Victorian Dawn (A Poor Man at the Gate Series, Book 12)

by Andrew Wareham

  “Then they must have their credit, Mr Mostyn.”

  “They must, sir, yet Mostyns cannot supply it – the sheer amount of cash required is greater than the bank possesses – we are speaking of millions, sir. If the Governor cannot lay his hands upon the funds needed, then he must talk with the Honourable East India Company.”

  The Governor had been sparring with the East India Company since first assuming his position; the Company wished to retain its old monopoly and pre-eminence while the Governor had instructions from London to bring India under the wing of the Crown.

  “That is as we had feared, Mr Mostyn. Regrettably, neither the Governor, nor any of his advisors, has a detailed knowledge of commerce and banking…”

  “Mostyns would, as goes without saying, be very happy to assist the Governor in any way possible.”

  Three days later David was sat in earnest discussion with Senior Writers of the Company, seeking a solution to the problems now potentially afflicting the whole of India.

  “The Company, Mr Mostyn, has no desire to make loans to those banks whose lack of commercial acumen has driven them to the edge of collapse.”

  The Senior Writer, a sixty-years old gentleman of Scottish extraction and on the very verge of retirement, was indignant that the situation should have arisen. It would not have happened forty years previously when he had been a young man.

  “To do so, Mr Auchinleck, would be to reward the feckless for their incompetence. I could not possibly advise you to take such an action. I think it must be the Company’s aim to maintain stability, to permit no collapse in trade, but to ensure that the imprudent gentlemen suffer for their foolish greed.”

  There was a general mutter around the table, little cries of ‘hear him’ from all present.

  “No doubt ye have a proposal, Mr Mostyn.”

  “I do, sir. It is that the Honourable East India Company should purchase those banks that are on the verge of collapse and thus guarantee their loans from its own resources.”

  “Buy them, sir? Is not that to reward their proprietors by paying them for banks they have rendered almost worthless?”

  “That might depend on the amount paid, Mr Auchinleck. If, let us say, one was to set a price that happened to come to exactly the sum of the personal liabilities of the owners of the banks, then all debts would be paid but the unfortunate bankers would receive precisely nothing to place in their own purses, losing all of their initial capital in process. The Honourable East India Company would no doubt be able to wind down the business of the banks it had come to possess over a number of years, in orderly fashion, thus to maintain stability and no doubt to make, eventually, a respectable profit on the transaction.”

  Auchinleck smiled, eventually, after he had evaluated the proposition, and looked round the table to discover whether any of his juniors had discovered a flaw in the procedure. There were no headshakes.

  “There must be a most thorough analysis of the banks’ books, Mr Mostyn, which would take some months to complete…”

  “The banks might come immediately into the possession of the Honourable East India Company, sir, to meet their obligations, while payment to their previous owners was delayed until all processes were complete. This, one much regrets, might cause a degree of inconvenience to the failed erstwhile bankers; they would, one must imagine, be both penniless and forced to wait upon the Company’s convenience – they could not leave India.”

  “We have no poorhouse in Bombay – but that is their concern, of course. No doubt they will be able to discover employment of some sort while they remain – they claim to be gentlemen and will have their table-manners and could perhaps take a position as a waiter in a coffee-house or a similar establishment, serving their betters!”

  “Well said, Mr Auchinleck!”

  The sahib lived as a prince in India, while he was successful; the rewards were far greater than could be obtained in the City of London. The punishments for failure were commensurate – there was no mercy for the man who showed that the British were fallible.

  “I presume that you will inform the Governor of our discussions, Mr Mostyn. It might well be better that the report was made verbally. There is no great need to produce documents that could perhaps be the subject of a subpoena at a later date.”

  “Wise indeed, Mr Auchinleck. One must consider the future, the eye of posterity, in all of one’s dealings. Courts and judges may well, acting in hindsight, fail to understand the problems of a particular moment. The Governor’s own records enjoy Crown privilege and may not be divulged in legal proceedings, but papers submitted to him by outside bodies may well be vulnerable. I shall speak to His Excellency this day, sir. I believe that I may say to him that the Honourable East India Company will act in the best interests of the whole business community, though this may cause some upset to the imprudent bankers?”

  “Thank you, Mr Mostyn. Action will be taken this very day and the purchase of the failing banks will take effect immediately.”

  Neither man considered for a moment that the bankers might refuse to sell – it was obvious that the gentlemen would far prefer impoverishment to the drastic, unstated, alternative.

  ‘Better poor than dead’, David mused; if they changed their minds on that decision then suicide was cheap and the means readily available. It could be very easy to disappear in Bombay, although it was not a habit that the authorities wished to embrace – it could give them a bad name.

  “In effect, Mr Mostyn, your proposal will strengthen the hand of the East India Company by reducing the size and numbers of the independent merchants and bankers – some of whom are the same people, of course.”

  “Regrettably, Your Excellency, that is so. The Company will be enabled to resist Her Majesty’s Government in its attempts to gain control in India by the back-door, as it were. One must expect, however, war with China which will result in an end to the factory system and an opening of the country to British and probably French and American traders, Russians even. There is talk of taking a port on the Chinese mainland as a British colony, similar to Macao, so as to render our traders free of all Chinese interference.”

