SH05_Revolution Page 34

  Garnet Kenrick rose. “Good morning, Basil,” he also said with a nod. “Yes, I am well. And, you?”

  “Well enough.” He glanced at Jones, who had also risen. “And who is this gentleman?”

  “Sir Dogmael Jones, member for Swansditch, and my friend and ally.”

  The Earl took his seat behind the desk. He studiously ignored Jones the rest of the interview, his glance flitting between his brother and a framed Furber print on the wall near him. “Is his presence necessary?”

  “In politics and in social occasions, we are often inseparable,” answered the Baron in a conversational tone. He sat down. Jones followed suit. “Sir Dogmael has business at the Inns, and then he will attend today’s sitting in the Commons.”

  “A new batch of witnesses is scheduled today, your lordship,” volunteered Jones.

  The Earl did not acknowledge that Jones had addressed him.

  A moment passed. The Baron said, “The tea ordered by Mr. Curle was tepid, Basil.” He waited for his brother to reply.

  “Oh, I am so sorry. The kitchen must have served you the remnants from breakfast. Shall I order more?”

  “No, thank you.” Garnet Kenrick waited another moment, then asked, “What did you wish to see me about, Basil? I assumed there was some urgency.” He paused. “Was there something amiss in the accounts?’

  “No,” said the Earl, shaking his head. “No, the accounts were perfect, as usual.” After a single sharp glance at Jones, he continued. “Our business is of a private nature, dear brother. I really cannot discuss it in the presence of a stranger.”

  The Baron sighed with impatience. “If the business concerns the debates, Basil, then Sir Dogmael’s presence is unfortunately necessary.” His tone made it clear that if Jones were obliged to make his excuses and leave the study, so would he.

  The Earl understood this and grimaced. “All right. It is this. I am hoping that this gentleman will not speak for repeal or against a declaratory act.”

  The Baron frowned in amazement. “Not that it is within your right or privilege to make such an improper request, Basil, but why do you so hope?”

  “Because I do not wish our family to be associated with anyone or any party that defies His Majesty and Crown authority. Everyone knows that this gentleman speaks for you.”

  Jones’s face was almost livid. Before the Baron could caution him, he rose to say, “Your lordship, your request is improper, and if you insist on making it, I shall be compelled to report this incident to the House. You propose to impinge on the right of a member of the Commons to speak as he sees fit, and that is a more serious violation of the independence of the Commons from Lords than lords purchasing blocs of votes in the House. I might also remind his lordship that both Houses are populated with riven families. It is nothing unusual.”

  The Earl’s response to this outburst was to turn his back on Jones. The Baron sat mute, doubly stupefied by his brother’s request and Jones’s words.

  Gathering more breath, Jones went on to say, “And, begging your pardon, your lordship, but when I speak, I speak for myself, of my own mind. If it seems that I speak for your brother the Baron, you may put it down to a propinquity of ideals and ends.”

  The Earl’s features, too, had grown scarlet. Without turning his head, he said to his brother, “Tell the gentleman that if he is calling me a liar, there will be consequences, in the courts, or elsewhere.”

  Garnet Kenrick glanced stonily up at Jones. The barrister’s mouth was gnarled in disgust. He turned, picked up his overcoat and satchel, and said to the Baron, “I am more a burden than a help to you here, milord. I will await you outside.”

  The Baron nodded. Without another look at the Earl, Jones left the room.

  When the door had closed behind Jones, the Earl said, “He has the manners and insolence of your son, dear brother, to speak to me like that!”

  “You should have expected it, after the insults you paid him. Your manners are inexcusable.”

  “I paid him the courtesy he deserved!” The Earl jerked open a desk drawer, seized a pamphlet, and tossed it across the space at his brother. “And that is the courtesy I must pay you, dear brother, for raising a son who would write such treasonous rubbish, a son who would defy the Crown with a cocked pistol and a rabble behind him!”

  Garnet Kenrick bent to pick up the pamphlet, which had fallen at his feet. It was a copy of Hugh’s The Chimney Swifts of Chicanery. He smiled. “Oh, this? One of Hugh’s finest efforts. I am surprised that he would send you a copy, as well.”

