Privilege Preserved (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 5)

by Andrew Wareham

  It was a harsh doctrine, but it might reflect the reality that tax-payers were always unwilling to dig into their pockets and that the means of coercion were of limited efficiency. It was not possible to set the Militia onto the middle and upper orders of folk to make them pay up.

  “An Improvement Commission demands a Private Act of Parliament, Thomas. Could we achieve it?”

  Thomas thought so; he had discussed the possibility with many of the local mill owners and the relatively few squires of the rural outskirts.

  “We could muster a substantial majority of local landowners with a rental of more than one hundred pounds per annum, which is the grouping who would be assessed for a local tax. Almost all of the Justices of the Peace and most of the clergy of the Church of England will support a Bill.”

  Private Bills passed through a Committee Stage in the House of Commons that was very similar to a judicial process with lawyers paid their fee to argue the case for proponents and opponents of the measure. Where a Bill was in any way controversial, evidence had to be produced to demonstrate a significant degree of local enthusiasm for it.

  It was necessary also to muster a majority in the House, which meant to make sure there was a quorum in attendance and to guarantee fifty or sixty votes out of the six hundred and fifty or so of actual members. Unless a Bill had attracted particular attention, or was sponsored by an unpopular or notorious member, it was rare that it would be defeated, but not uncommon that it might fail because there were too few members present in the House for business to be conducted on a particular day.

  “The Masters and Andrews interest would support us, I presume, sir? And our own acquaintance locally.”

  “Probably, though the creation of a new tax will not be deeply appreciated, particularly while the Poor Law is high.”

  “Most mill owners do not pay Poor Law, sir. We do not, do we?”

  Poor Law was based on the parish and where land had been waste or wholly unused before the mill was built it might have been unclaimed by any congregation. The best agricultural land, which was always part of a parish, was the most expensive and the last to be bought out by industrialists. Joseph Star, one of the first mill-owners, had been able to select the worst of land, moors and fells cut by streams that would support a wheel but had virtually no population and were not traditionally claimed by any village. No parish could assess them for the Poor law, but equally none had the duty to build and maintain roads or provide the services of a constable. As a result the small towns that had grown up around the original mills and the later comers who had located near them were often totally ungoverned, sometimes not even the clear responsibility of a magistrates’ court.

  “We should, of course, Thomas. We do pay for a Foundlings Hospital and a refuge for the elderly and destitute, and we provide not less than a ton of potatoes every week through the winter.”

  “Which is more than enough in ordinary times, sir, but a drop in the ocean in a great depression. There must be a degree of organisation, a way of ensuring that every person takes a share of the cost of the ever-growing masses of people infesting this country.”

  Joe did not like his son’s choice of words, but had to admit that the population of England and Ireland was rising in an unprecedented fashion. It was said by some that the new mills and manufacturies were somehow the cause of the change, but that must be untrue, Joe thought, because the population of Ireland was growing too, and there was not a single mill there that he had heard of.

  “What has the Lord Lieutenant to say, Thomas?”

  Thomas grinned, lopsidedly.

  “I am to become a Justice of the Peace, sir, and will be appointed to the new Poor Law Board as soon as our Bill becomes a statute. Second generation, sir, more acceptable than you are, it would seem.”

  “It will do the family a lot of good, Thomas. I do not think I could ever hope for acceptance more than I have had. I have come a long, long way, as you know Thomas, and I rather feel I must be content with peerage and wealth. Do you wish to go further? You could become a Minister of the Crown with ten years of application.”

  “And that would make me a Viscount, for sure. But, I would have to spend my days in London, and I have no wish to do that, sir. No, I shall achieve local eminence, and perhaps the Bath in a few years, and bring Matthew and Mark along as well. Mark should become a judge, and may well gain his own peerage in process if he progresses as he should. Matthew is to become a leader in the business world and a baronetcy should not be an impossibility there, particularly bearing in mind his wife’s name.”

  Joe agreed, it should be possible to look after his third and fourth sons.

  “What of Bob?”

  “A farmer, sir, a yeoman in good standing in the county. He has an eye to a tenant farmer’s daughter, so I believe. A good girl from over the hill behind Wigan. Not a lady, but she has her letters and is respectable.”

  Bob was stepping down from the status of ‘gentleman’.

  “Exactly how many acres has he, Thomas?”

  “Just over four hundred, sir. It might well be wise to look to purchase another place for him as well. I was wondering, in fact, sir, whether we might not buy up in the hills, a sheepwalk. Moorland sells very cheaply and we could make him a substantial landowner at relatively little outlay.”

  “People count the number of acres, not their quality, I agree. The sons of a man who possesses two thousand acres would be sure of purchasing a commission in a regiment of the line or could be accepted in John Company or its equivalent. The Guards would not be open to them, but they could make their way amongst the middle order of folk and marry well besides.”

  “There is nothing to be done for Luke – he has his chapel and his flock and is content in his life.”

  “George is content, I think, running the mills, the businessman of the family. Have you thought about his inheritance, Thomas?”

