by Edward Cline
“No, sir, I would not. I am sure that, whether they are exact or approximate, those numbers represent a true state of the trade and debt.”
“Doubtless, you have also heard expressed in this chamber the wish to perpetuate dependence of the colonies on their mother country, by one means or another.”
“Yes, sir. I have.” Franklin leaned on the bar with both hands, partly from exhaustion, partly from curiosity about where Jones’s line of questioning was leading.
“Now, taking into account the numbers between this isle and the North American continent, would you not agree that this dependency in trade is a fiction, that in fact, this isle is dependent for her solvency and prosperity on the continent — artificially dependent, I might add, thanks in no small part to the navigation and other constraining laws which govern that trade?”
The House stirred at this question. Franklin smiled. He thought: This must be the overture to an inconvenient question! He answered, “Reasoning would lead one to that conclusion.”
“And that the colonies’ own solvency and prosperity would be increased if they were able to trade freely with other nations, with each other, and even with Britain and her other dominions?”
“That is true, sir. The complaint that they cannot festers into smuggling and much other unfortunate law-breaking.”
“So, the odd, intractable desire of our merchants to perpetuate their own dependence on the colonies, could be and has been met only by constraining those colonies with statute and legislation — with volley and salvo, if necessary — irrespective of the sovereignty of their various governments and the dictates of our excellent constitution.” He added, “That is not a question, sir, but a considered observation.”
The brows of William Pitt and other pro-repeal members wrinkled at this choice of words. Jones heard a rumble of disapproval sweep through the benches on both sides of the House, like the warning growl of an agitated mastiff. He continued. “The question is this: If you agree with that observation, does it not describe a dreadfully cyclopean form of indentured servitude, or, perhaps…of slavery?”
Franklin nearly laughed, but only modified his previous answer. “Reasoning would lead to one or the other appraisal, sir.”
A second after Franklin pronounced the last syllable of his reply, the murmur burst into an uproar. Several members stood to shout at the chair, pointing at Jones, not Franklin, and angrily object, “Expel that man!” “Insult to the House!” “Take down his words!” “Silence that fellow!”
Jones removed his hat and waved it in the air in the direction of his assailants, and exclaimed in answer, “Fiat lux! Fiat lux!” Then he turned to Rose Fuller. “I have asked my questions, sir,” and sat down. Roger Tallmadge, who sat next to him, stared at him with incredulity.
The House at length quieted down. Rose Fuller, a repeal advocate, dismissed the objections, saying that the allegedly offensive comments of the member were made while the House was sitting in committee, and so did not constitute a formal offense. He ignored the protests of the objectors and recognized the next questioner.
Jones was satisfied. He had raised the issue, which all the others could ignore at their own peril.
Garnet Kenrick, sitting in the gallery, said to the figure below, “‘Let there be light!’ Bravo, Mr. Jones. You never fail to surprise me.”
Winslow LeGrand, who sat next to him taking notes in shorthand, glanced up and remarked, “He is well named, Sir Dogmael is, milord.”
“How do you mean, sir?”
“He once told me the meaning of his name. ‘Bringer of light to children.’”
“I did not know that. I agree. He is well named.” The Baron sighed. “But would that he were tutoring mere children,” he added with sadness.
Basil Kenrick, sitting on the opposite end of the gallery with some other peers, muttered, “Let there be light, indeed! There’s a candle that must be snuffed!”
“Too many candles burn too brightly here today,” remarked the Duke of Bedford in idle agreement. “That Franklin fellow has them all running to ground like frightened rabbits.”
Viscount Wooten shook his head and said, “One’s answers are only as good as the questions asked one, your grace. You may take that advice on the authority of the bench. That Jones knows how to ask questions. Together with Mr. Franklin, he has damaged Mr. Grenville’s cause beyond repair.”
When Jones left the Commons that evening, he was humming a tune he had heard in a tavern, and twirling his cane in a state of mild contentment. In the lobby and then in the Yard, he encountered other members who gave him looks of disgust or apprehension. He smiled in answer. Henoch Pannell greeted him with a mere nod, regarding Jones as he would a skilled magician or a felon who had survived a hanging at Tyburn Tree.
Rose Fuller had intercepted Jones in the lobby. “Fine questioning, Sir Dogmael. Stunning points you made, truly. I do believe they have helped clinch repeal.”
“Thank you, Mr. Fuller.”
“However, I must caution you to be more judicious in your choice of words. I was very nearly obliged to call you to the bar. You may thank the weariness of the opposition that I did not.”
Jones replied, “Thank you, Mr. Fuller. I shall take care with my words.”
Fuller nodded once, bid him good night, and returned to the chamber.
While waiting with Roger Tallmadge in the lobby for Garnet Kenrick, he happened to have encountered Benjamin Franklin emerging with his sponsor from the stairs that led to the gallery. “Thank you for the questions, Sir Dogmael. I could not help but notice the effect they had on the House. Your questions have furthered our cause.”
“And your answers, as well. Thank you, sir,” Jones replied.