  “He did not,” growled the Earl. “It came to me by way of the Bishop of London. He was quite scandalized by it, as well!” He stood up and paced behind his desk. “Copies of that filth have been read by other members of my House. It is a subject of jest, as now am I.” He leaned over his desk and shook a finger at his brother. “I was being considered for an appointment to the Privy Council or to the Board of Trade, dear brother. That discussion has now ceased, thanks to your son!”

  The Baron chuckled. “Well, someone must think highly of you,” he remarked, “if no one else does.”

  The Earl seemed not to hear. “How could I be trusted with such an office, when my own nephew is a traitorous Whig puppy who champions blasphemous freethinkers and sides with rebels??”

  Garnet Kenrick feigned indifference, and mused, “I suppose no one could. You know, Hugh once thought he would write a parable about sheep, to make the same points, nearly.” He waved the pamphlet once and tossed it back onto his brother’s desk. “That is infinitely better, but not as to the point as his friend Mr. Frake’s pamphlet on the same subject.” He paused. “Also, your account of the incident is erroneous. Hugh and his fellow citizens simply foiled a scheme to smuggle stamps into a country where they were not wanted, without benefit of arms of any kind. He wrote me about it. Apparently the naval officer charged with the task decided that discretion was the better part of judgment.” The Baron shrugged. “But if you would rather believe that Hugh is some kind of pirate or highwayman, so be it.” He rose and collected his overcoat. “Is that all, Basil?”

  “Yes. I simply wanted to warn you that if your son continues his treason, I will be forced to take appropriate measures, legal or extraordinary.” He waited for his brother to respond.

  “Meaning?”

  “I leave the meaning to your imagination and grief. Now you know why this was to be a private meeting, and I could not tolerate the presence of a stranger, particularly not that one.”

  Garnet Kenrick stared at his brother. “What an evil modesty! What a dubious virtue!” he scoffed in the manner of an abstract observation. Then his eyes narrowed, and he said softly, “Damn you, Basil.” He approached the desk and put a finger on his brother’s shimmering satin neck-cloth. “Do not threaten my son, Basil. Or Mr. Jones. If anything extraordinary ever happens to either of them, you will need to answer to me. That is my warning.” He draped his coat over an arm. “Good day to you, your lordship.” He turned and strode out of the study.

  Basil Kenrick raised a clenched fist, shook it at the closing door, and shouted. “I will not be disgraced!”

  * * *

  Chapter 24: The Questions

  One afternoon, the Kenricks and Roger Tallmadge accompanied Jones to a dinner party of repeal advocates at the home of William Beckford, member for London and former lord mayor of it. Here he introduced them also to Colonel Isaac Barré, William Meredith, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Montagu, the agent for Virginia and member for Huntingdon, and his wife, Elizabeth, a social and literary light. Politics, the colonies, and speculation about the debates in Lords, of course, were the chief topics of lively conversation, together with Franklin’s voluminous and pseudonymous letters in several London newspapers that promoted and argued the colonial position against the Stamp Act.

  Franklin was the center of attention and the object of adulation throughout the occasion. His host and several guests employed every guile at their command to coax an admiss
ion from him that he was the true author of the letters, but he would only confess responsibility for a caricature, “Magna Britannia: Her Colonies Reduced,” which depicted Britannia’s colonies as dismembered limbs and Britain’s merchant vessels sitting idle in a harbor, their masts stripped of yards and sails. He had printed hundreds of cards of the caricature, and distributed them to as many merchants, members of the Commons, and government officials as were willing to take them.

  “I found it gruesomely offensive,” remarked Beckford half seriously at one point in the conversation. “Britannia looks as though she had been chewed on by a shark.”

  “Or the subject of the ministrations of a diligent surgeon who could not make up his mind,” quipped Elizabeth Montagu. “But gruesomely offensive, nonetheless.”

  “Offensive?” asked Franklin in reply. “If you find it so, then I have succeeded in convincing you of the gruesome consequences of the Stamp Act, if it is not repealed.”

