by Edward Cline
“Goodness, no, Sir Dogmael!” protested Tallmadge with genuine anger. “They are not merely colonials! They are Englishmen, like us! But, to hear some of the talk in the House, you would think we were judging the fate of upstart colonial Frenchmen!”
Jones remarked, “Well, they may as well be Frenchmen, for all that it matters to many in either House. And there is a difference between the arrogance of a Frenchman and that of an Englishmen.”
Garnet Kenrick, who had been looking pensive, said, “I have just had an original realization, and it is not irrelevant to this matter of voting for or against repeal. It is this: For the first time in my memory, at least, the Commons has been made divisive. So many members who owe their places to the ministry will refuse to vote with it. A remarkable phenomenon! It may augur well for the future of liberty!”
“Indeed, milord,” agreed Jones somberly, as though he doubted it. “A remarkable phenomenon, worthy, perhaps, of a treatise.” But then his face brightened, and he picked up his glass of wine. Holding it aloft, he said, “A toast to Mr. Tallmadge’s role in that phenomenon, and to his unmitigated conscience and principles, as well!”
“Hear, hear!” answered Garnet Kenrick, emulating Jones.
His wife and daughter raised their glasses, too, and exclaimed together, “Hear, hear!”
Roger Tallmadge, blushing at the attention, nodded in silent acknowledgement.
In part payment for the tribute, Tallmadge regaled the company with stories from the late war, and from the courts of Prussia, Hanover, and Denmark.
That evening, after the Kenricks had retired, Jones invited the lieutenant out for a stroll along Cheyne Walk. As they passed beneath the lampposts, they talked of many things — Parliament, the French, the Prussians, the colonies, and Hugh.
“You are a fellow of granite principle,” said Tallmadge to the barrister at one point, “and I would not deny that, tonight, I have benefited from your wisdom. I think I shall count you among my closest friends.”
Jones waved the compliment away with his silver-capped cane. “I will accept admission into that company only if you include me with your friend, Hugh.”
“I do, sir. I haven’t many friends, Sir Dogmael, but he is one of them. I am indebted to him for so much. You see, he was my first true mentor.” Tallmadge chuckled. “He once adopted me as his younger brother.”
“A mentor? In what subject?”
Tallmadge said, “It was not so much what he taught me, as in what he was. What he is. I correspond with him, and know that he has not changed a whit.”
Jones smiled with irony. “On that point, I must own he has been something of a mentor to me, as well, in some respects.” He paused to brave the next question. “A brother, you say? Would I be correct to suppose you would both welcome the chance to become brothers-in-law?”
Tallmadge grinned, and said without special emphasis, “In a few years, yes. I suppose we will both welcome the chance. The prospect absolutely enthralls Alice, and me.” The lieutenant glanced at his companion, and remarked, “Speaking of wisdom, I enjoyed your remarks about Mr. Pitt’s speech. I think you are right that it contains so many contraries, as Alice’s father called them, and those contraries do form a keystone.”
Jones stopped to light a pipe, saying, “What I deemed his keystone would establish a benevolent despotism of the Commons, that is all. But if we are to learn anything from the histories of ancient Greece and Rome, it is that such a benign despotism must by its nature and without exception sour into a malevolent one. It is a historical law.”
Tallmadge exclaimed with renewed astonishment, “Well, it seems that Mr. Pitt defends the colonials’ pockets, at the expense of their purses! Why, that single point of his muddles the mind!”
“Quite true, sir,” Jones said. “And in that muddle of contraries nests the destiny of the empire.”
Jones was wrought up by a frustrating impotence. In the last session, he had tried to introduce resolutions in the appropriate committees’ bills to open Parliament to public reporting; to allow private persons and members to criticize the king, the Crown, and Parliament without risk of penalty or charges of seditious libel; to abolish the duties on imported corn and tobacco. In every instance, he was rebuffed. Often, he had been advised not to pursue these subjects by wary members, barristers and sergeants-at-law like himself, who considered themselves advocates of British liberty.
