SH03_Sparrowhawk: Caxton

by Edward Cline

  The barrister paused to take a sip of wine. “Then, I wish to push for a change in the statutes, so that every man may say that the king can do wrong, without risking persecution with general warrants, without fear of suits for libel for having made an honest or truthful observation, without provoking a summons to attend the Commons or Lords to be excoriated, humiliated, or bullied. And, I shall speak against general warrants and attainders, those legal pistols of royal and ministerial scamps.” Jones returned Hugh’s attentive study of him. “Mr. Wilkes is the wedge with which our privileged burglars may apply the rum lay and crack open the door to our liberties. From him, they may progress up the ladder of honor and repute, until they can prosecute and harry a man of the highest virtue, and call him criminal with impunity. I am certain you see the relevance, milord. If this is what the ministers and Parliament are wont to do to one of their own, what might they be moved to commit on the rest of the nation, or even on the colonies, in the name of an unbreached peace and national tranquility? Your father and I agree on this, as well, that the whole North Briton affair portends an assault on English liberties no less bellicose than if a Stuart proposed to exercise his scepter, or his messenger his mace, on our backs and heads!”

  “Bravo!” exclaimed Effney Kenrick.

  Her husband said quietly, “Hear, hear!” and raised his glass in salute to the barrister.

  Hugh smiled at them. “You will honor the House with such sentiments, sir, and rouse it to action with your passion.”

  Jones nodded once in acknowledgment. “Thank you, milord.” He chuckled once, then added, “Let us hope that the action is not a call to have a general warrant served on me.” He paused to smile in the expression of a solemn penance. “It is only justice that, having failed to secure the acquittal of your friends the Pippins, I become one myself.”

  “You honor their memory with such dedication, sir,” said Hugh. He glanced at his father, and indicated Jones with a movement of his head. “It was well worth the voyage home, if only to hear this man speak.” “I expected you to say that, Hugh, sooner or later, knowing the importance you place on well-strung words.”

  The table was quiet for a while, except for the sounds of silverware on porcelain plates and the soft ringing of glass. Then Hugh asked the barrister, “How do you find the Commons, Mr. Jones?”

  Jones dabbed his mouth with his napkin and shrugged. “I took my seat near the end of the last session, I confess not without some trepidation. You know that I am not easily cowed. My anxiety was based, not on shyness, but on fear of what I should find. I called attention neither to my positions nor to myself. My purpose was to take stock of my future arena of combat. As I grew more familiar with the rules and runagates of that cyclopean raree show, my anxiety waxed to contempt. Now, there are nearly six hundred members in the Commons — and thank God for lassitude that only half that number deign to attend on a regular basis, for otherwise we should all suffocate in that chamber, or crush ourselves to death, in a repetition of the Black Hole in Calcutta! Well, perhaps a tiny fraction of that body can grasp reason, and require only plain common sense garbed in the raiment of eloquence.

  “Most of the others are Calibans who require merely harmonious sounds strung together, peppered here with an ounce of anger, and spiced there with a humorous quip, to hold their attention, whether or not a speaker conveys any meaning.” Jones paused to smile with mischief. “I crib liberally from that lancet of rhetoric, Earl Chesterfield, whom I chanced to overhear one evening discoursing on the same subject to his company at Ranelagh, in the next private compartment.”

  Jones paused to take a sip of wine, then continued. “As to individual members, most of them, upon being engaged in conversation, succumb to the vanity of importance and will emit an aura of influence, and pose as persons intimately connected to the pilots of policy. They will tell you, whether or not you have ventured the least curiosity, that they regret they are not at liberty to divulge any information on the question before the House, or to violate the confidence of their ghostly compatriots. They would have you believe that they know something about what is to happen, when in fact they are as ignorant as you are of the intentions, ploys, and purposes of the pilots. As their own noggins are swayed by tricked-up folderol, they assume that you, too, swoon before airy influence, or are a rival vessel of awful intrigue.”