  The Governor cautiously agreed that might well be the case; he wondered just where Mr Mostyn might be leading to.

  “With China open, then the relative power of John Company must be lessened, Your Excellency. The independent, country merchants must grow – they are generally of a buccaneering trend of mind and will carve out profits in a fashion unknown to today’s Company, which has become, dare we say, established in its habits of caution. The China Trade will make vast sums of money for those merchants who are willing to embrace its risks. Naturally, Your Excellency, the authorities in India, and in the newly controlled parts of China, will favour those commercial houses who contribute most to the expansion of Britain’s power in the world.”

  “While The East India Company withers on the vine, as it were, and eventually becomes a lesser power that will sooner or later simply be subsumed by government?”

  “That is a strong probability, Your Excellency, provided only that consistent action is taken to make it so. I have heard word, for example, that the Bombay Marine might well be taken into the Royal Navy; that would have the effect, of course, that the vessels on the China Station would come under a unified command, one that would be wholly disinterested and which would treat all British Flag merchantmen quite equally.”

  “No special treatment for East Indiamen… How did you hear that the Bombay Marine was to lose its independence, Mr Mostyn?”

  “Your Excellency! Bankers hear everything, but only while they protect their sources – one cannot really expect me to divulge just who spoke out of turn!”

  The Governor needed Mostyns Bank; he smiled and wagged a reproving finger and turned the conversation to a discussion of the horses at the next race-meeting.

  “By the way, Mr Mostyn, I was in conversation with the Admiral very recently, regarding the despatch of troops and ships to Ca
nton – a matter of some urgency, you may appreciate. The convoys will call at Singapore and might well follow the coast of Borneo in their passage. There was some mention of a pirate sultanate that might benefit from their attentions in passing. The Rajah is, one gathers, an English renegade who is attempting to establish himself as the legitimate ruler of a civilised state. Have you any knowledge, through your contacts, of this fellow?”

  “Rajah Star, I believe him to be named, Your Excellency. I am informed that he is to act as a middle man in the tin trade and will bring order to it. You will remember that there have been any number of representations from England on that subject.”

  “Tin is in short supply the world over, I recall, and yet is a very necessary metal in the new world of industry. We have been alternately begged and ordered to investigate sources of ores.”

  “Exactly so, Your Excellency. If this man, this ex-pirate, can locate regular tonnages of the valuable metal then I would suggest that we must offer him all of our support.”

  It seemed to the Governor that Mr Mostyn was surprisingly strong in his support for this Rajah Star; he raised an eyebrow, choosing not to say any words that might prove indiscreet.

  “’Star’, Your Excellency, is a name not unknown in England. In the cotton industry, for example.”

  “Oh! A younger son who strayed from the straight and narrow and is only now returning to the fold, one might speculate?”

  “I believe that the door to the fold is still closed – locked and bolted indeed, Your Excellency. But it is possible that a few years of probity might just change the climate of opinion in his family – though not to the extent that he would ever be welcome to set foot in England. I have a strong suspicion that the Law Officers would have a welcome for him if he was ever to return to British shores, in fact, and it is not impossible that the authorities in Botany Bay might wish to hold converse with the gentleman. He has been a busy man over the years, in his own little way, Your Excellency!”

  “Yet you believe that we should nonetheless offer him a hand of welcome!”

  “Better a reformed English pirate than an unrepentant head-hunter sat on that particular throne, Your Excellency. And we really need tin!”

  “And, in government, the ends invariably justify the means, Mr Mostyn. Had I wanted to enter the doors of Heaven then I would never have embraced a career as a Public Man; nor, I might add, would I have become a banker, but that is a propos of nothing, of course. I shall speak to the Admiral when next I see him – certainly before he sets sail – and suggest that a steam-sloop might enter the harbour and salute the Rajah’s flag, thus mightily to impress the natives. There are no fewer than three of paddle-wheel and sail ships in the Admiral’s fleet, as you have probably noticed. A fearsome sight; one shudders for the future!”

  David was inclined to admire the Governor’s subtlety – a naval salute could only be granted to a friendly state, normally an actual ally, and would be a statement that all, or quite a lot, was forgiven.

  That concept, forgiveness, brought him back to the question of his distant wife and her habits of expenditure; she really was becoming excessive in her casual wasting of his money. A letter to his father, perhaps, begging him to take action to restrain her; it was always possible to simply turn off the financial tap, as it were. Was the lady to discover herself in a foreign city and suddenly with no cash at all to hand, then she might well show amenable to the suggestion that she should be bought a small house, perhaps in the south of France, far distant from civilised society, where she might live a comfortable but far quieter existence. Debtors’ prison or its equivalent in one of the Italian states would be far less desirable a way of life.

  David considered this course for a day or two and then decided that a second letter would be wise, directed to his sister, Lady St Helens. She would undoubtedly bring the matter to the informal attention of her husband and he would discuss it with his father by marriage. Between them they would discover a practical solution – it was a problem not unknown to English society; there was almost a colony of exiles from Mayfair to be found on the sunny and distant shores of the French coast.

