The Quality of Mercy: A Novel

by Barry Unsworth

  He paused here for a series of racking coughs, and the man on the other side of Sullivan, who had drawn near enough to hear these last words, now broke in. He was a stocky man with reddish hair and a rhetorical style of speech. “What are we doin’ here?” he said. “We are wearin’ our fingers to the bone, makin’ rope. Do we get paid for our labor? No, we don’t. What do we get to eat? Stale bread an’ thin gruel. Who makes the profit? Them that sells the rope an’ them that runs the workhouse.”

  “He is right,” the other said, having recovered from his fit of coughing. “I been in bridewells before, more than once. I get brought in for diff’rent reasons—this time it was for beggin’. No regrets. But it is always the same story once you get here. They will set you to work. I been set on to makin’ candlewick for the chandlers, pickin’ feathers for the mattress makers, beatin’ old bricks to dust for the brickmakers. I can’t do heavy work no more, because of my chest—it was the brick dust done that. An’ never a penny for any of it.”

  “No choice an’ no pay an’ benefitin’ only the manufacturers,” Sullivan said. “That is forced labor an’ I will denounce it to the proper authorities once I get free from here.”

  “Don’t do that,” the red-haired man said. “Why not? Because you will end up in prison. On what charge? Bein’ a public nuisance. Punishment? A good whippin’ an’ a term of hard labor.”

  “One hand washes the other,” the other man said. “Mootual benefit they calls it. The manufacturers give somethin’ out of their profits to them that run the workhouse.”

  “I see well they have worked out a good system. I know somethin’ of the law, bein’ a traveled man, an’ I know that you cannot keep a man confined without lawful cause. How can empty pockets be a lawful cause? There is a paper you can get, with writin’ that says you have got the body in captivity, show reason or deliver it up. But how can you get hold of a paper like that when you are the body that has to be delivered up?”

  “What is a vagrant?” the red-haired man demanded. “He is someone down on his luck. Who has the right to call his fellow man a vagrant? No one. Why do they do it? They do it so they can own that man an’ sell his labor.”

  “It is the same when they cart you off from here,” the other said. “You are a charge on this parish where you are now. When you have done your time here, it is for them to remove you to your own parish an’ pay the cost. But a lot of us ain’t got no parish, or none that will own to us. No regrets. An’ nobody wants to spend money on us in any case. So they gives you a pass that takes you to the next parish an’ they carries you there on a cart. The constable that gets paid for the cartin’ farms it out to others what will do it for less. If he gets twopence a head for the people in the cart, the one that does the cartin’ might get a ha’penny or three farthings. An’ all you gets is a ride to the next parish, where they will be waitin’ to put you in the workhouse again. Everyone is makin’ money on you. Vagrants is very good for business.”

  “When they asks you where is your place of settlement,” the man on the other side of Sullivan said, “what do you tell them? You tells them you want to return to Ireland an’ start your life anew. Why do you tell them that? Because you know that they will never send you back there, not in a hundred years. Why not? Because it costs too much. So what do they do? They takes you to the nearest county border an’ dumps you there.”

  “The nearest county border is the border of Durham County, if I am not mistaken,” Sullivan said. “Holy Mother, you don’t mean to say that they will take me on a cart to Durham free of charge?”

  25

  It was a mark of Ashton’s resilience that not many hours after his fury of disappointment at the piracy verdict, and still suffering from it, he set himself to considering the next battle to fight. The cause of abolition, which had rescued him from a prevailing sense of futility and made him profoundly grateful to Divine Providence for such redemption, had at the same time brought him to a fuller knowledge of himself, his capacity for devotion, his readiness to spend everything he had, all his resources, health and strength included, in the fight against a traffic in human souls offensive to God and man alike.

  The summons for theft and damages in the case of Jeremy Evans which Bolton and Lyons had threatened to bring against him had not so far been pursued. The two had repeatedly postponed the application for a hearing on the grounds that they were still preparing their case. It came to Ashton now that this delay could mean only one thing: they were afraid to proceed because they could not be certain of winning. He had announced countercharges of aggravated assault against all concerned in Evans’s commitment to the Poultry Compter, those who had ordered it, those who had carried it out, the notary who had signed the order for custody, if there was one, the keeper of the prison, who had incarcerated the man unlawfully.

  This it was that had frightened them, he now began to feel sure of it. Their position, their claim to right of ownership in Evans, had been seriously weakened by the Lord Mayor’s ruling that Evans could go free, that he could not be detained in prison without just cause. The claim of right by purchase, the production of the bill of sale, had not been accounted just cause.

  On his knees, in the loneliness of his bedchamber, he prayed for guidance. And in the spaces between the words and the silence that came after them, God spoke to him and gave him counsel: he was to take the initiative; he was not to wait on the flickering intentions of Messrs. Bolton and Lyons; he was to become the plaintiff and press the charge of abduction, not in regard to the taking of the man by force and holding him in prison, but in regard to the earlier attempt to deny his rig ht of residence in England and transport him to the West Indies. Abduction, not criminal assault, as he had originally intended.

