Pistoleer: HellBurner

by Smith, Skye

  This spring, all the major Dutch ships will be sailing with the Dutch East and West Indiamen. They need to beat the privateers and pirates to the Spanish and Portuguese convoys. The pickings would be rich for the pirates, but far richer for the Dutch Companies."

  "Why is that?" Robert asked, now sitting forward in his seat. While living in Rotterdam one of his ventures was to arrange trade in saltpeter between his uncle in Morocco and the great Dutch trading companies.

  Daniel looked at his friend's face and knew immediately that neither of them would be getting any sleep tonight. Robert would be camped on his bed picking his brain for more information about this. "The pirates would take but one ship at a time. A rich prize for sure, but a piss in the ocean compared to what the Dutch Companies want. They don't want to find and capture one ship with one cargo of spice. They want to find and capture of the source of the spice.

  They want to capture the navigators of those ships and force them to hand over their secret rudders. They want the log books and charts that will lead them to the fabled islands of spice. They must capture those navigators before some pirate feeds them to the fishes."

  "And do you know this for sure?" asked another John, John Pym the member from Tavistock. "How can you, the master of a petty English coastal trader, know this? It will be a closely kept secret even in Holland."

  Daniel was flushed with brandy and he did not like this Pym fellow looking down his nose at him, so he said something he shouldn't have, just to brag, "Because Admiral Maarten Tromp, the current hero of Holland, owes me large, and I don't mean just for a cargo of Genever. He has offered me shares in the United East India Company at last year's prices."

  "Shares from the companies treasury then." Pym whistled. He was a director of the Providence Company ,so he well knew that the easy profits from owning company shares were always made by company insiders who had first claim on new shares from the company treasury.

  "Ahhh,” said Henry quietly. "I was wondering what was sending the value of India Company shares so high. I though it was just in relief that the Dutch fleet was not lost to the Armada, so I have been waiting for the price to come back down before I bought more. It seems that I was a fool to wait. From what you say, those shares will never come back down to last year's price. The India Companies will be flooded with profits, and their share price will soar, and the Netherlands will become the richest place on earth."

  His quiet statement about the Amsterdam share market had the effect of clearing the room. Distinguished gentlemen were jumping up and searching for their hats and cloaks and making their excuses to Mary about the lateness of the hour. Henry whispered to Oliver that these men would spend the night camped in front of their banks so as to be the first in the morning to purchase Dutch shares.

  "You mean camped in front of Westminster don't you?" Oliver replied. "Parliament sits tomorrow." When Henry gave him a look as if he were the town fool he added, "What did I say?"

  "Were you not listening to your friend from Ely, man?" Henry told Oliver. "Ahhh, or did he already tell you about the shares, and so you have already invested your fortune in them?" He wondered at the blank stare on Oliver Cromwell's face, but just for a moment. Then he hurried away to the front door to say his goodbyes to the rush of friends and members who were now searching for their hats and cloaks.

  The leaving took longer than any of these men expected, for Henry had a small but heavy gift box for each of them. When they opened them and saw the contents, they were in awe at the present. Each of the members had been given a small pistol. A pistol that could easily be hidden in their coats or cloaks or belts while in polite company.

  Henry waved away their thanks by saying over and over, "No good republican should ever walk within the king's reach without carrying a pistol. I give you this on the condition that you carry it in Parliament, just in case there are traps set to capture all of us at once, and thus silence all of us at once."

  Oliver Cromwell was overjoyed by the German-made pocket pistol that he had been given. He could never have afforded such a fine piece. Clumsy farm pistols were expensive to farmers, but less than a tenth of the price of a gentlemen's weapon small enough for a pocket.

  Eventually, only the three men boarding with Alice were left with Henry sipping Spanish brandy in his library. Henry poured more brandy to encourage them to stay longer and review all that had been said during the evening. "Well, what do you think of our republican MPs?" Henry asked of no one in particular.

  Daniel looked towards Robert, but Robert shook his head slightly, so Daniel spoke in his stead. "We here now are all republicans, and so are Pym and Hampden. Not so the rest of them. They seem to be more against Archbishop Laud than against King Charlie. The religious issues seem more important to them than the political ones ,so I count them as Puritans but not necessarily as republicans."

  "True," said Henry thoughtfully. "It is their hatred, or perhaps their fear of the Archbishop that binds them together. All Puritans want Laud de-frocked, and the sooner the better because they fear the resurrection of the bishops that Laud is championing. Laud has been a vicious opponent. The voice of the Puritan movement is our printers and pamphleteers, and Laud knows this, so he has imprisoned them and fined them and flogged them, and now he makes it worse by cutting off their ears and branding them as libelers."

  "I, this, uh...,” Daniel stopped in frustration. "I'm sorry, but I don't know the political words in English. I didn't understand half of the big words spoken tonight." He looked over at Robert and spoke to him in Dutch. Most of the political theory he knew, having heard it in Holland, so he did know the Dutch words.