  The problem was solved, that he was certain of, and he relaxed in his own luxurious exile, far from London, which he would never see again and really hardly missed. The private quarters of his much enlarged house contained several young ladies – there was no need to use a more derogatory term for them – and four healthy children, bright little youngsters who were a pleasure to him and might be discreetly looked after when they became adult. There were always places for Anglo-Indians, as they were now called, especially when well-educated and very much of cultured habits, as his children would be; none could become an actual heir, in the nature of things, but they would be rich in Indian terms, masters of their own merchant houses, perhaps, or well married into them.

  He wondered whether he should perhaps become more closely involved in the new China Trade which would develop after the current contretemps was resolved; it would be desirable for the bank to at minimum open a branch in Canton or whatever new port was taken. It would be important, thinking on it, should not be left to one of his own underlings. A family member would make more sense in fact. Another letter to his father, explaining the circumstances and the need for a bright and adventuresome young gentleman to leave London. He had no brothers available, they were older than him; his nephews were probably too immature – he could not in fact recall just what children his elders had produced… There would certainly be a cousin or two to be discovered, that would be no difficulty to his father. He took up his pen, conscious that all was well in his world.

  Rajah Star stood on the high balcony of his palace, focussing his telescope on the plume of smoke out to sea. The noise of his guard battalion – his household troops, as he rather arrogantly styled them – was dying down; they had formed up and taken their places round the low outer wall and had loaded the four large cannon he had been able to lay hands on as a coastal battery.

  “Instruct the gunners not to run out, Captain Baker.”

  His second-in-command, the master of his largest ship, only a sloop in naval terms but as powerful as anything normally to be found in these waters, trotted down to the guns. He was a reliable man and enjoyed the life he had come to in the Rajah’s service; he would fight if the need arose.

  It had to be a steam powered ship, to make such a brown cloud, moving against the wind and directly towards the harbour, and running at a good eight knots as well.

  He beckoned to a junior officer waiting in the background.

  “To the dock, if you please. Order the captains to remain tied up, to show no signs of hostility. The ship entering the harbour is a British naval vessel and will be too powerful to fight – in open battle, at least.”

  Much could be done from a swarm of small boats in the night, if the unfortunate occasion arose, but it should be avoided except as a very last resort. Taking a vessel of the Royal Navy was rarely a wise move – a steam and sail sloop today could well become a full and bad-tempered battle fleet tomorrow.

  All that remained was to wait, and for a rather short time – that damned steam-kettle was displaying a remarkable turn of speed.

  Flags ran up to the mizzen yardarm, a hoist in British naval code. Simple arrogance or an expectation that there would be a man ashore who could read them? Did they know there was an English seaman here?

  ‘Permission to enter harbour’.

  That was unexpected, and hopeful; one tended not to ask permission prior to launching an attack.

  Rajah Star turned to another of his runners.

  “Go to the battery and instruct Captain Baker to raise a flag and dip it in acknowledgement. He will know what to do.”

  Ten minutes and a Union flag rose on the flag pole at the battery, broke out in the wind, delayed long enough for the oncoming ship to notice it and then was pulled down to half-mast before being heaved back to the top. The action served as a salute as well as a not
ice of friendly intent. The Union Jack should also confuse the ship’s captain, might well prevent precipitate action.

  An hour and the ship nosed cautiously into the harbour, leadsman calling the depth of water before she laid to on a single anchor, making no attempt to position herself broadside onto the battery, showing that she had no hostile intent. She launched a small boat from her stern davits, an officer’s hat visible.

  “Ceremonial guard to the quayside! Captain Baker to meet the boat!”

  The boat rowed very slowly, intentionally, giving the people on shore time to offer whatever welcome they felt desirable.

  A lieutenant came ashore, exchanged salutes and spoke briefly to Captain Baker. A runner set off up to the palace while the English lieutenant returned to his boat and his ship.

  “Lord, Captain Baker says the ship is to offer nine guns and he has promised to reply.”

  “Good! Tell him to do so – and to make damned sure they are saluting blanks!”

  Rajah Star knew that it was standard British naval practice to ensure that a salute would be returned if they offered one; an honour must not be turned into an insult by a refusal to respond. Better far to offer no salute at all than to create an international cause of offence.

  Nine guns was almost the least of salutes, given almost exclusively to minor and foreign dignitaries, but it was a statement of amity and would be offered only with the approval of the Admiral Commanding, who would have the instructions of government behind him.

  Rajah Star stood forward on his balcony, expecting that there would be telescopes trained in his direction. He raised a hand to his forehead in salute as the ship’s guns fired their blanks in strict slow time. Captain Baker returned the honour, equally paced.

  “Pass the word that shore boats may go out to the ship carrying fruit and vegetables for sale. Do not take alcohol of any description out to the sailors.”

  Rajah Star sat to his writing table, penned a very formal letter to the captain, making him welcome and offering such hospitality as he might be able to accept. It might be the case that the ship’s officers would have been forbidden to show too much in the way of complaisance, that this visit was merely one of recognition of his existence rather than a sign of any desire to treat him as a friendly power.