  “Oh, we are all here persuaded of those consequences, Mr. Franklin,” said Beckford. “You needn’t worry us further on that matter. Only a blockhead would fail to see the lesson in your caricature.”

  Roger Tallmadge, sitting in between Alice Kenrick and Jones, had only just been presented with a copy of the caricature by Franklin himself. He spoke up and addressed Franklin. “Well, here is a blockhead, sir. I cannot decide on its imputation. Is Britannia’s condition meant to convey the consequences of enforcing the Act, or of the colonies having withdrawn from the Empire? Forgive me the confusion, but you must own it could be construed either way.”

  Franklin’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Either way, sir. I must compliment you for the inquiry.”

  At one point during the dinner, Jones said to the Pennsylvanian, “Mr. Franklin, when you are called to testify, and if the chance presents itself, I shall ask you some inconvenient questions.”

  Franklin replied, “And I shall give you inconvenient answers.” He looked inquiringly at the member for Swansditch, who sat next to Roger Tallmadge.

  Jones grinned and shook his head. “No, sir. I shall not prompt you. But I can assure you that our questions and answers will be more inconvenient for the House than for either of us.”

  Alice Kenrick, who sat opposite Franklin, asked him, “How can questions and answers be inconvenient, Mr. Franklin? I confess that when I hear men talk of politics, it is in English but still in a language cryptic to me.”

  Franklin bestowed a smile on the girl. “Dear child, what Sir Dogmael and I meant by that was that his questions and my answers may not be welcome by so many gentlemen in Parliament, who may decide to inconvenience him in some manner. A very brave friend sits next to you there.”

  Alice Kenrick beamed at Jones and touched his arm. “Oh, you needn’t convince me of my Uncle Dog’s bravery, sir! We often talk about it behind his back, Roger and I and my parents.”

  Franklin looked confused, and glanced down the table to Garnet and Effney Kenrick. “Oh?” he said. “Is the Baron your brother, Sir Dogmael?”

  “In honor only, Mr. Franklin,” said Jones, “and in the frequency with which I dun his abode for gratis meals and a place to rest my leaden head after a long day in the House.”

  “You may as well be my true uncle,” said Alice, smiling up at Jones again. “I have disowned his lordship the Earl, and am resolved to be cold to him if ever we should meet again.” She grasped his hand and squeezed it. “You are a member of our family, Uncle Dog, and we shall always love you.”

  Jones repressed a bitter thought, and said, “Well, do not be disappointed if on that occasion your true uncle does not break down and weep on his knees at your cruelty. I fancy the Earl is quite accustomed to being shown arctic airs. I myself have shown him my back.”

  In the carriage ride back to Chelsea that evening, Effney Kenrick remarked, “Mr. Franklin seems to be a completely honest and dedicated person, Mr. Jones. We should not fear for him when he is called to the bar of the House. I wish I could witness it. He is as wily as a French courtier. He will confound and shame his enemies.”

  “Wily, milady?” answered Jones. “Oh, no, he is not wily at all! And let us not insult his character by comparing him with a French courtier! Rather, when he is called to the bar, think of the contest in terms of a pack of mad squirrels attempting to bait a buffalo! Their numbers will be quite irrelevant.”

  Jones was certain that he would know when he had the right information to ask those inconvenient questions. It was the next day in the House, when he heard two prominent merchants’ trade and debt figures — “a trade volume of between two and a half to three millions of pounds per annum, and a colonial debt to our merchants amounting to some four millions, which, if it were not repaid, would have catastrophic consequences for our merchants and the nation” — that Jones knew he had found his means. These figures and other relevant information were already in his satchel of papers, but until he heard the merchants pronounce the figures, they had been mere data of no useful value.

