Empire

by Edward Cline

  Sir John Cust asked the House if there were any members who intended to vote against the bill, “for if there are not, the House will be spared the commotion of a division, and the tedium of a vote, if all are in accord.”

  No one rose to answer him. No sound was heard but the ticking of the clock above the Speaker’s head. George Grenville happened to glance up at Dogmael Jones across the floor, a smile primed on his lips, ready to greet that man’s defeat. But even as he looked, Jones rose with his glance. Whately remarked, “That chap does not know humility!”

  Jones addressed the Chair. “The House is not in accord, Mr. Speaker. The member for Swansditch will vote No.” He sat down in the silence. No one looked at him, not even his allies.

  The Speaker felt vindicated, almost grateful for the moment, and dryly instructed the clerk of the House journal to record the lone dissent. Then he said, with some relief that this acrimonious matter was finished, “The bill is passed. The chief clerk will prepare copies for the Lords. This House will recess until four of the clock.” Cust then left the Chair and retired to the Speaker’s Room. He did not agree with that lone dissenter, but this was Parliament, and he had had his say. It was what Arthur Onslow would have done.

  As the House rose to file out or congregate on the benches and on the floor to discuss the bill, a furtive, urgent conference took place between George Grenville and Thomas Whately. The secretary abruptly stood up and approached the clerk’s table. The chief clerk had left his seat to follow the Speaker on some matter, while the second clerk, his back turned to the table, seemed to be distracted by the presence in the gallery of some pretty ladies above the opposition benches. Whately deftly stepped onto the dais and leaned over the shoulder of the recording clerk, whose quill was poised to enter the dissent.

  “Certain influential interests would be pleased if the journal reflected passage of the bill without a dissent, my good man,” he said in a low voice, almost a whisper, “and, there is a vacant clerkship of two hundred pounds per annum, excluding fees, in the office of the Paymaster of the Forces.”

  The clerk looked across the table into space, and gulped once. He sat frozen, afraid to turn and face the presence hovering near his ear. The voice said, “Stay your pen, sir, and that less fatiguing place is yours.” The presence then withdrew, and the clerk heard him step down from the dais.

  He watched Whately return to the first minister, who was busy receiving congratulations from pro-bill members. In the course of answering a question, Grenville managed to stare briefly but pointedly over someone’s shoulder at the clerk. The clerk blinked in quick thought: What did it matter to him? It was a single vote against how many hundreds, and may as well be a zero. The bill was passed, and no one would look into the journal again. And if anyone did, he could always claim that it had been expunged on some technicality. He had a family of six to support, and debts to pay, and things he coveted. And no one was watching. He bobbed his head once in surreptitious answer, and turned the page of the journal. With shaking hands, he consulted the agenda at his elbow, moistened the nub of his quill on his tongue, and wrote at the top of a blank page the heading for the next business of the House.

  Henoch Pannell, awaiting with Crispin Hillier an opportunity to express his pleasure to the first minister on passage of the bill, observed, without himself being observed, this dexterous exercise in malservation, and chuckled quietly in unsurprised wisdom. Hillier looked inquiringly at him. He said to that equally experienced man, with calm but undisguised triumph, “The record will show that he approved the tax.”

  “Who?” asked Hillier.

  “The Templar for liberty,” replied Pannell, but he would not elaborate.

  Dogmael Jones did not stay long enough to witness the misdemeanor. By the time the clerk had finished inscribing the new heading, he was in the New Palace Yard, stepping into a hackney with Baron Garnet Kenrick.

  Chapter 14: The Caricature

  It was a quiet, placid morning on March 1 in the breakfast room of Bucklad House, home of Sir Henoch Pannell and Lady Chloe Pumphrett-Pannell, a short walk from Windridge Court, to which place the couple had been invited for a celebration that evening of passage of the stamp bill. Lady Chloe picked a copy of the London Weekly Journal from the top of a pile of newspapers and periodicals a servant had just deposited on the table, while Sir Henoch reached for a copy of the London Gazette, the government’s official register of the news.

