Virtue’s Reward (A Poor Man at the Gate Series, Book 11)

by Andrew Wareham

  Lord Nash entertained the local gentry to dinner that evening, celebrating the return of good order to their home area.

  The ladies withdrew, leaving the men to their port and discussion of Irish affairs.

  “These Croppies with their potato plots are a damned nuisance, I think, my lord!”

  Lord Nash warmly applauded his neighbour Mr Connolly’s good sense; the peasantry contributed nothing in taxes and were an ongoing source of expenditure, needing to be policed and kept down as they did.

  “Best would be to get rid of them, move them out – they are a menace to civilisation, sir!”

  Evicting them would merely push them onto their neighbours’ doorsteps – it was no solution. Starving them until they left of their own accord was untidy and would lead to more riots.

  “Charter ships, my lord – force them out as you so wisely did with the kin of those damned rebels today.”

  “Costly to send them to America.”

  “Liverpool is nearer, my lord!”

  “So it is, and there is work in the pits and manufacturies. Gentlemen, would you agree that I should discover the cost of such an endeavour? If the sums are within reason acceptable, then we could each bear a proportion of the burden – myself to take a lead, of course!”

  They applauded his proposal – let civilisation advance, they cried.

  There was a degree of opposition to their wise move, some from Dublin Castle, concerned to seem merciful in the eyes of educated opinion, but most of it from England, the authorities there having small wish to be forced to do something with a mass of starving Irish peasants dumped at their docks.

  It was made very clear from Westminster that deportation could not be countenanced unless it was all the way to America.

  "Always the same, gentlemen! Government demands that we take action for them, then refuses to back us when we do!"

  A series of discussions locally, in Dublin and in Whitehall made it clear that the Papists would always be with them, and could never be trusted. The solution had to lie in creating a reliable loyalty in the mass of Protestants in the North of Ireland.

  "Work, gentlemen, is the sole solution."

  The magistrates were not at all sure what Lord Nash meant by that but were happy to listen to him.

  "A job for every Protestant boy, gentlemen! A free place in an elementary school so that each can read and write, and then a bench in a manufactury or a pick and shovel as a road-maker or whatever on these damned new railways, or some other sort of wage-earning work. Every man to be guaranteed a cottage, or one these terraces in town, or a roof over his head anyway. We must as well pay for an infirmary, with free treatment for the right sort; possibly they could put a penny a week into a hospital fund to give them the right to use the place. They are to know that we will look after them, that they will never starve, and in return they will support us. They will provide the people for a police force which knows whose side it is on and battalions of good, reliable soldiery to balance out the Paddies. It has been suggested to me that it might well be an idea to form Protestant clubs, with Chairman and Committee to keep order, rather than allow them to frequent uncontrolled drinking houses where they can discuss wild ideas. A subsidy on the price of beer, and perhaps the formation of sporting teams for the young unmarried men, and they would be brought even closer together."

  It sounded sensible, and expensive; hospitals and schools and such did not grow on trees, after all.

  "Where, my lord, are these jobs all to come from?"

  In the rural areas there could be more linen mills and a railway line; shipyards in Belfast, perhaps; a brewery certainly; a modern fishing industry based in the small ports - there were many possibilities for go-ahead men to invest in. In the towns as well there was a need for building firms and craftsmen, for banks and insurance offices, for modern stores - all needing safe, reliable men to work in them and providing apprenticeships for the boys.

  Where was the money to come from?

  A good question; Lord Nash promised to write letters that very day to his family and acquaintance in England.

  "Some part will come from my own estates, gentlemen - an investment in the future of the Ascendancy in Ireland. More can be borrowed from the banks, I doubt not. I am quite certain that the authorities in Whitehall will appreciate our wisdom and foresight and will offer all they can. Our roads are inadequate, for example, and must be made up to a modern standard for the soldiery to march on. The naval dockyards in Londonderry and Belfast are small and old-fashioned and should be amended. There is much to be done, provided we offer a lead."

  The concomitant was obvious and all of the magistrates present pledged themselves to the creation of employment from their own more or less deep pockets.

  "One final point, gentlemen - returns! My limited knowledge of the new industry says ten per centum and more is not unusual. Consols today stand at four and one-eighth, and that is higher than is always the case!"

  Patriotism was all very well but doubling their investment income had much to recommend it.

  Robert received Nash's letter with less than whole-hearted joy - he wanted very little to do with either side of the Irish Question, regarding it as wholly insoluble until ordinary men turned away from religion, which did not seem a likely, early event.

  "Kippered herrings!"

  Miriam was not at all sure what the significance of that statement was when taking a midday nuncheon.

  "A baked egg, perhaps, sir, but kippers are not normally to be eaten except at the breakfast table."

  The comment seemed to Robert to border on the flippant - somewhat out of character for his lady.