  On February 12th, Colonel George Mercer of Virginia was called a second time. He stood as other witnesses had, at the bar at the head of the House, flanked by two sergeants-at-arms. In the course of his questioning he confirmed another witness’s contention that Virginia alone could raise fifty-two thousand militiamen if necessary. The cause of their being called to arms remained unspoken, as no one dared imagine it; there were only five thousand British regulars to oppose them. One member asked him if the Stamp Act could wring £35,000 from that colony, considered the richest in North America. Mercer’s answer was evasively ambiguous. William Meredith rose to ask him if he was certain of that figure. Mercer again wavered, but then conceded that by his own calculations it was closer to £12,000.

  Unbidden, he went on to relate his treatment by the “drunken rabble” in Hampton and Williamsburg, and that, had he been allowed to fulfill his appointment as stamp distributor, he would have employed twenty-five under-distributors to serve the colonies of Virginia and Maryland. He claimed that he had had to resign his commission in England, because the Lieutenant-Governor refused to oblige him in Williamsburg. He ended his unsolicited speech with, “I have heard that the naval commander there attempted to deliver the stamps to me in the capital, but that the attempt failed.”

  Meredith put on an expression of sympathetic concern. “Did you journey all the way to England to resign your commission, sir?” He already knew the answer, but wanted to soften the witness up for his next questions.

  “Not entirely, sir. I am here principally as a representative of a land company with patents west of the transmontane. There is some conflict between those patents and Crown policies.”

  Jones, sitting next to the member from Liverpool, pulled on Meredith’s cuff. Meredith bent down and Jones whispered something in his ear. Meredith nodded and turned again to Mercer and asked, “Well, sir, we may settle on one figure or the other, but would you venture that £35,000 or even £12,000 in specie circulate in Virginia?”

  Mercer blinked once, then remarked, “What an odd question, sir. Of course not. I would say there are scarce a thousand pounds in the whole colony, lost amongst a ton of Virginia notes and Spanish pistoles and other foreign coin.” Wishing to sound important, he added, with a dismissive snort, “I rather doubt that either amount could be scraped together from all the colonies together at any one time.”

  “You fool!” grumbled George Grenville, who all through the debates was steadfast in his assertion that the colonies could easily pay his stamp taxes. “You were not to digress or opine!”

  “Quite,” commented Meredith. “But it is not so odd a question, sir. As a stamp distributor, you must have known that the Act stipulates that the tax must be paid in sterling. So how then could any honest man, or even an addled spendthrift, expect that colony to pay the greater or lesser figure?”

  Mercer blinked and stuttered, “I don’t know, sir,” but it was inaudible under a rush of sound in the House that was an uneasy mixture of
astonishment and disapproval. It was unclear to him whether Meredith’s points or his answers were the object of the astonishment and disapproval. When the hubbub had subsided, Mercer peevishly asked the House whether or not repeal might encourage Virginians and other colonists to resist other revenue acts. The question was regarded by most as merely rhetorical, but George Grenville took the opportunity to rise and answer ominously in the affirmative.

  The next day, Benjamin Franklin was at last called to testify. Over a grueling four-hour period, he answered one hundred and seventy-four questions from the members, more than half of them put to him by hostile Grenvillites. Jones was correct in his assessment: It was not a fair contest. Franklin easily disposed of questions designed to embarrass him, impugn the character of the colonials and their cause, or refute the colonial view of legislation. The questions ranged from the capabilities of the militia to the distinction between internal and external taxation. No matter what leading question he was asked by Grenvillites, his answer only served to buttress the quest of the ministry, which was repeal of the Act.

  His answers at some points in his interrogation stood out like sores that the House did not wish to contemplate. He warned that a military enforcement of the Act would be pointless, for bayonets could not force a man to purchase stamps; and possibly counter-productive, for he warned further that while the Army and Navy “will not find a rebellion, they may indeed make one,” if they were employed in enforcement. As deputy postmaster-general for the colonies, he countered Grenville’s glib contention that the colonists were willing to pay the tax on mail, by stating that the tax on mail was not truly a tax, but payment for a service. He asserted that the last two wars in America against the French were prosecuted for predominantly British purposes, not American.

  His most unsettling statement was that if the Crown continued to make no distinction in its policies between internal and external taxation, the colonies might likely follow suit, and deny Parliament’s right to impose external taxes, as well.