  Lady Chloe was searching for gossip worthy of her attention; Sir Henoch, for court and foreign news worthy of his. There were going to be many other guests at Windridge Court tonight, and both felt that they must have something else to talk about other than Grenville’s victory in the House. Basil Kenrick, the Earl of Danvers, had assured Sir Henoch and his party that passage of the bill in the House of Lords was a certainty; it had been read once in that august chamber, and a committee of lords appointed to examine some of its clauses. The Earl did not think they would alter a comma. The bill was docketed for a vote on March 7 in Lords.

  Lady Chloe’s glance was drawn almost immediately to a caricature — or a political cartoon — on page three of the Journal. She gasped, glanced at her husband across the table, then burst out laughing, startling her mate enough to cause him to spill some of the tea he was about to sip. When he put down the cup and stared unbelievingly at his wife, he saw that she was laughing hysterically, pointing at him with a mocking finger that shook with the rest of her body. “Chloe!” he shouted, “get hold of yourself! What’s wrong?” But she did not hear him. Could not hear him.

  The Baronet of Marsden, Essex; Surveyor-General of Harwich, Suffolk; Inspector-General of the Custom-Houses of the Cinque Ports; Gentleman of the King’s Bedchamber; and, since last year, Teller-General and Cofferer of the King’s Closet, a very informative and delicate position — none of which posts required his presence, knowledge, or active interest, but all of which came with handsome salaries, some of which he was obliged to deduct to pay the men who actually performed those duties — was not accustomed to this behavior in his wife, and snatched the Journal from her hand as her peals of laughter rang in his ears. As Lady Chloe rocked uncontrollably in her chair, almost losing her wig, Sir Henoch turned to page three, and spotted just as quickly the cause of her hilarity. It was an unsigned caricature, titled at the top, “The Old Britain Tavern; or, the Colonies Tamed.”

  He saw a representation of himself — although he could not swear it was one of him — as the center of a busy tableau of figures, sitting almost slumped in a chair, his back to a tavern table, stocky legs thrust out so that the bottom of his shoes were visible. The head of this portly figure lolled to one side, eyes closed in sleep, mouth open, and wig askew. One arm hung over the arm of the chair, and dangling from the fat hand was a half-eaten goose leg. The hand of the other arm held a tipped-over mug whose contents had spilled onto the figure’s breeches and the floor. The waistcoat was stained with drink and gravy. Across the full belly of this figure was the label “Preferments.”

  The table behind this figure was laden with a riot of bottles, dishes, and platters of food. Two other figures, equally portly, whose tricorns were labeled “Pensioners” and “Sinecures,” were seated at the table, eating ravenously and none too neatly from their plates. Two small dogs, labeled “Placemen,” fought beneath the table over a scrap of meat from a dish that had fallen from the table and broken. The figure of a serving boy, resembling George Grenville, approached the table with another heaping platter of food.

  In the background was a fireplace, its mantel inscribed “St. Stephen’s Hasty Oven.” On the spit were joints of beef, lamb, and swan, labeled “Industry,” “Thrift,” and “Property.” In the fire beneath the meat could be seen the spines of many books, some of which read “John Locke,” “Constitution,” “Algernon Sidney,” and “The North Briton.”

  To the right of the fireplace was a large tread wheel, whose spokes were conspicuously marked “Stamp Act,” “Currency Act,�
�� “Navigation Acts,” “Hat Act,” “Molasses Act,” and “Board of Trade.” In the tread wheel was a scrawny, almost emaciated man, trotting on his hands and knees to turn the wheel. This figure’s torso was labeled “The Colonies.”

  Beneath the tread wheel sat a last figure on a low stool; the stool was labeled “Treasury,” and the face of the figure vaguely resembled that of Thomas Whately. In one hand it held a poker, ready to discipline the turnspit; in the other, another book, whose spine read “British Liberty,” which it was about to pitch into the fireplace.

  The caricature emulated the economy, detail, and force of a Hogarth satire, and anticipated the style and scope of Gillray and Rowlandson, niceties lost on Sir Henoch in his present state of mind

  The Baronet of Marsden rose and tossed the Journal to the floor, exclaiming, “Damn his eyes!” He knew who was responsible for the caricature. “I’ll bring suit against him for libel!” He sucked in his belly and straightened his shoulders — the caricature made him self-conscious of his appearance now — and glared at his wife. “Silence, you gormless woman!” he ordered.

