The Sparrowhawk Companion Read online

  spouting club A London club for those interested in public address, usually meeting in a tavern or public house.

  starboard The right side of a vessel, looking forward. See LARBOARD.

  sterling 1. British silver money, of 92.5 percent purity; 2. of solid, impeccable worth.

  steward On a plantation, the man who oversaw agricultural tasks, supervising overseers, and was responsible for provisioning the master’s or owner’s house with food and other necessities.

  stocks A wooden frame with holes for a prisoner’s legs and/or hands, into which the prisoner would be locked for public punishment. See PILLORY.

  stone For centuries, the official British unit of weight, equal to fourteen pounds.

  subaltern The military rank of an officer below that of captain. See ENSIGN.

  sucker To remove new shoots from a tobacco stalk.

  sulky A two-wheeled, one-horse carriage for one person, canopy optional. See RIDING CHAIR.

  supper In the eighteenth century, a mail meal taken in the evening, about 8 o’clock. See BREAKFAST, DINNER.

  sweating The humidification of cured tobacco leaves to attain pliability.

  sweetscented A species of tobacco with fine leaves and a mild taste. See ORONOCO.

  syllabub A dessert made of cream or milk, curdled with wine and sometimes with whipped or solidified gelatin.

  T

  tardle An entanglement, or complicated situation.

  tare An allowance made for the weight of a hogshead (or other container) in which tobacco was prized or packed, e.g., 1097 pounds gross minus 979 pounds net equals 118 pounds tare. See CROP NOTE, TRANSFER NOTE.

  tariff A tax levied on goods or commodities imported into a country for final sale, used as a revenue-raising device or as a political policy to either protect a country’s industry or as a penalty to discourage consumption of a commodity. See CUSTOM, EXCISE.

  tatler A clock or watch.

  tilbury Sixpence. Formerly the fare for crossing by boat on the Thames River between Gravesend and Tilbury Fort.

  tipstaff A sheriff’s officer, bailiff, or constable; an officer who waited on a court. So called because of the iron-tipped staff he carried.

  tobo Shorthand for tobacco, an abbreviation used in account book entries.

  toby A colloquial term for a highway or road as a regular venue of robbery. High toby was robbery committed by a mounted robber; low toby was committed by footpads. See SCAMP.

  ton A prevailing fashion or vogue. From the French tone.

  top sail To abandon one’s debts by going to sea.

  topping The pruning of undressed, unwanted tobacco leaves from a stalk.

  Tory A member of a British political group that originally supported the Stuarts, and later royal authority and the established (state) church, and that opposed all Parliamentary reforms. From the Irish-Gaelic term toraidhe, a pursued man, robber or outlaw. See WHIG.

  toy An amusing or diverting thing.

  toy shop A shop in which baubles and trifles were sold.

  transfer note A receipt from a colonial tobacco inspector for a certain number of pounds of loose, un-prized tobacco, and which, like the crop note, could be used as currency to purchase goods, but not for payment of debts outside of the colonies. See CROP NOTE, TARE.

  turn off To hang or execute a criminal.

  U

  union A group of English country parishes consolidated for the administration of the poor laws.

  uphills Loaded dice, or dice that were weighted to turn up high numbers.

  V

  vail A gratuity or tip.

  vestry In the Anglican Church, a committee of members of a parish that administered parish affairs; a meeting of this group or of the entire congregation; the church itself. A vestryman was usually a permanent member of the governing committee.

  victualling office The stomach.

  viscount A nobleman ranking between an earl and a baron. The French style is vicomte. See BARON, BARONET, DUKE, EARL, MARQUIS.

  W

  wagtail A lewd woman.

  wall gun A firearm mounted on a swivel or stanchion in a fort, larger than a musket but smaller than a cannon (or gun). Also called a long-gun. See FIRELOCK, GUN.

  wapentake 1. A subdivision of some English shires corresponding to a hundred; 2. a political assembly; 3. a Crown officer who could “take” or arrest a man with a “weapon” (origin obscure, probably Old English or Old Norse). See HUNDRED.

  watchman One of a body of parish-employed men appointed to keep watch from sunset to sunrise, and empowered to make arrests. Also called a catchpole.

  wedge A pistol.