Now, after Pitt’s speech, he felt honor bound to rise in the House at some important stage of the session to point out the contradictions in the Great Commoner’s address. This, he knew, would mean contradicting a powerful man, and possibly alienating himself from his allies. It would mean going counter to the direction he was certain the House was going. It was a guarantee of isolation and solitude.
Over the next two months, Jones would sleep little while the future of the Stamp Act was being decided in the Commons and Lords. He would watch the proceedings, powerless to alter the course of the debates, and could only observe a phenomenon he could not yet name. At one point in them, he remarked to Garnet Kenrick, “It is said that a watched pot never boils. This one fairly seethes with scalding water.”
He resigned himself early to defeat — in the Commons, even if repeal were passed, and at Cricklegate, in the company of Roger Tallmadge and Alice Kenrick. He resigned himself to defeat in the Commons, and to being no more to his beloved Alice than her “Uncle Dog.”
* * *
That same evening, at Windridge Court in Whitehall downriver, another supper was held, presided over by Basil Kenrick, the Earl of Danvers, convened on the advice of his key men in the Commons, Crispin Hillier, member for Onyxcombe, and Sir Henoch Pannell, member for Canovan. In the morning he had consulted with them and confirmed his understanding of the faults and contradictions that he, too, had noted in Pitt’s speech. He decided to call a parley of his bloc in the Commons, in order to instruct its members to emphasize those contradictions in their speeches and conversations, and to attempt to refute all pretensions of limitations on Parliament’s power.
From the head of the table, he said to the company before dessert was served, “We may lose the argument against repeal — Mr. Pitt has seen to that — but win the day on the subject of supremacy. Not even Mr. Pitt contests the legislative supremacy of the Crown. Thrice he confirmed it, by my count.”
“Why do you say that, your lordship?” asked Captain James Holets of the Foot Guards, and member for Oakhead Abbas, Essex.
“Because it is felt by certain individuals in both Houses that if repeal is adopted, some form of assertion, in the form of a declaratory resolution, must accompany it, necessarily and absolutely.” The Earl seemed to smile. “That is the opinion of no less an eminence than Lord Rockingham himself.”
“If I may add, your lordship,” said Crispin Hillier, “since Mr. Pitt has unarguably set the terms of debate, the dispute will now be chiefly over the wordings of the resolutions for repeal and declaration.”
Henoch Pannell glanced at the Earl, who with a nod gave him leave to speak. The member for Canovan said gruffly, “And Mr. Pitt has given us a word to use as a weapon in that dispute!”
“Which word is that, Sir Henoch?” asked Sir Fulke Treverlyn, member for Old Boothby, Cheshire, knighted in recognition of his successful prosecution of the ringleaders of the Skelly gang in Falmouth years ago. He now practiced law at the Court of Common Pleas. Sir Henoch, who had captured the ringleaders, renewed his acquaintance with the attorney shortly after his own entrance into the House.
“Whatsoever!” exclaimed Sir Henoch. “What fulminating folly!”
“An evil and encompassing term,” mused Sir Fulke to himself. “It may be employed to good purpose.”
Sir Henoch, who sat next to him at the table, remarked to him, “It will prove to serve as salve for those who argue strenuously for repeal, sir.”
“Those with pudding for guts!” interjected Captain Holets contemptuously. He sat across from Sir Henoch. Holets was
a veteran of the late war, and regarded the violence in the colonies against Crown officials and the stamp distributors as a justification for military reprisal. In hopes of securing a promotion to major, he had bombarded the late Duke of Cumberland, Lord Northington, and other policy “hawks” with many letters detailing the logistics, number of regiments, ships required, and timetables for an “offensive” against the colonies in the coming spring. “I still say that the Address from the House should advise His Majesty that the colonies are in a state of rebellion.”
On the Earl’s right sat Bevill Grainger, now Viscount of Wooten and Clarence, and retired Master of the Rolls at the King’s Bench. He ventured, “It was expected that Mr. Pitt would set the Commons and Lords on their ears, when he deigned to attend. I agree with his lordship the Earl that to argue against repeal from this point forward would be laudatory, though futile. Mr. Grenville doubtless will continue to argue that line. We may sympathize with him in that regard. After all, it is his child that will certainly be slandered in both Houses and libeled in the newspapers, and possibly even abandoned. However, it is said that while good winds too often bring bad news, bad winds may bring good news. Yesterday, Mr. Pitt was all that.”