  Lady Chloe waved her hands in a gesture of helplessness, attempted to control her laughter, produced only a hiccup, but could not stop. She rose and left the room. Her laughter could be heard beyond the door she closed behind her.

  Pannell remained standing, a prisoner of conflicting hurt and anger. He felt hurt because, until now, he had not known the depth of contempt in which his wife held him, one that allowed her to indulge in levity at the expense of his hard-won dignity. He was angry because he knew that many of his friends in the Commons and in his social circle would recognize him, or claim to recognize him, in the caricature, and cast subtle looks at him tonight with unexplained chuckles, or make witty, discreet references to his napkin and table habits. Some of these people he could threaten with a scowl; others would be above his reproof — the Earl could be cruelly merciless in his humorless humor — and he would have to endure their jests without the satisfaction of reply.

  Most of all, he was angry because the practical in him knew that he was powerless to avenge himself. He knew that the best action was no action at all. The thing was done. Not even Grenville could afford to prosecute the Journal’s publisher without drawing attention to himself and to the issue. The man was still smarting from his actions against Wilkes and The North Briton.

  He was angry, too, because what he most wanted to do was not sue Sir Dogmael Jones, but corner him and beat him to within an inch of his life.

  Pannell stooped to retrieve the Journal, glanced again at the caricature, and let the newspaper drop from his hand. He wandered about the room in deep thought, and eventually convinced himself that the harm it might cause would be repaired and forgotten in the press of other ministerial matters, especially the likelihood of a Regency bill.

  * * *

  “Do you think it will have much effect?” asked Garnet Kenrick the next day. He and Jones sat over a serving of port at a table in the main coffee room of the Shakespeare’s Head Tavern in Covent Garden. A copy of the Journal, opened to the caricature, lay between them. Outside, the day was dreary and overcast, but their spirits were light.

  “None that we shall see immediately, milord,” replied Jones, puffing on his pipe. He removed it from his mouth and gestured to the room at large. “In honor of our ancient host: ‘How far that little candle throws his beams, so shines a good deed in a naughty world.’” He saw the Baron frown in the effort to recollect the line, and added, “Portia, to her lady-in-waiting, Nerissa, in The Merchant of Venice.” He paused to smile. “I passed through the Royal Exchange this morning, and saw some merchants and traders gathered around one of the cards I had put up there. They were arguing with some heat about it. That is an effect.”

  “Well, let us hope that Grenville and his party do not try to snuff out that candle. It must light up this nation and half a continent.”

  Jones shrugged. “Even were they successful in the attempt, it is too late. Yesterday I posted copies of the Journal and a hundred copies of the caricature to your son. He should receive those and transcriptions of all the principal speeches on the act before this session adjourns.”

  Jones remained ignorant of the malicious expunction of his dissent from the House journal. For all the disdain he heaped upon the Commons, he did not doubt that it abided by its own inviolate rules. His dissent, he presumed, was a matter of permanent record, and was, in fact, a quantum of solace for him.

  Through Benjamin Franklin, he found an artist working for an engraver. The caricature went through several renditions until Jones was satisfied with what was said by it. One thing he dropped from the tableau was the imputation that Sir Henoch Pannell was among the many members of the Commons whose vote for approval of Lord Bute’s treaty was literally purchased by Henry Fox, then a member for Dulwich, now Baron Holland in Lords. It was common knowledge in the House that Pannell and the others had been bought, but there was no proof. Provided he would convince a judge that the one figure in the caricature was meant to be him, Pannell could have sued Jones and the publisher for libeling his character. Against his wishes, but in obedience to his better judgment, the goose leg dangling from the figure’s hand replaced the bulging purse of coin that had been marked “The Treaty of Paris.”

  “Do you think Sir Henoch could bring action against us for the figure itself?” asked the Baron, leaning over to study the sleeping figure in the picture. “It is a remarkable capturing of him.”