  “Yes, sir. He cannot continue in the present way, and is, in fact, bringing on a manager for each of the separate concerns. He has no wish to see the estate split up and does not intend to be a younger son all of his life. Quite rightly, too. He says that he knows the trade now and wishes to borrow a few thousands at an appropriate time. He has his eye on a couple of spinners locally and a weaver on the other side of the county, all of them poorly managed and on the verge of insolvency. The old story, he tells me, the founder dead and his son brought up to be a gentleman and with no idea of running his business.”

  Joe approved, would certainly have the cash available when the moment arose.

  “As for Henry, well, he has made his own way, it would seem.”

  Thomas nodded.

  “Probably a criminal way, sir, but certainly profitable.”

  Neither spoke of John, knowing him to be dead.

  Book Five: A Poor Man

  at the Gate Series

  Chapter Seven

  “From all I understand, Mr Chard, there has been an expansion of activity in maritime steam in England. It seems there are dozens of paddle steamers working the bigger rivers and sheltered coasts and hundreds more building, but the initiative would seem to have originated with an American, a Mr Fulton.”

  “’A prophet in his own country’, Mr Star. Americans tend to believe that the newest and best is to be found overseas, when it comes to inventions and such. Ours is an agricultural nation, to my understanding, our genius not best suited to grimy and grubby manufacturing.”

  Henry had never been in conversation with a judge before; he had tended to keep out of their company, a natural aversion. He found the lawyer’s pompously self-satisfied platitudes, delivered with authority and an air of wisdom, to be rather irritating. The man would be useful, however, and that was really all that mattered.

  “In fact, Mr Star, Fulton’s paddle steamers tended to sink after a few hours of service. I have read that to save weight and thus gain power he built the hulls too lightly and they literally shook themselves to pieces.”

  Henr
y thanked Grace Chard for her explanation. He had already discovered that she was not, as he had first thought, stupid, she was simply desperately shy in public. Surveying her appearance again, he could see why. He had to marry her, she was worth at least a million to him over the next couple of decades, and he would have to display her socially as his wife – she was to be his passport, his gateway into the governing classes, and they were the richest of all potential business partners.

  It could still be a very high price to pay, especially as she seemed to seek his company, almost as if she had fixed her affections on him. That was one vine he did not wish to have clinging to him.

  The marriage had been announced and was to take place on Henry’s return from England, provided he came back with the required contracts in his pocket. Failure to deliver on his part would bring all to an end. He debated his possible courses, increasingly desperately – she was smiling at him again!

  He could cash up in New Orleans, sell his house and its servants, buy himself out of the lease on his office and warehouse and go. He had no land to dispose of and only a very small stock in hand and two men working for him. A quiet week and he could turn his whole substance into gold and be away. He would have to return to England, he supposed, and find something to do there. He could buy into a business, probably…

  He could stay in America, based in New York and the distilling firm, more than in the South, but his interests and knowledge all pushed him down to the Mississippi.

  He could throw himself wholeheartedly into the venture he had just entered, accepting all of its facets and meeting all of his commitments, for the short term at least. The largest single commitment was sat across the drawing room from him

  One of his tutors had told him of a French King, a Protestant originally, who had said ‘Paris was worth a Mass’. Was wealth worth a Grace?

  He came out of the brown study he had fallen into, apologised to the judge.

  “I was counting up just how long I shall be away, sir. It must be half a year at least, longer if I must return to New Orleans first. Would it be possible to send a knowing man south, sir? One who could identify a section of land on the waterfront and quietly buy it up? On the Algiers side, I would expect, the land a little higher and firmer there. It might be a wise move in any case. I am well enough known in the business community that my interest might add a thousand or two to the price, and attract speculators to buy up on either side of me, just in case.”

  The judge allowed that it could be done; a young man from a shipyard in New York could take a paid holiday, a furlough for three months or so, and select a few acres that could be built upon to their needs. How many did Mr Star think to be appropriate?

  “I do not know for sure, sir, but not less than fifty would be sensible.”

  The judge agreed.

  “Then it remains only for me to book my passage to Liverpool, sir, and make my farewells here. Though, in fact, sir, I have one task remaining and that has been nagging at me for a few days now! With your permission, Judge, I would wish to escort Miss Chard and her Mama to a jewellers to make the selection of a stone. I would like to see my ring on your finger before I go, ma’am!”

  He smiled his best, trying not to seem either kind or patronising though quite unable to muster an expression of concupiscent desire. It sufficed to send her into a flutter, poor lass!

  Henry boarded ship a fortnight later, a short delay forced upon him by the need to purchase a wardrobe suitable for English weather – the linens of Louisiana would probably sit rather cold on his shoulders in Lancashire, he suspected.

  He was surprised by the size of the vessel, four masted and with a hold capacity of more than two thousand tons, wooden hulled although she was less than a year old. The purser, appointed because the Western Venturer had twenty passenger cabins, filled both ways as a general rule, told him that she had been constructed in a German yard where timber was readily available and iron hulls had not yet been heard of.

