SH04_Empire

by Edward Cline

  Edgar Cullis also rose, and said with less glibness, “Please do not upbraid me, Mr. Kenrick, but you should know that I regularly serve on the Committee of Privileges and Elections. After you have been elected, Mr. Tippet will return the writ with a note on the results to the House, naming you as the winner. Once the committee has examined the documents, they will report their findings to the House, which will then approve the election. I doubt that anyone could lodge a credible protest against you in this instance, but should one occur, you may rely on me to support your election wholeheartedly.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Cullis.”

  When he had seen them off in the yard of the great house, Hugh wandered back inside to his study, amused on one hand by the earnestness of the two men; and on the other, curious about why they thought him a credible candidate. He was certain that he had given them ample evidence that, first, he was not an advocate of “moderation,” and, second, that “moderation” was not a practical policy to adopt in the circumstances. There was something wrong in their assessment of his value to them, something awry in the confidence they placed in him. But he could not identify it. “No matter,” he thought to himself. “I will be what I will be, and say what I must say.”

  At his desk, he took from his letter box the report from Dogmael Jones, and reread the parts of it that concerned the political doings in London:

  “If Mr. Grenville and the government were so confident in Parliament’s legal right to impose internal taxes on the colonies — that is, taxes not approved by various of your legislatures there — they would not be coyly seeking advice and recommendations from so many quarters about the size or likely effect of our first minister’s proposed stamp tax, but lay the impost on you people without the least doubt or hesitation. But the debt incurred by the Crown in the late war is so huge that it has shaken the confidence of even the spendthrifts, and they are casting about like a bevy of starving anglers for fish to catch, gut, and fry. There are, however, two bones of bother that have caused Mr. Grenville and his party to adopt the caution of pettifogging sneaksbies: the nagging fear that, regardless of the constitutionality or legality of such a tax, it would stir up protest in the colonies and move the more thoughtful politicians and leaders amongst you to call the beat to quarters; and doubts amongst many of the House’s members here about the economic, practical, or moral efficacy of such a tax, doubts of which Mr. Grenville and his party are too well aware. And lest it be claimed that the merchant interests here predict disaster and forced idleness if a stamp tax is enacted, be advised that the fellow who has apparently pestered the Board of Trade for years on the advantages of such a tax is a Mr. Henry McCulloch, a prominent London merchant. My paid spies in the Board’s offices tell me that, according to the musty correspondence they have been able to lay hands on, this gentleman has appended to this tax a Brobdingagish scheme that would yoke the colonies for generations, yet convince every one of them that it was for their own good and for the glory of English liberty. But, then, a man who beats his wife is also a paradox…. ”

  But Hugh was not allowed to ponder the paradox of Reece Vishonn’s and Edgar Cullis’s determination to see him elected burgess, nor the paradox posed by Jones. Joseph Shearl, his master carpenter, came in to tell him that the first curved plank has been successfully fitted into the tarred and sealed bottom of the water tower. Hugh rushed out with him to inspect it, and was for the rest of that summer day occupied with a project perhaps more momentous to him than were the machinations of George Grenville, member for Buckingham borough, First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, enemy of John Wilkes, brother-in-law of William Pitt, and bencher for the Inner Temple, and of whom, Horace Walpole, discreet diarist of the men who came and went in the House of Commons and Lords, wrote that while Grenville was “capable of out-talking the whole Corps Diplomatique,” he had no “faculty for listening.”

  Grenville listened to and perused volumes of advice about his stamp tax, noted all the credible objections to it, but pushed it through Parliament anyway. Parliament was all-powerful, he was its pilot, and it would go anywhere he steered it.

  Chapter 6: The Flames

  “Y our sense of timing is impeccable,” said Jack Frake with a smile.

  “In respect to what?” asked Hugh with a grin. “Arriving in time for supper? Putting up a water tower?”

  “Deciding to run for burgess.”

  “Well, a good actor knows when to enter the stage on his cue so that it does not seem accidental or even premeditated, and conveys to an audience that it is just natural that he should be there.” Hugh laughed. “I did not tell my visitors, but those two acts are what prompted me to decide in favor of their proposal. That is for them to infer.”

  Jack already knew about the Revenue and Currency Acts. Hugh had shared news of them with him and Thomas Reisdale and the contents of the letters from his father and Dogmael Jones.

  Hugh rode to Morland after dusk the same day to inform his friend of his decision. He was a frequent and welcome guest in a house that had not had many visitors in years. Following the marriage of Jack and Etáin, Hugh often called on Morland to discuss politics and business with Jack, to bring new sheet music and magazines for Etáin and books for both of them. His manner toward the couple was gracious and cordial: toward Jack, he acted as though nothing had ever or could ever come between them; toward Etáin, he behaved like an affectionate brother. Because he could not repress the knowledge of his loss, he had allowed himself, at the beginning of these visits, to express on occasion an amused, implicit envy of Jack, and a respectful jealousy of Etáin, both expressions rendered benign by his gentlemanly distance from the subject. In time, even these references ceased.