  Jones sighed and shook his head. “Nevertheless, when I am called on to speak, all my persuasion shall shine silver. I shall stand and face the clock on the gallery above the Chair, and with half-closed eyes, imagine that I am addressing an assembly of Solons.”

  “As a paladin of liberty,” said the Baron, smiling with pride at the barrister, “as the new Fierabras, undaunted by the number of his foes, unbaptized by the perjurious deceit of Crown sinecures, towering over the heads of the trolls of complacency and circuitous virtue!”

  Jones laughed. “I have yet to make my maiden speech, milord,” he said. “I beg you to wait until I have had an opportunity to wield my cane in the House and have earned that appellation. But, I thank you for the encouragement.” Then he added wryly, “And you claim an absence of eloquence! Do not blame me if I cadge your table talk.”

  “’A paladin of liberty,’” mused Hugh, glancing from his father to Jones. “I like that. I have every confidence that you will earn the title, sir.” He paused. “Tell me, though: Have you solved the riddle of public places?” he asked, referring to their first meeting at Serjeants’ Inn years ago.

  Jones shook his head. “I should have expected that you would not forget that, milord,” he said. “No, not quite. I am taking notes for a book on that aspect of property and law. And I am certain I will contradict some of Mr. Blackstone’s meditations on property and speech. His Toryism at times skews his honesty and objectivity.”

  Hugh remembered the list of things he was asked to find and take back to Caxton. “Blackstone! Yes! You must help me find a digest of the constitution, sir. Has he published anything of his Oxford lectures?”

  “Yes, milord. An Analysis of the Laws of England. It is addressed to students. But, I have heard that he is compiling an elaborate commentary on the laws.” Jones paused with a sour frown. “Mr. Blackstone is a member for Hindon, and has been made solicitor-general to Queen Charlotte.”

  “Then I must find several copies of his Analysis for friends in Virginia.” Hugh went on to describe his friends in Caxton and their interest in the constitution.

  The company listened with fascination to his description of Jack Frake, John Proudlocks, and other men who were his neighbors. At length, Jones remarked, “They are wise to want to know more about the intricacies of the laws, milord. They may have reason, some day, to adopt and amend them — as their own.”

  The dinner talk progressed, over coffee and cake smothered in marmalade of orange, from law to another current controversy, which was the dubious authenticity of Fingal, a collection of Scottish epic poetry by the third-century warrior Ossian, published earlier in the year by a scholar, James Macpherson. The prose was generally thought to be a hoax by many critics and other scholars, who suspected that Macpherson was the true author.

  Jones said, with a shrug of dismissal, “If this barbarian Conan and his chronicler Ossian actually existed, then some mention of them would have been made by one ancient historian or another. But I have not encountered these names in any of the standard Roman accounts of the conquest of this island.”

  Hugh asked, “Why would a person invest so much labor to perpetrate a literary fraud?”

  “To give himself and his ancestors a glorious past, himself alone a fellowless reputation among scholars, and a princely income. But Mr. Macpherson’s crime is not fundamentally dissimilar from the fanciful cogitations I hear voiced in the clubs and taverns that neighbor Westminster Yard. There are many in Parliament who wish that body to rule the colonies in the stead and name of the king.” The barrister paused, then added, “Not that the colonies would fare much better from His Maje
sty’s gentle ministrations.”

  “Have you met Sir Henoch Pannell?” Hugh remembered encountering the member for Canovan in the Yard, and listening to his speech in the Commons.

  Jones scoffed and nodded. “That one? Oh, yes. I have met him. He is noted for his Parthian shots, or barbs flung over his shoulder as he departs the scene of verbal combat.”

  * * *

  The days and weeks passed for Hugh with a kind of luxuriant, unhurried ease. He spent much of the time with his parents and sister, on excursions by boat up the Thames to Hampton Court, during evenings at Ranelagh Gardens just a short carriage ride down the Thames from Chelsea, and in the warm, landscaped garden of Cricklegate. Often he went to London with his father to see Mr. Worley at Lion Key on business, and to the bank of Formby, Pursehouse & Swire, in which the Baron was a major partner, and to the Royal Exchange to meet with other merchants and traders. There were concerts, and theater, and art galleries to attend, and bookstores and print shops to scour for volumes and pictures to take back to Virginia.