  Robert listened and then translated for him. "I think what Daniel is trying to say is that the Dutch Republic has been weakened by the infighting amongst the many the factions of zealots. Yes, they will all stand together so long as their Republic is threatened by Spain and Rome, but once that threat is no more, they risk splintering apart and wasting their power and energy by fighting amongst themselves. Even with the threat of Spain they bicker endlessly about which sect should be promoted, or how to distribute the wealth and tax burden"

  "Exactly,” Daniel spoke up again. "Factions and zealots. Except for me, everyone here tonight was a Puritan zealot and you all seem to expect everyone in this kingdom to become a Puritan. The same is true of those leading the rebellion in Scotland, except they are all Presbyterian zealots and they expect everyone to become a Presbyterian. Only Pym and Hampden seemed to be looking beyond the politics of religion."

  "There is a reason there are so many Puritans in the House of Commons,” Oliver interrupted. "Education. It is our fundamental belief that no one should stand between a man and his God, therefore we encourage the education of our children so that they can read the Bible for themselves. We even educate our girls, Daniel, not like in your village. We have a saying that if you teach one man to read, you have taught one man. If you teach one mother to read, you have taught all of her children."

  Daniel dearly wanted to stick his tongue out at Oliver Cromwell. Over the two years that they had known each other, Oliver had eventually given up on converting him to Christianity, but he still hounded him to send the village children to the local grammar school. Instead, he bit his tongue and gave Robert a look in hopes that he would change the subject.

  Henry noticed the look and said, "Yes Robert. What do you think about our Reform Party, our group of republicans?"

  Robert Blake chose his words carefully before he spoke. "I agree with Daniel. They are too focused on petty details. Take Sinjin. He is completely focused on the Ship Money tax to the exclusion of all else. Only Pym and Hampden were speaking of the wider issues."

  "Which are?"

  "Well, for instance, when Daniel told them that the world changed with the defeat of the latest Spanish Armada, most immediately focused on how they themselves could make money from the Amsterdam share market. They missed the wider importance of Daniel's words."

  "Which .
.."

  "That the United Dutch Republic, with their new style army and new style navy are about to take over the spice trade from Portugal and Spain, just as Portugal took it over from Venice. And what will England do? Nothing. Why? Because Charlie and his aristos are incompetent. Our army and navy are as backwards and as-old fashioned as the Spanish. The defeat of the Armada has created a once-in-a-generation opportunity for our kingdom to expand our trade, our common wealth, our well-being, and we English are doing nothing about it, whereas the Dutch have already sailed."

  Oliver stared at Robert with his mouth open. "So, would you have Parliament ignore church issues and instead focus on taking the control of the army and navy away from the king?"

  "Of course." Robert replied. "Five years ago Charlie justified resurrecting the Shipping Money tax on our coastal areas without parliament's permission by saying that the coin was needed to support the navy. Well, that coin has obviously not reached the navy, so let's stop the collection of it. Without that levy, Charlie will not be able to fund the army or the navy. They will then turn to Parliament for the coin, and armies always obey the orders of their paymasters."

  Henry laughed aloud. "I love it. Oh, Mister Blake you are truly a master strategist! Why did you not say this while we were all gathered?"

  "It was not my place,” Robert replied softly. "They were men of wealth and position, and what am I? A country bumpkin elected to Parliament only because for the first time ever, all of Somerset's Dutch immigrants turned out to vote. They only voted for me because I could speak to them in their own tongue, sort of."

  "An army and a navy modeled after the Dutch,” Oliver said softly, almost to himself. "So the first step would be to get rid of the inbred and fawning officer elite and replace them with professionals who have risen through the ranks."

  "The House of Lords would never allow it,” Henry interrupted. "They or their sons are the very inbred elite you speak of. We would have to first get rid of the House of Lords."

  "Sounds good to me,” said Robert in all seriousness.

  "It's getting late,” Daniel interrupted. "So the last thing I am going to say is what General Leslie and I decided while guarding the Scottish border. That given the chance we would capture the king rather than kill him. Once he is in our hands, we would force him to enact laws that would stop the way that productive land is passed on from generation to generation within the aristocracy.

  I repeat, capture Charlie, not kill him. Use him, not abuse him. Once those new inheritance laws are in place, Charlie and his entire family and his entire court can be attained of all their land, honors, and titles and exiled to our colonies in the New World. Let them soil their hands doing some hard work for a change."

  It was the last thing spoken about politics that night. The outrageousness of the suggestion left the others thoughtful but speechless. Even Daniel said no more, because he was mulling over his new phrase 'factions of organized zealotry'. It explained so much about the internal political problems in Holland, and it set him wondering about how long the Dutch republics would last if the Spanish just walked away and left them to their own ends.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  THE PISTOLEER - HellBurner by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14

  Chapter 20 - With Alice at the Royal Exchange, London, May 1640

  While Robert and Oliver were at Westminster attending Parliament, Alice and Daniel searched through London's more upscale shops with the hope of identifying the spices and their value of those that filled the Spanish chests that Daniel's crew had hauled up to her attic. Alice, who worked with the value of precious metals and stones in her husband's goldsmith shop, was amazed at the price per ounce of these aromatic seeds, leaves and pods.