Then Franklin glanced around him. Other members lingering in the lobby glowered at them from a distance. In a lower voice, he said, “But, sir, a caution. Your powers of persuasion are not welcome in many quarters. They will not protect you from brute harm. I have heard…comments.”
Jones nodded in thanks for the advice. But he was feeling light-headed, and replied, “Thank you for your concern, Mr. Franklin. But if the colonies are willing to place themselves in jeopardy by speaking their minds, I can do no less.”
When Franklin had left them, Roger Tallmadge remarked, “I must agree with him, Sir Dogmael. I, too, have heard, well…suggestions.”
Garnet Kenrick nodded in agreement. “You know, of course, there are several gentlemen here who have a taste for dueling.” He had already told Jones about his brother’s words at Windridge Court.
Jones shrugged. “My friends, I have given myself the task of trooping the colors of liberty in this House, to see who rallies to them and who shoots at them. It is a necessary risk. War is not friendly game of whist, as you, Mr. Tallmadge, should well know.”
Outside, Jones bid the Baron and the lieutenant good night, and with Winslow LeGrand took a hackney to his rooms on Chancery Lane, where he slept soundly for the first time in weeks.
The next day, Secretary of State Conway accused Grenville of having concealed American information from the House when the Act was proposed and debated a year ago. Grenville denied the charge, claiming that the Board of Trade, contrary to instructions in an Order in Council, had been lax in forwarding the American papers to the House. This excuse did little to allay the suspicion that he did not during his ministry much solicit colonial advice on the feasibility of a stamp tax. General Howard and other members rose to state that had they known about these papers, they would have more vigorously opposed the Act.
Over the next two days, the House heard Grenville’s own witnesses, who related lurid stories of the rioting and violence in the colonies, and of the humiliation and property losses of several distributors and government officials. A West India merchant detailed the scope of smuggling in the North American colonies. Other witnesses described the finances of some of the colonial governments, and revealed, much to Grenville’s chagrin, that over sixty percent of the colonial sha
re of the war debt had been paid.
The day ended when Conway announced that on the 21st he would move for repeal of the Stamp Act, as opposed to its modification or enforcement. Another member rose to state that he would on that date move for some form of declaratory resolution.
Late afternoon on that day, William Pitt arrived at the House on crutches and fell immediately into a seat reserved for him in the front benches by Edmund Burke. Tickets were pinned to hundreds of the green cushions by members hours before the opening to guarantee themselves seats for what they all knew would be a crucial sitting. In the slush-covered Yard and adjacent surroundings milled hundreds of spectators in the gray February cold. Some one hundred pro-repeal merchants dined in the King’s Arms Tavern nearby before going to the Commons to find a place in the galleries, on the stairs, or in the lobby.
Jones arrived with Roger Tallmadge, William Beckford, and William Meredith and secured seats in the top tier of benches. Garnet Kenrick had already ascended to the gallery opposite him and claimed front row chairs for himself and Winslow LeGrand.
Jones had drafted a short speech he planned to make on the chance he would be recognized by Fuller. As the Grenvillites were resigned to repeal, he and other advocates of it were resigned to a declaratory resolution. He knew that such a resolution would be proof against persuasion; that its obvious contradiction to repeal would be acknowledged, ignored, and accepted by so many of his allies. He would not inveigh against it. He would let the colonies make that argument.
As the members arrived in talkative clots and noisily filled up the chamber, Jones read again the speech he hoped to make today. In his satchel were two pamphlets: The Chimney Swifts of Chicanery, by Hugh Kenrick, and Reconciliation or Revolution, by Jack Frake. He had sat up the night before, pondering which Virginian would speak in the House today, and for whom he would be a mere messenger. He had not discussed his speech with Garnet Kenrick, Tallmadge, or with any of his allies.
These Virginians would have a representative in Parliament, after all, he thought. There had been so much discussion about the necessity or impracticality of colonial representation here. Ironically, he thought, many who argued for colonial representation did so from larcenous motives, for taxation with representation would end all the endless bickering over charters and constitutions and supremacy. The colonies would then have no grounds to object. These men argued from necessity.
Those who argued against the idea did not want to grant the colonies equal political status and did not wish them to have a say in their fortunes. And, they alleged, it would be unfair to the rest of the nation if legislative business were slowed to a crawl so that colonial members could communicate with their constituents in North America about this bill or that resolution. These men argued from impracticality.
But, Jones thought, all that was so irrelevant.
Members who chanced to glance at Jones in his seat that day were startled to see a man whose eyes burned brightly, because his mind was on fire. They did not know that they were seeing a man who was about to make a perilous leap from precipice to precipice across a chasm of contradiction.
The sitting began with George Grenville claiming that it was too soon to think of repeal, as he had news that some southern colonies had agreed to submit to the Act. Pitt immediately opposed postponement, while Secretary Conway stated that no such news had reached the government. At four-thirty Conway moved to adopt repeal, and argued from pragmatic reasons why it was desirable to adopt it. He was seconded by Grey Cooper, Under-Secretary of the Treasury and member for Rochester.
