineer could never become a ship’s captain, but had knowledge that the captain did not and could not have.
Traditionally, a captain could ‘hand, reef and steer’, performing all of the tasks expected of an abled-bodied seaman if necessary; most of his six years, at minimum, as a midshipman were spent learning to be as effective as any of the seamen and warrant officers. The apprentice in the Merchant Marine or the East India Company ships was trained in the same way, but that was now outmoded, or would be as soon as ocean-going steamers became the norm. There would be seamen and steam men, and the two would not be interchangeable, and that would demand a new set of habits for all to learn.
Matthew feared he would not be well-loved by his contemporaries when he pointed out the need for change. The Navy had been slowly learning the ways of sail since the days of King Alfred, now he was to throw their traditions out of the window. He could hear the cry now, ‘What would Nelson say?’
Matthew suspected, from all that he had read and heard of the greatest admiral ever, that he would have welcomed any innovation that killed the French more efficiently, but that would be hard to prove to sailors whose sole ambition was to fight another Trafalgar, in the same ships and with identical tactics.
Iron hulls, as well, had their own problems, not least that of rust and general leakage around the boltholes where the plates were fastened to the wooden ribs. Hulls flexed in any seaway, and it was impossible to make the fixings totally waterproof, so the pumps were working almost permanently. Joseph had promised to ‘look at’ the problem and was tinkering with various materials for washers and gaskets, but what was needed was a short-term expedient in the form of an efficient, small steam pump, but he was never a man attracted by compromise.
The quality of the iron was another matter of concern. Quarter inch wrought iron plate, for example, could vary by as much as a thirty-second over its breadth, which led to problems with bolts and rivets as well affecting its strength. Also, it was not always pure, there could be lumps of fireclay or slag weakening the plates, all unseen until the sheet was bent into shape on the ribs. The new manager at the Old Works did all he could, and swore that it was not his men’s fault, it was inherent in the process, but Matthew needed better than his yard was getting if he was to produce the ships he wanted. Add to that they still had not solved the problems of bunkering – the colliers were loaded and emptied by hand to coal heaps on the wharves, a slow and wasteful process. It could take half a day to refuel a tugging boat, and that would never do, they must speed up, which meant steam cranes and some quick way of shifting the coal aboard ship.
On top of it all, there were problems with the men, worsening every week. The price of bread was far too high and even the best paid hands could not always buy loaves because the supply of flour was too low and erratic for the shelves of the bakeries always to be full. The shipyard paid well, but the men needed more money even so, and the unemployed outnumbered the hands in work and were creating a background of discontent. The men were joining trades unions, those who had a job, and Matthew had no great problem with that because in the nature of things their leaders were found from amongst the more literate, who could be talked to and were often inclined towards reason. Those without work were said to be banding together as well, and that was a disaster for the whole of industry, because they had nothing to lose.
The cotton industry, weaving especially, was the prime target of the starving – many of whom had been handloom weavers, drunk more often than sober and unable now to get hold of the booze they were dependent on. Machines had put the weavers out of work so it seemed logical to many that by destroying the machines they would put themselves back into a job. The authorities did not agree with their solution and reacted with threats and actual violence, which seemed to be all they understood. While the rioters were poorly organised the government could win, but each bloody confrontation gave strength to those who called for more efficient disorder.
Matthew had spent his naval career on ships manned more by the coercion of the press and the quota than by willing volunteers and he had learnt that crews had to be turned into enthusiastic, reliable fighting men by leadership and bribery. Prize money did much better than the cat in securing men’s loyalty, and leaders had to set an example of courage and willingness to share hardships as they arose. He observed in dismay as the government displayed its contempt and fear and hatred of the masses, the wealthy offering sneering ostentation and defiance of decency and charity both. He could see little hope of a peaceful outcome.
There were riots, mostly small and involving little more than smashed glass and looted pubs or shops, every week now in the larger to
wns in Lancashire. Two or three hundreds of men, women and children at a time were too few to cause a major breakdown of law and order, but it was almost certain that some day soon, probably by no more than coincidence, two or three riots would break out simultaneously in the same town, would coalesce into one and then expand.