  Westminster wedding The marriage of a whore and a rogue. It implied the low esteem in which Parliament and its members, situated in Westminster, were held by the public.

  Whig 1. A member of a Scottish group that in 1648 marched to Edinburgh to oppose the court party; 2. a member or supporter of an eighteenth–century British political party that sought to limit or reduce royal authority, exclude Catholics from political power and office, and later to expand Parliamentary power. The origin of the term is uncertain, though it is thought to come from the town of Whiggamore, or from whig, meaning a country bumpkin or yokel. See TORY.

  whither-go-ye A wife, so called of one who enquired of a husband’s destination; a nag.

  wig 1. A manufactured covering of human or horsehair for the head, fashionable with men and women in the eighteenth century; 2. to rebuke or scold.

  wine fountain A silver or gilded urn of rococo design for serving wine on a table.

  woolsack A large, wool-stuffed cushion on which sat the Lord Chancellor of the House of Lords.

  workhouse A public (government) institution for housing and employing paupers or petty offenders, mandated by the Crown and administered by parishes or parish unions.

  writ of assistance In the eighteenth century, a British general search warrant used in the American colonies, and signed by a justice, that allowed customsmen and a sheriff to search private property for illegal or untaxed goods, while not specifying the place or the goods to be searched for. Writs of assistance were a major grievance of the colonies. See ATTAINDER, GENERAL WARRANT.

  wyvern A fabulous animal usually represented as a two-legged creature resembling a dragon. See SIMURG.

  Y

  yawl 1. A ship’s jolly-boat with four to six oars; 2. a two-masted, fore-and-aft sailing boat; 3. a small fishing boat.

  younker A boy or junior seaman; contemptuously, a young person.

  SPARROWHAWK: A SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY

  by Edward Cline

  In the course of researching Sparrowhawk, I collected my own library of reference books so that library hours would not govern the progress of the writing. The following list is by no means a complete one of the titles I assembled. Many of the monographs on specific colonial era subjects, such as food, cooperage, medicine, and printing, most of them catalogued in the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library at Colonial Williamsburg, are not included. However, the list does include many titles found in that library, The Mariners’ Museum archives, the Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William and Mary, and other research venues, but of which I was able to procure copies for my own collection.

  Among the titles not included in the list, but mentioned here for the record, are the multiple volumes of the noncirculating Journals of the House of Lords and the House of Commons Journals, which, together with especially the single Namier and Turberville titles listed below, were of invaluable help in the task of faithfully recreating Parliament in the eighteenth century. These I found, dusty and neglected, atop shelves of the Swem Library. I must have been the first person in a decade to open them. These, in turn, were complemented by official reports, letters, diaries, private journals, and period newspapers and magazines in a detective’s task of piecing together the puzzling and often exasperating machinations of British politics. A.S. Turberville noted in an appendix to his The House of Lords in
the XVIIIth Century:

  “There was no such thing as the verbatim reporting of parliamentary speeches in the eighteenth century. Since the taking of notes [especially by nonmember spectators] was a breach of privilege, anything done in this way had to be more or less surreptitious. The severity with which the House enforced its Standing Order on the subject varied from time to time, but not until late in the century was there any degree of security.”

  For a member of either the Commons or Lords, that “degree of certainty” meant not being held responsible to his electorate or to the public for whatever he might say in his House; nor was he accountable for his voting record, for which he did not regard himself as answerable to anyone, least of all to his electorate. It was not until the mid-1770s that the Commons relented and permitted the public reporting, without penalty, by printers and newspapers of speeches and the business of the lower House. It was only then that members of the Commons began to mind what they said and how they voted.

  Another work that was of priceless assistance was Alan Valentine’s The British Establishment, 1760-1784: An Eighteenth Century Biographical Dictionary, published in 1970 by the University of Oklahoma Press (UOP), an edition of which I invested in. It contains over three thousand entries and often served as the starting point for further research of the lives and actions of particular members of the Commons and Lords and of events in Parliament itself, and featured biographical information on key “establishment” figures in law, the arts, and other professions. Particular emphasis was put on Parliamentary members’ voting records on key issues such as the Stamp Act of 1765 and its repeal almost a year later in the face of unexpected colonial opposition.