  “Built to order, I believe, sir, to carry wheat in sacks for the flour mills along the Mersey. The demand is high, despite the Corn Laws and the import duty, and the price is forced up to an unnatural level, guaranteeing a profit. We carry furs as well on most voyages, beavers mostly, sir. Cloth on the westward run, of course, cottons and woollens both, and always a good tonnage of crockery as the demand for all sorts of better quality chinaware certainly seems to be growing.”

  More than a thousand tons at a time was a lot of cloth, Henry thought. He wondered how much of it came from his father’s mills.

  The winds were kind, as was normal for the season, and they docked in thirty days. A steamship could reasonably expect to halve that time, Henry thought, if they could only build one with an efficient engine. Not for carrying grain and cloth, perhaps, but passengers who had better things to do with their time than peer out at the watery wastes would pay for greater speed. One day, not so far away, either – the times were changing and the pace of that change was growing faster and faster.

  Ashore in Liverpool and Henry decided to take a hotel room for a few days while he nosed about and familiarised himself with all that had happened in his years away. He checked his wallet for the official document he carried, the stamped and sealed statement from Washington that confirmed him to be an American citizen, naturalised before the War had commenced in 1812. He had still been in England at that time but minor facts should never be allowed to interfere with necessity and he had no desire at all to be taken up as a traitor in his original home.

  “Mr Henry Star,” he informed the manager at the hotel desk. “From the United States and staying for a few days on business. I may be going to London, I might be able to complete all I need to do here, so I do not know exactly how long I will require rooms for. It is possible that I might be invited to stay with family or acquaintance here, so I should, I think, reserve my accommodation for the week in the first instance.”

  He produced gold coins and was made very welcome, as he had expected.

  “Ah… Mr Star, sir. Not the most common of surnames, if I might so venture, yet not wholly unknown in these parts, I believe.”

  “My father is Lord Star. I am his youngest son, or certainly was when last I had contact with him!”

  The manager reassured him on that count.

  “If you should wish, Mr Star, the hotel can always forward a letter for you.”

  If he did not wish, Henry suspected, the news would nonetheless rapidly reach his father’s ears. Lord Star was too important a personage for such an interesting piece of information not to be passed on.

  “I believe, sir, that Captain Matthew Star is your brother?”

  Henry confirmed that he was and discovered that Matthew was now a well-known ship-builder in Liverpool, working for the Roberts Foundries, which were owned by his good-father. Henry was not aware that his brother was married, still less to Charlotte Andrews. He wondered why he had abandoned his naval career, though, thinking on it, there would be far less of activity and profit and promotion now that peace had broken out, so inopportunely for a young officer with a career still to make.

  “I wonder whether it might be easier to make first contact with my brother?”

  It was much easier to make contact with Matthew, so much so that he was called to the hotel lobby before dinner to greet his brother.

  “Henry, you are looking prosperous, brother. Doing well in the States? Father told me earlier this year that he had had word of your presence there.”

  “Importing into Louisiana, guns primarily, Matthew. Five thousand sterling a year at a minimum. I am told that you have left the sea?”

  They sat at a table in the lobby, Henry signalling to a waiter.

  “Just tea, too early for alcohol in a public place, Henry. The business community here is mostly Chapel and one dare not be seen with a glass before dinner!”

  Henry asked for coffee, changing his intended order.

  “It’s a long story, but I fell out of lov
e with the naval life, Henry. Then I met my wife and fell into love with her! I am now manufacturing steamships, Henry, for Lord Andrews. You may have seen our tugging boats as you came ashore.”

  Two of the paddle steamers had helped Henry’s ship to her berth, much to his pleasure.

  “What brings you back to England, Henry?”

  “Business, Matthew, a visit of a couple of months, I expect. Briefly, you know of the Mississippi? The greatest of all rivers, it is believed, though the Nile and Amazon might argue that case. The whole of the centre of the States can be opened up from the River, thousands of miles of waterway needing only steamers to make free of them. I am a member, and not the least, I might add, of a consortium seeking to establish a shipyard in New Orleans. The building of wooden hulls is already well within our capabilities, but there are no foundries, no engine making manufacturies in the whole of the South.”

  That could lead to several possibilities, Matthew thought. There would be few difficulties in selling steam engines, or their component parts in fact, to be assembled in New Orleans. There would be extreme problems to be overcome if the intention was to manufacture the engines at the American yard, not the least of those hindrances being that he would not trust Henry out of his sight.

  “As far as I can throw you, brother,” he muttered to himself.

  “I am to be wed on my return to the States, Matthew,” Henry said, judging that some evidence of his stability might be welcome. “Miss Grace Chard, only daughter to Mr Justice Chard, a judge of the Supreme Court of New York State.”

  Matthew noted the absence of siblings, the implication of inheritance, with approval. Judges could be many things, but ‘poor’ was rarely one of them.

  “I married Charlie nearly a year ago, Henry. She is expecting the arrival of our first-born any day now, so dinner is not a possibility for the while. I shall send a note to Freemans, I am sure our parents will wish you to go out to them.”