  Jones shook his head. “I am prepared for that. Two score members of the House answer that resemblance, as well as many dozens of gentlemen throughout this metropolis. A magistrate would dismiss Sir Henoch’s action in the blink of an eye.” He picked up his glass of port and raised it in a toast. “Long live Lady Liberty, milord.”

  The Baron chuckled and raised his own glass. “Well, I thought you would never ask me to join you in that, sir,” he said. He touched Jones’s glass, and replied, “Long live Lady Liberty.”

  * * *

  The caricature appeared in a scattering of newspapers and periodicals across the isle, including the Bristol Post-Boy and the Lincoln Ledger. It may have been seen in the latter by a recently widowed exciseman in the port town of Alford, Lincolnshire, by the name of Thomas Paine, who at that time was struggling with a conflict between his tax-collecting duties and a growing revulsion for his career and the corruption and humility required to pursue it. He was a young man in search of an enlightened ethics, and had dabbled in Methodism and, when he could find the time and money, attended lectures in science and politics. He was not yet ready to disown his native land for a new one. Jones’s small “candle,” however, may have helped light another in the restless, inquisitive mind of this luckless Englishman, who would, in time and in desperation, forsake his country for a land that was about to become another kingdom.

  Chapter 15: The Spy

  In the company of others, he addressed his father as “your lordship”; in private, “sir.” The latter address was the sole concession to intimacy his father would grant him. His father, in turn, rarely addressed his son by anything but “sir”; he had never deigned to call him “son,” had never called him by his Christian name. He had never embraced him, never so much as put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Nor would he ever. These rules had been imposed on the son and strictly enforced for five years, after he was abruptly brought from the port town of Lyme Regis, Dorset, where he was born and raised, and introduced to his father. He was now thirty years old, finely dressed, exhibited the comportment of a dandy, and passed for a gentleman.

  When Baron Garnet Kenrick and Sir Dogmael Jones at length rose and left the Shakespeare’s Head Tavern, this gentleman, who sat alone at a table across from them, after a moment also rose and departed. He made no effort to follow the pair, for by their conversation he knew where each was going; the Baron to his bank in the City on business, Sir Dogmael to the Commons. Instead, the gentleman made his way through a lig
ht drizzle in the direction of Charing Cross. He spotted an idle hackney on another boulevard, and engaged it to take him to Windridge Court. His day, he knew, was nearly done. He had followed them to Covent Garden after having loitered this morning outside Sir Dogmael’s lodgings near the Middle Temple. Jones had taken a hackney to the residence of the Duke of Richmond, where he was joined by the Baron, and together they were driven to the tavern.

  At Windridge Court, he informed Alden Curle, the major domo, of his business. Curle informed him, somewhat tentatively, that the Earl was preparing to leave for Lords. “He will want to see me,” said the visitor. This was more a command than an informative statement, as both men well knew. Curle led the gentleman to the Earl’s bedchamber. Basil Kenrick was being dressed by his valet, Claybourne. This man and Curle were subsequently dismissed.

  “Well?” asked the Earl. Except for his frock coat, he was nearly dressed. He tightened the belt of his silk lounge robe with a single jerk, and went to a sideboard and poured himself some tea. There was an extra china cup and saucer in the service, but he did not invite his damp caller to avail himself of the warming beverage, nor did he offer to serve it. He sat in an armchair, took a sip of the tea, and glanced expectantly up at the man.

  The gentleman removed his hat and tucked it under his arm. He repeated, as near as he could remember, the conversation he had overheard in the Shakespeare’s Head Tavern, ending with, “I believe they are responsible for the satire, sir. At least, I believe Sir Dogmael was the one who had it made up and placed in the newspaper and posted about the city. He had been somewhat difficult to observe over the last week, not being in his usual places of custom. Your brother, the Baron, expressed concern about a suit by Sir Henoch over the likeness. Sir Dogmael replied that there are numerous members of the House and citizens of the town who resemble Sir Henoch, and that a magistrate would dismiss a suit. They spoke of the satire as being a candle that must illumine England and North America. Shortly before they left, they made a toast — not to the king. They both said, ‘Long live Lady Liberty.’” The gentleman paused. “A noteworthy negligence, sir.”