  "We are in the wrong business,” Alice jested after asking a shopkeeper the price of cloves. How many pounds of cloves did she have in her attic? More than a few.

  "Stick to the goldsmith trade, love,” Daniel replied. "Who knows how far prices of spices will fall or rise with all the trade routes up for grabs. At least the price of gold and silver is a constant, so you know you will get paid for your hard work."

  After the tenth fancy shop Alice decided she had learned enough and pulled him in a different direction. She was now eager to get her own marketing done so she could return to her attic to weigh how much of each spice filled the Spanish chests. She especially wanted to see how much they had of the giant bean pods which they had been told were the natural form of cacao.

  A bored shop owner had told her how to prepare it in the French way with milk as cacaolait, as well as the Spanish way with water and ground hot peppers. She had also been told how to prepare another type of pod. It was breathtakingly expensive and almost unknown outside of Spain but it gave off a divine aroma. It was so rare that there was no English word for it yet, so they used the Spanish word vainilla.

  Daniel followed Alice as she threaded in and out through small lanes that took them away from the costly shops that supplied the aristocracy and burghers, and towards the markets that sold to the real women of London. If Alice had not been leading him, Daniel would not have come this way. He was a seaman and was used to the lowly and dangerous districts that surrounded the quays in any large port, but they were not places he would have willingly taken the well-bought-up little sister of his Puritan friend, Robert Blake.

  Everywhere he looked there were the signs of city-style poverty, for cities ran on coins, anything for a coin and nothing for free. The poor were streaming into the city from the countryside, lured by tales of high wages. They had left the countryside where there was little need of coin and there were always odd jobs they could do in exchange for a safe and dry place to spend the night and for a belly full of food.

  Not so in London. Countless thousands slept rough along the streets under the eaves of buildings because any coin they earned went to buy scraps of food. For five years in a row the crops had been poor because of short summers and long winters. Young folk were being pushed away from the farms to go and make their way somewhere else. These country teens were too old to be considered children, but they were far too naive to be called adults.

  The evils of the city tended to gobble up the naive and spit them out as broken souls. The ragged young women that watched him with their wide, pleading eyes would not call to him because he was already with a woman, but what they were offering was obvious. The lanes were lined with tu'penny whores. Most of them were desperate, for if they didn't find a roof and some good food soon they would lose their healthy country glow and so become ha'penny whores.

  Never had Daniel seen London so filled with poverty, and yet the price of everything was rising every year. Why, he asked himself. Why did the country folk not go home once they realized that London's seemingly high wages were not enough to live on? Perhaps by the time their naivety had become reality, they were too weak from hunger, sickness, or abuse to leave. Perhaps they were so preyed upon and corrupted by the violent gangs that ran these lanes at night, that there was no longer any way for them to escape the poverty.

  "Surely you do not travel these lanes without the company of your husband?" Daniel asked while trying to ignore a pair of young breasts that bobbed out of a bodice as soon as Alice was not looking.

  "Always, for always at least one of us must stay at the shop. We rarely go out together, and then only in the evening."

  "But the dire straits, the hungry eyes, the thieves of opportunity. Are you not fearful?"

  "I usually don't wear my best dress to market, Danny. I only wore it today to visit the shops of the well-to-do. On other days I don't look much different from the rest of these women. I carry only the coppers I need to shop, and only my old basket, rather than this brocade bag. No one troubles me. There is nothing much to gain from troubling me."

  "What about your ... uh ... virtue?"

  "Me? Why would any man want to accost me with my baby belly when they can have a willing teen for tu'pence?"

  Dan
iel bumped into her because she had stopped suddenly and was staring at something down a side lane. He turned to look. It was a knocking lane. Young women were leaned forward against the brick walls with their skirts held high earning their tu'pence from the men humping away behind them. Scenes like this always filled him with rage. Not at the poor women, of course, and not even at the men humping them. His rage was for the immensely wealthy city burghers who purposefully ignored the effects of the city's poverty. Ignored, because they reaped benefits from desperate young women.

  She began walking again, "Oliver tells me that the girls in your village do not learn to read and write. You should arrange to have them taught. Otherwise, if they leave your village, that,” she pointed to the humping couples, "is how they will earn their bread. They will have no choice."

  "And you think that none of those whores know how to read?" Daniel remarked. "The problem is not illiteracy, but enforced poverty. The wealthy profit from the dire straits of these folk, because it keeps the price of labour low. Especially the labour of women. The folk of my village live very well compared to most in this city."

  "Oliver says that your folk live in straw houses that must be rebuilt every few years,” she shot back. "How can any woman live well in a straw house? A brick or stone house is a must for her self-respect."

  "My folk are strong and healthy. Their teeth are strong, their eyes are keen, their skin glows, and they grow tall and lithe. They are as healthy as any folk I have seen in all my travels. They live outside in the fresh air rather than inside. True our village is a damp place on a low island near the sea, and yet our homes are dry and warm even in the wettest weather. Look around you at all these buildings of brick and stone. They are neither dry nor warm, which explains why Londoners burn so much coal."