Charles Yorke, Attorney-General and member for Reigate, also argued for repeal from a pragmatist position, asserting the right of Parliament to tax the colonies. But this particular exercise of it was unwise, he said, for if enforcement of the Act produced the opposite of what was intended, the authority, if not the right, to tax the colonies in America might be irretrievably lost.
Edmund Burke, recognizing the distinction between internal and external taxation, agreed nonetheless with Yorke, Pitt, and other prominent members that the colonies ought to be coerced into “perfect obedience,” but that the Act was not the ideal instrument for that purpose, being neither friendly nor fair to the colonials.
At one point, a member moved for a declaratory resolution, its wording to be debated and decided another day once the repeal issue had been voted on in the full House. The House in Committee passed it by an overwhelming majority. When Jones was canvassed, he voted “Nay.” Its adoption surprised no one, least of all the member for Swansditch.
A series of speakers rose to argue for and against repeal. Charles Jenkinson, member for Cockermouth, a career placeholder and a “king’s friend,” rose to reiterate the warning that repeal might lead the colonists to believe that they could resist other Parliamentary taxes and regulations, as well. Repeal, he concluded, would only serve to exacerbate the conflict between Parliament and the colonies. When he was finished, Jones rose before anyone else thought to, and captured Rose Fuller’s attention. That man, his curiosity getting the better of his knowledge of Jones, nodded to him.
Jones handed Roger Tallmadge his hat and cane. He glanced around the chamber and saw that all eyes were on him. In one hand he held his speech, which he looked down at now and then, almost in awe that the words in it were being spoken for all present to hear.
He had planned to open his remarks with: “It is thought here that to adopt repeal would be tantamount to this House, this Parliament, swallowing its pride and admitting that it was wrong. But it has no pride to swallow, and it will admit no wrong.” He thought, however, that it would be a clear aspersion of the House, and, as much as he wanted to say it, as much as he thought the House deserved to hear itself so judged, he knew he would be shouted down and silenced, and Virginia would not be heard.
Instead, he began, “It is the anxious concurrence among the advocates of repeal and the defenders of the colonies here that some form of declaration of supremacy must accompany any act of repeal, for otherwise it is imagined, and not entirely without truth in the notion, that it would appear that the Crown, in such an act, would implicitly grant the colonies a unique state of political and economic independence not enjoyed by other Crown dominions.
“I join in that concurrence. For if the colonies are exempted from ‘internal’ legislative authority by Parliament, in little time it is supposed, also not entirely without justification, that they would begin to chafe under the proscriptions of the navigation laws and other constraints, and subsequently question that authority as well, and press for the immediate removal of those fetters.
“This is a true fear which I have often heard spoken in hushed words or delicate insinuations amongst both friends and foes of the colonies in this chamber. This fear may be credited, I am sorry to say, not to honest foresight, but to the natural apprehensions of frustrated and foiled political ambition and avarice.
“But what have these gentlemen and lords to fear? I do not believe that the consequences of repeal by itself have occurred yet even to the most eloquent colonials, for, if the reports and testimony in this chamber are any guide, the most vocal and robust opposers of the Sugar and Stamp Acts there do not have political independence in mind so much as a fair and just regard by the Crown for their rights under our excellent constitution. An accompanying declaration of Parliamentary authority, if it comes to pass, will not much be noted by our fellow Britons over there. Only a few of them, and fewer of us, will see in such a sibling act the foundation of a more ruinous and angry contention than they believe the Crown is capable of handling, except in the manner of Turks.”
Jones paused for a moment to look around the chamber, almost surprised that no one had risen to object to his remarks. But, in the back of his mind, he knew that no one ever would. He knew that there was no answer to his words. He continued. “So, rather than seek to defend the temple of liberty, as many here purport to do, we will instead decide to prop up a moldy, half-collapsed, vine-sm
othered gazebo, which is infested with vermin and home to numerous rude and spiteful insects.
“Bind and confine the colonials?” he asked, glancing down at the top of William Pitt’s hat in the front row of benches. “Should we not be honest about what this House intends to do? It is to bind and confine the colonials as captive felons, but take niggling, fussy care not to invade their pockets and appropriate what pittance is left to them after we have charged them the costs of their binding and confinement! What generosity! What kindness! What fairness! We propose to grant them the sanctity and liberty of their pockets, but not of their lives! But, should anyone in this House ever call this mode of supremacy ‘tyranny,’ would he then be accused of treason?”
There was no answer. Only the muffled babble of spectators in the lobby could be heard.
With some satisfaction, Jones looked down at George Grenville, who sat in a front row across the aisle with his protégé, Thomas Whateley, who had drafted the Stamp Act. The former first minister sat studying his shoe. “I wish to dwell for a moment on the unacknowledged, unspoken, but common premise among all the speakers here, pro-repeal and anti-repeal alike, past and present, that the colonies are already ‘another kingdom,’ and that the alternatives open to them are mutually grim. Be warned: When that realization has occurred to our colonial brethren, the logic of their binding and confining circumstance must lead them inexorably to a choice, which is to decide whether to fight for their liberties as Englishmen, or as Americans for an independence that will better secure them those liberties, and not leave them to the invidious mercies of legislators across an ocean, as we propose to do here.