Small riots were easily broken up, a squadron of Yeomanry or Regular cavalry would always be sufficient. Bigger riots would require more force, and it might take half a day to pull together the troops that had been spread out across the county. In that time a large part of a town could burn, together with all of its mills and manufacturies. Add to that, if the dragoons were seen to leave a town then nightfall would certainly bring disorder to its streets.
Matthew feared that revolution would break out almost by default. The addition of political plotters would make overthrow of the established order very nearly a certainty.
There was no police force as such. Parishes had their constables, who were useless for anything other than the most minor, routine acts of enforcement in placid villages. The constables were almost always old men, unable to work usefully and employed by the Vestry rather than be dumped on the Poor Law; faced with mob violence most would respond with a heart attack.
In the absence of properly constituted authority the wise businessman must seek his own protection. A pound a week would pay an ex-soldier to act as a private guard at the shipyard. Six pounds would keep two permanently on twelve hour shifts, night and day, the year round. A pair of fowling pieces, shotguns loaded with birdshot, would serve to discourage casual rioters and looters. Nothing would stop wholehearted revolutionaries, so they could be ignored as nothing could be done about them.
Matthew brought the steamer back to her moorings, shouted belowdecks that he was finished with the engine and made his way to his office close to the main gates of the yard.
“Wellcome!”
His personal servant, who had left the sea with him, as was normal, and was now acting as his general assistant, brought in a cup of tea and waited for orders.
“I need six reliable men, Wellcome. Guards to stand at the gate, two to a shift. I’ll pay a pound a week. Ex-soldiers, I expect.”
“There’s a dozen sailors I know of, sir. Any of them could do the job.”
“Sober?”
“Within reason, sir.”
“Find me six to start as soon as possible… You said you could find more than six?”
“I reckon I could find fifty, sir, easy enough, blokes what I know, what was same ships with me one time or another.”
“I will have a word with my father and with Mr Frederick Mason when next I see them.”
By the end of the month there were guards on each of the Star mills as well as at the Roberts works. Matthew did not know quite how it had come about, but each gatehouse contained a pair of old naval musketoons instead of the shotguns he had envisaged. A fowling piece typically fired one and a third ounces of bird shot; the musketoon, successor to the old blunderbuss, loaded four ounces of heavy slugs. The musketoon would kill rioters whilst the shotgun would wound and discourage them.
Coroners had held inquest over rioters trampled or sabred by the cavalry, had inevitably found the homicide to have been justifiable whilst the Riot Act had been read first. In the absence of a magistrate to perform the reading a riotous assembly was not necessarily unlawful in itself, but still the military had been exonerated if the mob had offered them violence before they charged or fired their muskets. Throwing a single stone at the soldiers was sufficient justification for a lethal response. Matthew spoke to all of his new watchmen, ordered them most strictly to protect themselves against the law.
“If there is a mob then go into the gatehouse and shout out of the window to them to stay out of the yard. If they then break the windows or batter down the gate they have used violence against you and you can respond. Don’t shoot if they only climb over the gate or fence, wait until they try to force their way into your premises, then you can defend yourselves.”
The men, all of them experienced in war, nodded and smiled, promised that their windows would be well broken if they ever had any corpses to explain away.
Matthew met with the representatives of his men at the yard, told them he would pay an extra tuppence an hour immediately, despite the harm it would do to profitability. He said as well that he had every hope of obtaining more contracts and thought it very likely that they would be employing more men and boys within a very few weeks.
“Needless to say, men, we shall hire from families we know if it is at all possible.”
They said they would pass the message on and expressed their thanks for his generosity. They were all married with sons to provide for and had the greatest respect for the hereditary principle.
Matthew had listened to Robert when he had passed on Rothwell’s words – ‘a little of bread today and a promise of jam tomorrow, that was the way to avert revolution’. He agreed, but felt that the removal of the dedicated Reds would also help. The problem was that, however carefully he looked, he could find no Reds amongst his own people, yet he knew as a matter of certainty that they must exist, it was only common sense after all. Perhaps they were outsiders, plotters, agitators, political criminals, probably in the pay of the French, or the Russians, or maybe even the Jesuits – they were still a danger with their Jacobite, Irish habits.