  In the supper room that evening, in the company of Etáin and John Proudlocks, Hugh asked his host, “Why have you never sought election, Jack?”

  Etáin smiled and grinned at her husband from across the table. “The time is not right for a man of Jack’s mettle to enter politics,” she said. “Can you imagine him sitting on a bench in the Capitol, squirming with boredom as he listened to men quibble over small matters and points of procedure?”

  “No, I cannot,” conceded Hugh. “Nor can I imagine myself enduring much of that.”

  Jack glanced once with fondness at Etáin, then said, “Etáin is right. I could not be a party to the passage of half the laws that our own legislature is responsible for. But, then, I would never be elected. My views are too well known in this county, and frighten men.” He added, with a chuckle, “And I could be arrested or censured if I spoke as I chose, or expelled from the Assembly. Remember that I am a former felon, too. Some meddling fool could contrive to have me sent back to England on charges of treason or for libeling the king, and called to the bar in Parliament to defend myself.” He shook his head and his manner softened. “Then I might suffer the fate of your friends, the Pippins.”

  Hugh nodded in grave acknowledgment, and was at the same time astounded with how similar his friend’s remarks were to Reece Vishonn’s.

  Jack said, “Etáin is right. Politics is not ready for me.”

  Etáin rose and poured the men more coffee from a silver pot. “Men must catch up with Jack,” she said to the table at large. “They must either learn to, or settle for events to impel them in his direction.” You are the north, she thought to herself as she bent to fill her husband’s cup, glancing once at him to communicate her meaning. In Jack’s eyes, she saw understanding. In time, the needles of men’s minds must ultimately point to you as the measure of what they ought to be and what they ought to do. They must reach a point where they are no longer frightened by you and what you are. As Hugh is not, and John there.

  Hugh laughed, and said, “They believe I am an exemplar of ‘moderation,’ and left still believing it after I gave them a taste of my oratory.”

  “What did you say?” asked Proudlocks.

  Hugh gave a gist of his speech and his remarks that followed it.

  A
fter a moment, Jack said, “You are that, Hugh, after a certain point. You and I travel the same road, up to a fork in it. There we part: you on the road of reconciliation and enlightened empire, I, on the road that yet has no name; and the distance between those roads widens with every yard.” He paused when Ruth Dakin, the servant from the kitchen, entered to clear the plates from the table. When she was gone, he remarked, “Even were all the laws of Parliament and the Board of Trade repealed tomorrow, I would expect the same conflict to arise again in a generation, for the same reasons, and with the same consequence.”

  Hugh shook his head and sat back. “I do not believe that would come about, once Parliament and the ministers and chancellors have been made to see reason.”

  Jack smiled again. It was not a happy smile. “What is going to compel them to see it? Who among all those men serves as an exemplar of unqualified reason? And, if he existed, why should they heed his example or advice, or care that he existed, if they have gotten this far by flouting reason?”

  “What will compel them is the very real possibility of losing the colonies, our trade, and our friendship and natural affection.”

  This time Jack shook his head. “If they were afraid of losing any of that, Hugh, they would not continue to enclose us in the hedgerows of these new laws and the ones that are certain to follow.” He sighed. “My friend, I would no more try to reason with London than I would attempt to persuade a highwayman of the unreasonableness of his robbing me, not even were he a courteous gallant who left me a shilling to get home on. And you forget one important aspect: To retain the colonies as Crown possessions, Parliament must assert its control. To assert that control, it must rule — whether in its own name or that of the king, it matters little. To rule, it must presume to order the lives and actions of those whom it rules. Which can mean nothing else but more revenue, currency, hat, and slave acts. And taxes. And laws skewed to the benefit of the merchants and any other parties that have the ear of a member of the Commons or an audience with a first lord or chancellor, such as Mr. McCulloh, who was mentioned by your friend Mr. Jones.”

  After a pause, Jack continued. “I believe I posed this question at Mr. Vishonn’s ball, on the night we first met, Hugh: Why did the Crown fight so mightily for supremacy on this continent? I know that most colonials who fought with the regulars, fought for their liberty — such as it is, and such as they understand it — and to be free of the French threat. But, the Crown? Why would it bother with the expense, if power over this continent were not the motive, and if it did not expect to recoup that expense in the future? We colonists — even we former felons — are the ones who bestow any value on it, if I have correctly read Mr. Locke. Which means that you and I and Mr. Vishonn and John here and the humblest cobbler in Williamsburg and the most industrious freedman and mechanic in Boston are the ones from whom the Crown will expect to extract that value.”

  Hugh nodded. “I concede all that,” he said. “But there must be some substance in a hope for reconciliation — or rapprochement, as the French would call it. If there is not, if you are right, and I am wrong, then all we can look forward to is chaos, and anarchy, and misery. Or, worse yet — democracy! Our only hope is an enlightened empire, in which reasonable men prevail over reasoned laws.” He raised a hand and gestured to the world beyond the walls of the supper room. “Men here now are too contentious, too jealous of each other’s advantage, too diverse in their interests…. And, too suspicious of each other, and ready to resort to arms or fists to settle their disputes. Need I cite examples? There was that deplorable business between the Quakers and the Paxton gang and other western settlers over the Indians in Pennsylvania, and the trouble that is likely to occur between the western settlers in the Carolinas and their own governments. On the other hand, there are all those who rallied in support of Mr. Wilkes in London, and the number and eloquence of the radicals for liberty there.” He paused. “I do not see such phenomena occurring here, my friend.”