  While I did not need one for purposes of Sparrowhawk, I searched in vain for its American companion, a reference work that would contain biographical précis of all the men who participated in the various colonial legislatures and governments up to the time of the Declaration of Independence, in addition to précis of the colonial “establishment” in the arts, law, and other professions. I queried the editor of the UOP about the prospect of producing an American Colonial Establishment, 1740-1776. Was one in the works? I noted that it would be a research tool of inestimable value to scholars, historians. and novelists alike. No, replied the editor, but it was a marvelous idea. Did I know anyone who might be willing to assume the task of researching and writing one? I submitted the names of some historians I knew, and presumably they were approached, but apparently they declined to embark on such a project.

  As a result, to write those chapters in the Sparrowhawk series set in the Virginia General Assembly, because that body’s Journals gloss over the voting and speaking records of its burgesses, inference and deduction were my chief tools.

  As noted above, this bibliography is selective and not all-inclusive, intended chiefly to give a reader an idea of the scope of research necessary to recreate the British-American culture and politics of the period between 1744 and 1775.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Adams, James Truslow Provincial Society: 1690-1763

  Adams, John The Revolutionary Writings

  Abercromby, James Letter Book (1751-73)

  Addison, Joseph Cato (a play)The Freeholder, James Leheny, ed.

  Andrews, W.A. Old-Time Punishments

  Anthology A Century of English Essays from Caxton to R. L. Stevenson, Ernest Rhys and Lloyd Vaughan, eds.

  Anthology Famous Advocates & Their Speeches, Bernard Kelly, ed.

  Anthology From Dryden to Johnson: The Pelican Guide to English Literature, Doris Ford, ed.

  Anthology Great English Essayists, William J. and Coningsby W. Dawson, eds.

  Anthology Historic Speeches, Brian MacArthur, ed.

  Anthology Oxford Literary Guide to Great Britain and Ireland

  Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics, J.A.K. Thomson, trans.

  Ashcraft, Richard Revolutionary Politics and Locke’s Two Treatises of Government

  Atton, Henry The King’s Customs

  Ayling, Stanley George the Third

  Bailyn, Bernard & P.D. Morgan Strangers in the Realm

  Barlow, Joel Advice to the Privileged Orders

  Barrow, Robert Mangum Williamsburg & Norfolk: Municipal Government and Justice in Colonial America (master’s thesis)

  Baumgarten, Linda Eighteenth Century Clothing at Williamsburg

  Becker, Carl L. Declaration of Independence (annotated)

  Beloff, Max Debate on the American Revolution: 1761-1783

  Berlin, Isaiah The Age of Enlightenment

  Bicentennial Commission Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence (2 vols.)

  Bland, Richard An Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies A Fragment on the Pistol Fee

  Boorstein, Daniel The Americans

  Boswell, James Life of Johnson

  Bradley, James E. Popular Politics & the American Revolution in England: Petitions to the Crown The Georgian Gentleman

  Brander, Michael Scottish Highlanders and Their Regiments

  Breen, T.H. Tobacco Culture

  Bridenbaugh, Carl Rebels & Gentlemen: Philadelphia in the Age of Franklin Seat of Empire: The Political Role of 18th Century Williamsburg

  Bronowski, Jacob The Identity of Man

  Burke, Edmund Speeches at Bristol A Vindication of Natural Society

  Burke, Sir Bernard General Armory: England, Scotland, Ireland & Wales

  Burn, Richard Digest of the Militia Laws

  Bush, M.L. The English Aristocracy

  Campbell, Norine Dickson Patrick Henry

  Campbell, Robert The Principles of English Law

  Cannon, John Illustrated History of the British Monarchy Dictionary of British History

  Carr, Lois Green Colonial Chesapeake Society

  Carswell, J. The Porcupine: The Life of Algernon Sidney

  Caruana, Adrian Light 6-Pounder Battalion Gun of 1776

  Chatterton, E. Kerble The King’s Cutters and Smugglers

  Chelsea, Lord & G.J. Hand The English Legal System

  Chesterfield, Lord (Phillip Stanhope) Speech in Lords Against Dramatic Perfs. Bill (1749) Lord Chesterfield’s Letters to His Son

  Childsey, Donald B. The French & Indian War

  Cicero The Nature of the Gods, H.C.P. McGregor, trans. On Ends, H. Rackham, trans.