He hoped that government was aware of the danger and was taking proper steps to deal with it.
Michael opened a brief note from Mr Smith, an invitation to meet him in his office near the Opera House. He burned the sheet of paper on general principle – one could never be too careful.
“Good of you to see me, Mr Michael. Our Mr Humphrey has made the acquaintance of this fellow Christopher and reports that he is a dedicated Jacobin. ‘No alternative to blood’, seems to be his wicked motto. He met Mr Mark Star as well, chatted with him at a musical evening and tells me he is no fool, despite his unwisdom in taking up with this Christopher. Any man can make a mistake, and Star is becoming aware of that fact, it would seem. Humphrey intends to introduce Christopher to one of his own people, Mr Oliver, who will claim to know the contractors who transport gunpowder by the wagon load from the government mills at Faversham in Kent to army barracks all over the country. It will be interesting to see what may develop, especially as the said Oliver has given good, if somewhat enthusiastic, service already.”
Michael agreed that it could not possibly be called entrapment to place Christopher in such a proximity; it merely allowed the opportunity for his own wickedness to flourish, if such occurred.
Quillerson stood up from his desk in the estate office, rubbing his aching back. He had been four hours bent over the rent rolls and quarterly accounts, writing out his abstract in best copperplate for presentation to my lord. A very satisfactory state of affairs, from the simple financial viewpoint.
The price of wheat was high, the Corn Laws had not permitted it to fall from wartime levels, and the tenants had all been able to pay their rents and the tithe and the Poor Law and still put a handsome profit in their pockets. Peas were down a little, due to the Navy reducing its demand for rations, but beans were selling well in the towns and the call for brewing barley never lessened. The price of wool in the fleece was still rising, the looms in the North Country ever hungry, and cheese and butter were both in increasing demand.
The result was that farmers’ incomes were high, quite probably the highest they had ever been. He knew, for example, that Mudge had bought a small pianoforte for his daughters to play, and who had ever heard of a tenant indulging in such luxury? The cost of a tutor would have made the very idea prohibitive even twenty years before.
The wages paid to farm labourers were still very low, however. Even in Finedon where the departure of the emigrants had reduced the excess supply of labour, pay had hardly risen. In the neighbouring villages the wage rate had actually fallen and every labourer was part supported by the Poor Law, being unabl
e to live and keep his children on his pay. The farmers all complained that the Poor Rate was crippling them, but none would pay his men enough to live on so that they could look after themselves.
My lord’s people could put their sons to work in the boot manufactury or at the iron works, or they could send them overseas to make themselves rich, and most of them were content enough as a result, but the nearby parishes were close to insurrection.
“The Blacks were out again last night, my lord. They burnt two ricks on Sir Charles’s Home Farm.”
Tom shook his head, knowing that Sir Charles would be on his doorstep within the day, demanding blood. It was impossible to persuade the poor little man that he would be far better off giving money instead – he would say that was merely to surrender to the Reds, and he was, of course, half right. Sir Charles was proud father of a son now, and his sole concern was to protect his patrimony, as was, he believed, his duty.
“Do we have any names, Quillerson?”
“None that could stand in High Court, my lord. Whispers, no more, for none of the men involved dare open their mouths and the bystanders perceive the risk of peaching to be too great. Since that nasty business at Raunds there have been very few who would wish to be called blabbermouth.”
During the winter, Abel Pittsford, one of the casual labourers in the village of Raunds, had been seen to be too well off – white bread and meat on his table every day, children dressed warm in new woollens. Just before Easter a posse of dragoons and constables had descended on the cottages and had arrested a dozen men named from a list they carried. They had searched no other houses, had made no attempt to question other men. A week later a sack containing four pounds of gunpowder mixed with half as much of scrap iron had been dropped down the Pittsfords’ chimney soon after dark. Three of the children and Pittsford’s wife had died on the spot, the two smallest surviving for being in their cot in another room and Abel himself out of the kitchen at the crucial moment, bringing in logs for the fire.
Privilege Preserved (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 5) Page 9