  Next morning, in the full flush of resolution, he went to see Stanton at his chambers in Chancery Lane. He announced his new intention and asked for the services of his friend in the conducting of the case.

  “We will drop all charges against the agents of the business—slave-takers, corrupt prison officers, whoever they may be,” he said. “We will charge only the instigators, the two men who lay claim to ownership of Evans by purchase and contend that they have the right, by the fact of purchase, to remove him by force from England and return him to the West Indies. We will charge them with kidnap.”

  However, he saw no answering enthusiasm on the other’s face but instead an expression of increased gravity. “Frederick, I think it unlikely in the extreme that we could win such a case, in view of the prejudice that exists. Mounting a defense against the claim of damages they were to bring against us, that is a different matter, it raises no fundamental issues.”

  “But that is precisely why I want to bring the case, because it does raise fundamental issues. If it went in our favor, we might at long last get a ruling that brings into serious question the status of former slaves now domiciled in England.”

  “The Lord Chief Justice would almost certainly refer the case to the Court of King’s Bench. He would preside over it himself. He has always avoided making any pronouncement from the bench that would go counter to the West India Interest. He has demonstrated this again and again. It would be the same again now. And if we fail, think what harm there would be to the cause of abolition. It would entrench the right of continuous ownership, perpetual ownership from the point of purchase, irrespective of national boundaries.”

  Ashton looked at his friend in silence for some moments. The same prudence he had always valued, the same weighing of words. Yet now it was almost as if he were looking at a stranger. “So, then,” he said, “we rescue the man from the ship that was returning him to plantation slavery, we secure his release from the prison where he was unlawfully held, we find a house where he can be safe while the action for damages is pending. And having done all this, we draw back from questioning the fundamental issue of his right to residence on English soil. Horace, we must take risks, we cannot wait till we are certain of the outcome, or we will never achieve
anything. We did not get the verdict we hoped for in this piracy trial, but all was not lost, your eloquence was not wasted. The case attracted great public interest and there will now be many, as a result of it, who reexamine their consciences on the issue of slavery.”

  “It was a specific issue,” Stanton said. “It is true that we brought the nature of property in Africans into question by disputing the notion of robbery under such circumstances, but the circumstances themselves were very particular. We had a prospect of success on grounds of mitigating circumstance, but our main chance lay in the fact that no one’s pocket was threatened. It is far otherwise with the case you want to bring now. Think of the capital value of the Africans who have been brought here as slaves with the intention of returning them sooner or later to the plantations. You will be familiar with the words of Yorke and Talbot in 1729, when a deputation appealed to them for a clarification of the status of African slaves in England. The two highest law officers of the realm, Attorney General and Solicitor General. They gave it as their considered opinion that a slave by coming from the West Indies to England does not thereby become free, and that his master may legally compel him to return to the plantations.”

  “Yes, I know what they said. It has been a slave-hunters’ charter ever since. It was never more than an opinion, probably delivered after a good dinner, but it has been elevated to a judgment of high authority, and no one dares to question it.” As you do not dare, he thought, with a sense of desolation.

  “Something more than an opinion,” Stanton said. “It was reaffirmed by Yorke, as Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, in 1749, from the judicial bench in the case of Pearne versus Lisle. That is not so long ago, Frederick.”

  “So you are unwilling to take the case?”

  “I am afraid so, yes. For both our sakes.”

  “No, Horace, it is not for my sake you are refusing.”

  He stopped here, but the implication was obvious, and both men felt it as a rent that would take long to mend in the fabric of close cooperation and trust that had stood the wear of so many years.

  “You are determined to go on with the case, then?” Stanton said.

  “Certainly.”

  “I know of a young barrister in these chambers, a very promising man, who sees eye to eye with us on matters of principle. His name is Harvey. I will speak to him if you like.” It was now that Stanton indirectly confirmed the judgment of his motives that Ashton had formed. “He has his way to make,” he said. “Appearing in court, making a stir, is more important than winning cases at that stage of a man’s career. He will fight hard, even in a losing cause.”

  Ashton accepted the offer, and the two parted, without great warmth. Once more at home, Ashton lunched with his sister and lost no time in telling her of Stanton’s refusal.

  “Well, I am not so very surprised to hear it,” she said. “He always struck me as being more cautious than was good for him, or good for anyone.”

  Brother and sister had returned to more cordial terms now. Jane had sympathized with her brother in his distress at the piracy verdict, and had come again to understand—it formed part of a regular cycle in their relations—the spirit of dedication that made him what he was, and the sharply declining order of importance he gave to the sensibilities of others, and even their welfare, when they were not instrumental to his cause.

  “He tried to make amends by offering to find a barrister to take the case,” Ashton said. “He thought it was unwise to bring the action in any case, as being virtually certain to fail. I think he was mainly guided by a reluctance to challenge the Yorke and Talbot opinion that slaves remain slaves on English soil. And he was afraid that the Lord Chief Justice would be too much in sympathy with the West India faction. But I think that his chief fear was of attacking vested interests and thus doing damage to his own career.”