  “Except for you, and Mr. Reisdale, and Jack,” remarked Etáin. “And there are the gentlemen who attend your Attic Society meetings here. You have told me yourself about clubs and associations like it in Philadelphia, and Boston, and New York, and even in Williamsburg. How can you then say that Americans are indifferent to the form of their future, or are so mean-spirited that they would trade their liberty for a mess of pottage?”

  “I did not say that they were that,” replied Hugh with a frown, stung by the reproof, the first ever he had received from Etáin. “I meant merely that they are divisive, and are not united in a common politics, or even by a common idea of themselves, as are most Britons, even the unread and ill-mannered among them.”

  “Such as the ones who stoned you and your friends on the pillory at Charing Cross?” queried Jack with an unnatural, ominous tone in his words. “How many of them were schooled in the finer points of the Constitution? Presumably, very few of them, and those less so than were the judge and jury who sentenced my friends to hang in Falmouth.”

  Again, Hugh was stung, this time by the harsh bitterness of his friend’s words, a bitterness directed not at him but at England. For a moment, he felt helpless, and was unable to reply. When he did, it seemed to him that his words floated to the air and were absorbed by the silence-heavy tension in it. “There are mobs and scoundrels in every society, even this one.” It sounded more like a comment than an answer.

  Until now, John Proudlocks said little, content, as usual, to audit the contravening wisdom of these two men. In the past, he had witnessed many debates of this kind between Jack and Mr. Kenrick. But never before had one reached the point of literal argument, never before had one ended in speechless stalemate. He wished to defuse the moment, for he did not like to see them quarrel. He glanced once at his mistress, Etáin, who looked worried and anxious. He said, “About the British Constitution, sirs: You know that I have read much of it, all of what Mr. Blackstone has written about it. In it, I see only the flames. But to understand this Constitution, to know truly whether it is friend or foe, it is necessary to seek and know what causes the flames.”

  They all glanced at him, knowing his reason for interjecting the not entirely irrelevant observation; and knowing also that, ironically, given the subject, there would be no further political discussion this evening.

  Etáin flashed him a smile of gratitude. Jack and Hugh also smiled, but from a form of self-consciousness. Both at that moment also recollected something he had said to them once, over dinner here on a Sunday afternoon months ago.

  Proudlocks had returned from attending one of Reverend Acland’s services, one he held regularly for slaves and the poor of Caxton. It was curiosity, and not any desire to be converted, that allowed him to endure the two hours of immobility. He was aware of the animosity the minister had for his employer and friend. Jack had asked him how he found the service. Proudlocks said, “I cannot argue with everything Mr. Acland said about God and all the virtues and sins he attaches to the faith he preaches. But there is one thing I wanted to tell him, but did not. He was pleased to see me as I left the church with all the others, but I do not think he would have been pleased to hear what I wanted to tell him.”

  “What was that?” Hugh had asked.

  Proudlocks had frowned and paused to choose his words. “There is much I wanted to question him about, for he said many opposing…no, contradictory things in his sermon. He said much about death and rewards and answering to God for one’s actions in this life. I wanted to tell him that, in the end, when a man is on his death bed, or has fallen in battle, or is drowning in the sea, he will meet his first maker, the one he must answer to before he is judged by God for the character of his life, and be rewarded accordingly: himself.” He had added as an afterthought, “He will smile in happiness, or be sad or sorry for things he has not done or said, or meet the devil of his soul and feel terror.” After another pause, he remarked, “In my old life, before Captain Massie and my life here, I saw these ends many times in me
n’s faces.”

  After desultory conversation about Hugh’s water tower — “I shall fill it first from Hove Stream by means of buckets from the conduit” — the prospects for a good harvest, and the Williamsburg theater program that had appeared in last week’s Courier for the beginning of the new Assembly session in October, Hugh and Proudlocks bid the Frakes goodnight.

  Etáin asked her husband, as they prepared to retire, “What causes the flames in you and our friend? Why are you so much alike, yet so terribly different? Why am I afraid that you will someday become enemies?”

  She stood in her nightgown at their bedroom window, looking out into the darkness. The only lights came from a ship’s lanterns from a plantation pier far across the York River. Barely audible was the cacophonous chorus of tree frogs in the woods that surrounded Morland. Jack went over to her and held her in his arms. Etáin was his partner in innocence. He marveled at the fact that she was that without having to pay the price of so many tribulations, as he had. Perhaps the most wrenching thing she had ever experienced was having to say goodbye to her parents, Ian and Madeline McRae, when they closed their shop late in the spring and sailed for England on the Nassau.

  “We won’t become enemies, Etáin,” he said into her hair. “We are too much alike for that to happen. We merely believe that each other is wrong.”