  “Have you heard from Reverdy?” his mother asked him as they strolled together along Cheyne Walk one afternoon late in June.

  “No,” Hugh said. “Not since her last letter. Have you?”

  “No. The Brunes and we no longer exchange visits. And we were strangers to the McDougals.”

  Hugh felt his mother’s probing scrutiny, and looked down at her. “It is past, Mother. Do not concern yourself.”

  “Do you…think of her?”

  “At times,” Hugh said. “Almost as often as I think of the moon. Her decision no longer pains me. If that was the depth of her courage, we could not have long endured each other. I have accepted that.”

  Effney Kenrick’s hand was linked to her son’s arm, which she squeezed once in relieved affirmation. “Have you met any ladies in Caxton?”

  “Many,” Hugh said. “But the only one who stands out is the daughter of a Scottish trader. She is a lovely girl. She plays the harp. Spoken for, though, by my friend, Jack. I must find some fresh music for her.”

  “We exchange visits with the Tallmadges,” said the Baroness, “when we are in Danvers and they are here. I suppose you know that Roger’s regiment was reduced, and he is on home service now.”

  “Yes, as an instructor of mathematics at Woolwich for the engineers and artillery officers.” Woolwich was the Royal Military Academy, far down river near Deptford. “Would you mind it much if I went down and spent a few days with him? He is a fully commissioned lieutenant now, but there is a chance he may be appointed secretary to a diplomatic mission to Copenhagen next month.”

  Effney Kenrick laughed. “I would mind it very much, Hugh, and so would your father, but at least you won’t be a thousand leagues away.”

  After a while, Hugh asked, “Has there been any word of poor Hulton? The last I heard from him, his regiment was being sent to the Isle of Wight for marshalling.”

  “No,” sighed his mother. “I am afraid he has quite vanished on us.”

  On another day, Hugh and his father went on horseback on an excursion to Wandsworth, “to see Mr. Jones’s indifferent pasturage,” explained the Baron. From Chelsea they rode to the toll bridge at the villages of Fulham and Pultney, then east through the countryside. On both their saddles were holsters with pistols loaded with double-shot. There had been a rash of robberies by highwaymen of travelers in the area. On the way, they talked of politics, of Dogmael Jones, of the family, of the goods brought in by the family-owned merchantmen the Busy, the Nimble, and the Ariadne. And of Basil Kenrick, the Earl of Danvers, Garnet Kenrick’s brother.

  “How does he feel about your seat in the Commons?” Hugh asked his father.

  Garnet Kenrick rolled his shoulders. “Frankly, Hugh, I don’t know. We do not communicate much any more on family or any other matters, except when I send him copies of the accounts and the monies owed him from the estate. I don’t know who feeds his malice more: You, or I for having put you out of his reach.”

  “It troubles me that any man could nurture hatred for so long a time.”

  “I have the sense now that his malice has lost even a particular object. Your uncle has become merely a nasty, malicious man. I am as glad as you must be to be away from him.”

  They rode on in silence for a while. When they neared the little collection of farmhouses that was the “seat” of Dogmael Jones’s pasturage, Garnet Kenrick cleared his throat and said, “Not many winters ago, Hugh, in Danvers, you told me that you wanted to be something.” The Baron paused to smile at the look of astonishment on his son’s face. “No, I have not forgotten that day, not that one, nor many others. Well, you have become something, as surely as if God had fashioned you with his own hands. But — the hands were your own. When you first arrived last month, and I saw you standing in the foyer, I saw, not just my son, but a planter, and a full man, and the future — a future so thrilling and inevitable that I am reluctant to imagine it.” He chuckled to himself. “I believe I told you that you were going to be a baron, and then an earl. But even then, I knew that my answer was not enough, that it was poor consolation to you, and I galloped away from the knowledge, quite certain that you were right.”