“Yes, he was all that,” concurred Norbonne Berkeley, fourth Baron Botetourt, Lord of the Bedchamber and Lord Lieutenant of Gloucestershire, and, until he was raised to the peerage two years ago, member in the Commons for that county for over twenty years. He sat on the Earl’s left, and was the newest member of the Earl’s bloc. Attending Parliament was, for him, simply an excuse to come down to London to frequent its many gambling dens. He had voted in Lords for the Stamp Act, and now opposed repeal of it in a civil, suave, non-belligerent manner.
“Instead of debating repeal and a declaratory act,” he said calmly, “both Houses ought to reject every blasted petition from merchants and colonials, dismiss all the witnesses we will be painfully obliged to hear, and discuss instead the rewriting of every colonial charter. Repeal would become a moot point, if Parliament were made co-protector and -sponsor of the colonies with His Majesty. The colonies have a point there, concerning their charters, but it is a point that could be easily nullified, and ought to have been after the Act of Settlement ages ago. Then there would be no question of Parliamentary supremacy and authority.” He glanced around the table in search of agreement.
He found it in the intrigued expressions of Sir Henoch and Sir Fulke, but Lord Wooten cautioned, “I am not certain His Majesty could be persuaded to share that power, milord Berkeley. It is unlikely he would relinquish any portion of it, even though he does not now exercise it, as some colonials seem to claim with odd bitterness.”
“There would be constitutional questions, milord, as well” added Hillier. “And Lord Camden would be sure to oppose it with more fervor than that with which he opposes general warrants.”
“I must concur with Lord Wooten and Mr. Hillier,” volunteered Sir Fulke. “Speaking as a lawyer, I understand that Lord Mansfield has ruled privately on the speciousness of most colonial charters.”
“Oh,” replied Botetourt, “Lord Camden would need to answer Lord Mansfield’s points of endorsement of the idea. And I am certain that some diligent under-secretaries in the Privy Council or Board of Trade could be found to study the problem and draft proposals amicable to His Majesty. Mr. Grenville employed a company of them to compose and refine the Stamp Act.”
The Earl said, almost in the manner of a command, “His Majesty cannot now decide whether he is for repeal or enforcement or modification of the Act, so it is unlikely he will fix his mind one way or another on that question any time soon.”
Lord Wooten frowned and clucked his tongue in admonition. “Why would you say that about His Majesty, your lordship? The poor fellow is beset by opinions and advice from such a multitude of quarters, I can’t imagine he knows where to turn or what to think.”
“He will not fix his mind until he knows which way the cards are dealt.” He glanced around the supper table. “Baron Berkeley, and you others here who are wedded to games, surely you should know better than I that His Majesty will not reveal his true hand until he is sure of the contents of his fellow players’ hands, and that it will take him some time to decide. His Majesty, after all, is a paragon of caution.” His guests could not decide whether their host was complimenting the king or mocking him. But that was the end of discussion of that matter.
Crispin Hillier remarked in the resulting conversational vacuum, “Word is that His Majesty will now seek to persuade Mr. Pitt to join the ministry.”
Baron Berkeley laughed once. “There is another doomed project, sir. France is more likely to cede us the Aquitaine and Calais than is Mr. Pitt to join any ministry he does not govern.”
Sir Henoch glanced at the Earl. “Your lordship, may I propose a toast of gratitude to Mr. Pitt? I think we are all agreed here that he has rescued us from a bothersome conundrum!”
The Earl seemed to smile again, and nodded in appreciation of the ironic suggestion.
Sir Henoch held up his glass of brandy and proclaimed, “To William Pitt, the Great Commoner, whom we may now also call the Great Confabulator! Here’s to repeal!”
The company laughed with him, and raised glasses in answer and agreement. Basil Kenrick joined in silent approval of the toast, and drank with the rest of his bloc.