  "I was not begging their presence on the menu, ma'am. This letter, this request for aid from my Lord Nash of Claudy - such pretension! A mere Irish baron, and recently made 'for Services to the Crown' - my services and his reward! Not content with his frippery title he is now seeking my aid to create employment among his 'loyal Orange Protestants'. A fisher fleet, steam trawlers and drifters, and smoke-houses ashore, are the first things that come to my mind. kippered herrings and smoked mackerel, to be brought to Liverpool and Glasgow where there is a bulk of hungry mouths, would make a degree of commercial sense."

  Food was short in England, and presumably in Scotland as well. Any extra supplies would be bought up, that seemed obvious to her. She remembered as well that Sir Matthew Star’s shipyard had recently turned its hand to the launching of steam fishing boats – probably not a coincidence that Robert was concerned to expand the industry. Better that she should not notice the fact and seem perhaps to criticise.

  "'Orange' Protestants, Robert?"

  "Dating from Dutch William and his destruction of the Papists after the Glorious Revolution, ma'am. One hundred and forty years and still fresh in the Irish mind, God help us!"

  "Should we become involved, sir? Would the family not be better to keep well clear of any Irish entanglement?"

  "The Plunketts are related to the Grafhams, and have a call on us for the business dealings with their whiskey. Worth a thousand a year clear in the family coffers, ma'am - and that is no small sum. Because we are involved with them near Dublin then we cannot be seen to take sides by refusing our services to Nash in the North. Perhaps I should pass the matter over to Joseph. A railway line from Londonderry to Belfast might be wise, for example. Perhaps a visit to Sir Matthew as well - there might be a call for a shipyard on the other side of the Irish Sea."

  She wondered whether there was another, political reason as well. The Duke of Wellington was an Irishman, after all. She had more important matters to consider, however.

  "What is this I read of the Asiatic Cholera in Newcastle and Sunderland, Robert?"

  He shrugged, suggested she should not give credence to the newspapers - it was probably no more than the enteric or another outbreak of typhoid fever such as occurred every year.

  "Merely because the true Cholera has been reported in Western Russia, ma'am, and possibly i
n Holland as well, they wish to create a great panic here! I shall not be venturing near the East Coast ports, in any case."

  “It is said to be especially virulent in this outbreak, sir.”

  “I have heard that to be so – there is talk of millions dead in China and India, and I have read of the cities on the Silk Road losing one half of their people to the disease. They are, of course, very poor and ill-fed in those places – they will die at the drop of a hat, it seems.”

  “What of our poor, sir?”

  “A good question, ma’am.”

  "The rioting and rick-burning, Mr Quarrington, sir, be coming to a finish, sort of, what you might say, that is, but it don't be for no good cause, not in itself, sir."

  Jonathan Quarrington smiled kindly at his bailiff, Maxton - the man knew the modern agriculture and was wholly reliable, but he was tedious long-winded and so often lost the point of his sentences.

  "It do be them Camp Fire people, sir!"

  "'Camp Fire' - you mean sat out like gypsies on the heaths?"

  "Ah, so it do be, sir, only not the same!"

  "Not like gypsies on the heaths, then?"

  "No, sir, they do be much too respectable to be likened unto them Romany rogues, sir."

  Gypsies certainly were not respectable, Quarrington could accept that. He was a little puzzled by the camp fires even so.

  "Meetings, sir, that be what it do be, sir!"

  "Around camp fires..."

  The bailiff was pleased that they had finally come to a mutual understanding, suggested they might now consider the figures for the production of cheeses from the new dairy.

  "Wait a minute, not quite so fast, sir! Who is meeting around these camp fires, and what are they discussing?"

  "Why, sir, the day labourers and the smallholders and all them folks what got more children than money to feed 'em with. And from the towns, sir, not just the farming folks!"

  "Well, are they talking Revolution? This sounds more worrying than Captain Swing!"

  "Why, no, sir, not at all. They be preaching to 'em, these here Revivalist chaps - ministers they calls theyselves, but I ain't seen one with a proper collar round 'is neck or with a reverend's bands neither! Hours at a time, they do stand on the back of farm drays and calls they back to the Lord; talks all evening and 'alf the bloody night, too, if you'll excuse me, sir, what is why they got to 'ave they fires to keep warm by whiles they is a-listening and shouting ‘Hallelujah’! Not that they knows what it means, like, but it do sound good! Times, they reckon they's two thousand of they all stood together and listening to the one bloke hollerin' - you'd reckon 'e'd get so hoarse as to 'ave to shut up but they goes on for hours, so they do."

  "What do these 'Revivalists' say about wages and food and machines?"

  "They says it do be the Will of God, sir, and the thing to do is to get down on they's knees and pray, not go out and riot."

  Quarrington thought this was an excellent prescription, was much in favour of this sudden growth of religious fervour.

  "Are they taking up collections, at all?"