  Colbourn, H. Trevor The Lamp of Experience

  Commager, Henry Steele Documents of American History

  Cook, Chris British Historical Facts: 1688-1760

  Cooke, Edward F. Detailed Analysis of the Constitution

  Cottle, Basil Dictionary of Surnames

  Cozens-Hardy, Basil Diary of Sylas Neville: 1767-1788

  Cummins, Sax Man and the State: The Political Philosophers

  Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Th. Jefferson

  Darling, Anthony Red Coat & Brown Bess

  Davis, Charles E. American Sailing Ships

  Deutsch, Otto Handel: A Life

  Dickerson, Oliver The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution

  Dolmetsch, Joan D. Rebellion & Reconciliation, Satirical Prints

  Dorn, Walter Competition for Empire: 1740-1763

  Dowdey, Clifford The Golden Age

  Dowell, Stephen History of Taxation and Taxes in England

  Draper, John Intellectual Development of Europe (1872)

  Dunhill, Alfred The Gentle Art of Smoking

  Durant, Will & Ariel Rousseau and Revolution (Volume X)

  Eggenberger, John Encyclopedia of Battles

  Ewell, Marshall Blackstone’s Commentaries

  Fastnedge, Ralph English Furniture Styles: 1500-1830

  Feather, John The Provincial Book Trade in 18th Century England

  Ferris, Robert & Richard Morris The Signers of the Declaration of Independence

  George, Dorothy London Life in the 18th Century

  James, Alfred P. George Mercer of the Ohio Company

  Gerzina, Gretchen Black London: Life before Emancipation

>   Gill, Harold B. & Ann Finlayson Colonial Virginia

  Gipson, Lawrence H. The Coming of the Revolution: 1763-1775

  Glass, H. The Servants’ Directory or Housekeeper’s Companion (1762)

  Gooding, S. James Introduction to British Artillery in North America

  Gould, Eliga H. The Persistence of Empire

  Gould, William Lives of the Georgian Age: 1714-1837

  Gowan, Hugh The Open Hearth: A Colonial Cookbook

  Grant, David The Classical Greeks

  Graves, Robert The Greek Myths (2 vols.)

  Griffith, Lucille Virginia House of Burgesses: 1750-1774

  Hagemann, James A. Lord Dunmore: Last Royal Governor of Virginia—1771-1776

  Handel, George F. Messiah: The Original Score

  Hardy, J.P. The Political Writings of Dr. Johnson

  Harris, Ronald W. England in the 18th Century

  Harrower, John Journal

  Haskins, George L. The Growth of English Representative Government

  Havighurst, Walter Alexander Spotswood

  Hay, Douglas, et al. Albion’s Fatal Tree: Crime & Society in 18th Century England

  Hayward, Arthur L. Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals (1735)

  Herndon, G. Melvin William Tatham and the Culture of Tobacco

  Hibbert, Christopher George III: A Personal History

  Hobbes, Thomas Leviathan, J.C.A. Gaskin, ed.

  Hogue, Arthur R. Origins of the Common Law

  Hogwood, Christopher Handel

  Hume, David Political Essays, Knud Haakonssen, ed. A Treatise of Human Nature

  Humphreys, A.R. The Augustan World

  Hyams, John Dorset

  Isaac, Rhys The Transformation of Virginia: 1740-1790

  Jahn, Raymond Tobacco Dictionary

  James, Alfred P. George Mercer of the Ohio Company

  Jefferson, Thomas Life & Selected Writings A Summary View of the Rights of British America The Portable Thomas Jefferson Virginia Gentleman’s Library (compiled by Sowerby from Jefferson’s correspondence)

  Jenks, Edward A Short History of English Law

  Jensen, Merrill English Historical Documents: Vol. IX, American Colonial Documents to 1776