Later in the evening, when the most of the guests had departed, Hillier and Pannell lingered on, although going through the motions of departure. Sir Henoch addressed his host. “Your lordship, I had the honor of breakfasting with the Bishop of London today, and he brought these to my attention. He and I thought you might be interested in them, as well.” He took from his frock coat two pamphlets and presented them to the Earl. “They were sent to him by a correspondent and colleague of the cloth in Virginia. You may keep these, of course. Bishop Terrick was sent two sets of them and had copies made. One in particular interests me, and the other may particularly interest your lordship.”
The Earl took the pamphlets and glanced at the title pages. One contained the name “Jack Frake.” It meant nothing to him. On the other, he saw the title, The Chimney Swifts of Chicanery, “by Hugh Kenrick, Esq., Virginia Gentleman.” He grunted once in surprise, then glanced at Sir Henoch. “Thank you, Sir Henoch, for the courtesy. But what caused you to believe I would be interested in these?”
Sir Henoch braved, “You have your devils, your lordship, and I have mine.” When the Earl did not reply, he added, “In the letter to Reverend Terrick that accompanied these pamphlets, his correspondent related that my devil, Mr. Frake, whom I sent to the colonies as a felon many years ago, and your nephew, were directly responsible for obstructing Crown officers in their duties regarding the stamps. Successfully, I might add. Reverend Terrick, I am sure, would be happy to share with you those and other details of the incident, your lordship.” After another pause, he added, “I think you will see that they are both tracts of treason.”
“I am certain they are. Thank you for the information, Sir Henoch,” sighed the Earl. “I will peruse them.” He nodded to Pannell, and then to Crispin Hillier. “And good night to you both.”
When they were gone, Basil Kenrick wandered down the hall and into his study. Here he tugged on a bell-pull to signal Claybourne, his valet, that he wished to retire soon. He lit a pump lamp on his desk, sat down, and glanced through his nephew’s pamphlet for a moment. His face grew progressively redder as he absorbed and grasped his nephew’s prescient characterization of not only Parliament’s conduct concerning the Stamp Act matter, but his own and his guests’ parley this evening. He was frankly dumbfounded by his nephew’s ability to foretell such things.
Most assuredly, his nephew had sent copies of the pamphlet to his brother in Chelsea, and to that annoying lackey of his, Sir Dogmael Jones, and they both had had a good laugh.
When Claybourne appeared in the study, the Earl angrily tossed the pamphlet onto his desk. Scowling petulantly up at the man, he excla
imed, “A devil indeed! A thousand leagues away, yet he still manages to provoke me!”
The valet, ignorant of the cause of his employer’s fury, merely blinked in surprise, but limited his reply to a practiced expression of mute contrition.
* * *
Chapter 23: The Summons
If purblind consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, then the terms of the debates over repeal and enforcement of the Stamp Act were set by one outstanding mind whose errors were seized upon and exploited by a passel of vicious little ones. They were all, if nothing else, consistent and uncompromising. The Grenvillites in the Commons and the Bedfordites in Lords hammered away at the idea of repeal. But, if resigned to repeal, they demanded that it be accompanied by a declaration that would essentially render it meaningless. They were certain that victory could be had even in defeat.
Pitt was openly contemptuous of both Houses and the motives of their members who demanded enforcement of the Stamp Act. He detected a species of fear in most of his colleagues which he sensed went beyond mere practical politics. He was too much of a gentleman to name it in private conversation or public address, but was haughtily determined to confound and defeat it. Perhaps it was his knowledge of and association with such fearful men that contributed to his chronic bouts of melancholy depression.
Those who opposed repeal were also contemptuous of the politics and even of each other, but their livelihoods depended on the range of authority wielded by Parliament and on the lucre derived from such authority in all the Crown’s purviews. It was more desperation than commitment to any higher, disinterested end that moved them to argue for the preservation of that authority.
And during the debates, they did not disguise their desire to obstruct Pitt. Here was a great man, they saw, greater than anyone in either House; they knew this and wished him to acknowledge his own folly and just how impractical and obstinate he was being. He was an affront to all their pretensions of nobility, dignity, and concern for the Crown’s solvency. If they could not be rid of him, they wished to reduce him in stature, to make him more manageable and familiar, and consequently less to be feared.