  Jane felt some sympathy for this, though she did not give expression to it. After all, Horace Stanton’s income came entirely from his fees—he had no independent means, unlike her brother in this. But it was not an aspect of the matter that Frederick would think of the least importance, even if it had occurred to him, which she thought doubtful.

  “I told him that without challenging these beliefs, we would never find out how rooted they really are,” he said.

  “Indeed not.” Like testing the water, she thought. You can’t tell just by looking at it. Horace Stanton would always hesitate too long before even putting one of his toes in. Not like Erasmus. She thought of him as he had been in the court, that epic tale of pursuit and capture, the spirit of justice and the desire for revenge confused together. Mixed motives, even if this was not fully confessed. But Erasmus was a man of action—he would never hesitate, never hold back. Suddenly, and with a vividness that caught at her breathing, she pictured him standing at the brink, braced for the plunge.

  26

  In contrast to the custom at Tyburn, there were no fixed hanging days at Execution Dock, where those found guilty of crimes at sea under the jurisdiction of the Admiralty were taken to pay their last dues. Within a week of the death sentence being delivered, Barber and Calley and Libby and Rimmer and Lees were led out from Newgate Prison and found the cart waiting for them in the yard outside, together with a great crowd of people who had come to follow the procession and see the hangings. The men would have been brought out earlier even than this, but the hangings by tradition took place in the mornings, on the foreshore of the river, and they had to wait four days for a low tide at the right time of the morning so as to remain on ground that lay within Admiralty jurisdiction.

  Calley, who was the strongest of them in body but childlike in mind, began to weep when he saw the cart, and Barber, who had sometimes protected him from ill usage by Libby and one or two others aboard the slave ship, though hindered now by his bonds, contrived to put a hand on Calley’s shoulder as they walked to the cart and climbed up onto the platform that had been raised there, several feet high, so as to give the spectators a clear view of the condemned men. Here they took their places, sitting together side by side on the narrow bench. On a bench behind them, already waiting, were the executioner and his two assistants.

  Erasmus Kemp was not among those who saw them emerge, nor was he stationed anywhere along the route or waiting at the place of execution. He had no smallest desire to witness the sufferings of the condemned men, even avoiding—as far as he could—any picturing of the hangings. The sentence was fitting, it had met the needs of justice and retribution, it had recognized his rights and those of his dead father. But all this was an abstraction to him, like drawing a line in some cosmic ledger. It was necessary too that there should be a measure of pain in the punishment, but he could take no pleasure in the thought of this. The sort of cruelty or vindictiveness that might have given gratification to another in the witnessing of such pain, or even in the knowledge of it, formed no part of his nature.

  The cart moved off from the prison, turning into Newgate Street, passing St. Paul’s and proceeding down Cheapside toward Cornhill. Ahead of it, riding at a slow pace, were the Marshal of the Admiralty and the deputy Marshal, who bore the silver mace—the same that had lain on the table before the judges—over his shoulder. They were followed by two city marshals and a number of Sheriff’s officers. The whole cavalcade was conducted with great solemnity and with no sound but the horses’ hooves on the cobbles.

  This stateliness was in marked contrast to the hubbub of the crowd thronging round the cart. The case had aroused a great deal of public interest. Hangings at Execution Dock were relatively rare; there had been only one so far that year, for a murder committed at sea. Commercial Road was lined with people and resounded with shouts of greeting, jovial witticisms as to the condemned men’s impending fate and the shrill sound of tin whistles that were being sold to children along the way. Rimmer—he who had dealt Captain Thurso his death blow—was the only one to show defiance, shouting insults at the people as the cart passed.

  Hughes had positioned h
imself among the crowd in the yard of the Turk’s Head in Wapping. From here there was a public right of way that led down to the river and came out near Wapping Old Stairs, where the gallows were erected. The cart would stop at the inn, by long-established tradition, for the condemned men to be served with a quart of ale. He wanted this last look at his shipmates before they were struggling on the rope, but he did not want to be seen by them, for obscure reasons that were to do with the severance of spirit, the detachment from his fellows that he always felt and that reached a kind of paroxysm at such times of crisis as this, with the need to make a solemn farewell, unknown to them—the stronger to him for that—to men he had sailed with and suffered with and joined in half-willing community with in the twelve years of their time in Florida.

  He saw the cart come into the yard, saw the aproned landlord come out to hand up the tankards, saw the men raise their pinioned hands to drink. They were white-faced, but Calley, tears still on his cheeks, was half smiling now, as if being the center of such public attention had overlaid his fears. The landlord was smiling too as he handed up the ale and saw the men drink. Unlike Calley, he had good cause for smiling, Hughes thought: he would be selling a good many quarts that day.

  He followed the cart when it resumed its way along Wapping High Street. The prisoners were helped down the stairs to the foreshore, where the posts and crossbeam had been erected at the low watermark, with five separate stakes embedded deep in the river mud just beyond. There was a priest on the platform of the gallows, and he spoke to the men in tones that were perhaps audible to them but certainly to no one else.