  After a moment, Hugh looked at his father. “You should not worry, Father. I will not stop loving you and Mother. You will not lose me.”

  Garnet Kenrick nodded in acknowledgment, and then looked away. “In all your letters to me and your mother, I sensed an air of liberty, one that you could not have discovered and enjoyed here, for all the advantages of your station. That is why I will say now that you are the chief reason I have ventured into politics. To protect you, to speak in your name through Mr. Jones, to somehow introduce here what you have known there, in Virginia. For myself, it is both a means of atonement for the neglect I am guilty of, and a means of asserting myself.”

  Hugh shook his head in genuine bewilderment. “I cannot think of anything for which you should atone, Father, least of all neglect. The notion is absurd.”

  The Baron cleared his throat again. “Not so absurd, Hugh. Much of our fortune in the past came from illicit trade. There was a smuggling gang in Dorset known as the Lobster Pots. I had close connections with them for years, long before you were born. Your mother does not even know of them. The Busy and the Nimble for years dealt with them. Your education and time in London were largely paid for with the proceeds from that furtive association.”

  “I see.” Hugh studied his father for a moment, then looked away. After a while, he shrugged. “Well, many of the most prosperous merchants in the colonies have a hand in smuggling. As well as many merchants here. If it were not for the navigation laws and taxes and regulations, they would trade openly. They would prefer to.” He paused. “Mr. Talbot keeps separate account books for that trade. So do many of his colleagues, up and down the seaboard, in all the colonies.”

  “I know,” confessed the Baron. “But, we profited from injustice, Hugh. No more, though. At about the time I became a partner in the bank, I broke our association with the Lobster Pots.” He glanced at his son with a new wonder. “I had expected you to be offended by the knowledge.”

  “I am not,” Hugh said. “I have observed that such a gross injustice can sire two kinds of cunning: insensible or pragmatic, and rebellious or defiant. In time, however, if the injustice continues, they must ultimately oppose each other. Or, the rebellious and defiant become corrupted and wish the injustice to be perpetuated.”

  The Baron shook his head. “Please, Hugh, do not make any distinctions for my sake. Although your uncle and I may be counted in the first instance.”

  Hugh was quiet for a while. Then he said, “But, I must make a distinction, sir. I see now that I am not the sole reason why relations between you and Uncle Basil have become so evil. You are a good man, and I am proud to claim you as a father. Do not deny it. You would offend me with a contrary pretence.”

  Garnet Kenrick fell back behind his son, slowing his mount a little with the
reins. He did not wish his son to see the emotion on his face. He said, after they had ridden some distance, “One reason why I sent you away, Hugh, was that your uncle threatened to inform you of the Lobster Pots.”

  Hugh turned and faced his father with a challenging smile. “If you are ever of a mind to enter that business again, Father, write me in Caxton, and together we shall defy both him and the Crown.”

  While a great burden was lifted from Garnet Kenrick’s mind, his son’s words caused him a tinge of sadness, for in them was a hint of the future he was reluctant to contemplate. And, the notion flitted through his mind that it was his son’s character and welfare that had redeemed him.

  * * *

  Once the novelty of his homecoming had passed, Hugh could not resist the temptation to revisit his old haunts. He journeyed to London alone, and wandered through the city he knew so well and missed. On the Strand, the Ram’s Head Tavern had replaced the Fruit Wench. He went inside and back to the partitioned private room where the Society of the Pippin had held its meetings. On Quiller Alley, under the shadow of St. Paul’s Cathedral, he stood across the street and gazed up at the garret atop the tenement where Glorious Swain had lived. He strode through Charing Cross, past the equestrian statue of Charles the First, and by the pillory, now vacant, on which he had defied a mob and Glorious Swain had died. He walked to Windridge Court, and saw by the busyness of the stable hands and coachmen in the courtyard that his uncle the Earl was in residence.