  "Only sort of sideways, like, you might say, sir. When they talks in town they asks the folks who are better off to give to the poor, and sometimes they takes up the ackers themselves and buys bread and potatoes and bacon to dish out where it's needed. I ain't heard that any of it goes into they's own pockets, neither, which is uncommon in that breed, when you considers it, sir."

  "Pass the good word along, if you please. I will drop twenty pounds into the collecting bowl if they come to my door. Tell them that the estates will support them in their civilising mission. What can we do to strengthen their message, do you think?"

  "Provide work, sir - there ain't nothing else the poor folks want."

  "And that I cannot do, I fear. Out here in the Borders of Wales, deep in the Marches and miles from the cities, what can we do?"

  "Nothing, sir. They got to go to the towns. Gloucester? Nothing there worth talking about. Bristol? Go as a seaman, maybe; not much else. Birmingham? Plenty of manufacturies there, but the wages ain't good and the living be terrible poor in they back-alleys. London? Miles and miles away and who knows what's there? They knows they got to go, but they ain't got no place to go to."

  It was hopeless - there were too many people and there was nothing for them to do in the countryside and the towns were hostile, alien, unknown places.

  "I will speak to our Members of Parliament, instruct them to pressure the government to take action. Another regiment or two of foot would be a useful move - they could always send them out to India or to Africa or somewhere. Better for a young man to go for a soldier than to hang around here with an empty belly."

  Quarrington brought his meeting to an end as soon as he could. The bailiff knew far more than he did about the Land and he appeared to be honest. The income from the rents was still far outstripping the expenditure he called for, and that, in the end, was all that mattered. He turned his attention to the other matters demanding his consideration.

  He owned four large merchantmen working the West Indies, a legacy of his earlier, less respectable days; they still made him a profit, but the Sugar Islands were going into decline, were becoming far poorer. The word was that legitimate trade was growing on the African coast and that the Barbary pirates were now almost destroyed. His ships, given enterprising captains, could carry muskets and powder and cotton prints and glass bottles and coarse earthenware crockery to the old slaving posts and take up palm oil and gold-dust and ivory and furniture hardwoods and occasional other oddments, such as Grains of Paradise, at a high profit. He had heard that at least one of the Bristol merchants had opened up a plantation on land he had purchased, somehow, from a local tribe; palm oil and copra were not hugely priced, but there was a steady demand for them for soap especially, and the plantation manager could be a trader as well. He decided it was time to make the change, to pull out of the Sugar Islands; he would do it, selling up his warehouses and other interests in the ports there, a clean sweep.

  In England his wife's family had offered the opportunity to become involved in the coal mines in Somerset, down at Radstock. There was money in coal - would be much more as steam engines continued to proliferate, at sea as well as on land. Additionally, he might be able to encourage some of his idle young men to migrate to the mines, following their master rather than going foreign into the unknown; they would have some loyalty to him as well. He would follow the example of Lord Andrews, of his old friend and mentor, Thomas, and build rows of terraces for them to live in. It was so much easier to move if there was a roof waiting; even easier if they were 'persuaded' that there was no alternative to leaving their villages.

  He sat with the estates' records and made a rough count of the numbers of young men and women living on his lands and then compared the figure with the numbers of labourers on his farms. He might well be able to find four hundred coal-miners from his own people; say three hundred roofs required, allowing for many of the young people to wed each other, or set up house together, it was none of his business which they chose. At least one half of the villagers never got as far as the church when they became 'husband and wife', and they seemed nonetheless quite content, as far as he knew. It was an open secret that there were almost no churches or licensed chapels in the great bulk of the industrial towns - most workers in mines or manufacturies had no opportunity to do more than jump the broomstick, yet the world seemed still to turn on its axis.

  Three hundreds of terraced houses would set him back twelve thousands and his Minchinhampton relative was willing to sell him the land and mining rights for twenty more, which was expensive - there had to be a reason for that. A year of wages on top would be at least twenty and he must add costs of perhaps as much again, for he did not know if they would have to pump water or build roads or railway to the canal or river. His mine would set him back a cool seventy-five thousands, if he was to start up on large scale. He could do it, comfortably if he could find a buyer in the
Sugar Islands, and it would put him in the forefront of West Country businessmen and active gentlemen, and that was worthwhile in itself.

  He would take the risk, he decided, but not until he had made a few enquiries in the family; he wanted to know why second cousin Jabez was in the way of selling his land and at such a price. There was nothing less respectable than to sell one's acres, be it never so much to another of the family. He must discover the story before he risked being contaminated by involvement in what might be a disgraceful comedown for his cousin-by-marriage and, terribly, a source of public shame.

  His wife was reluctant to discuss the matter, thus confirming that Cousin Jabez was under a cloud. After havering a little she found that her loyalty to her husband, and her duty to his wealth, meant that all must be divulged to him, even if he was only a member of the clan by marriage.

  "You will be aware, sir, that Mr Jabez Minchinhampton inherited from his father, who was second son to my great-grandfather. He had travelled far in his youth, one understands, though in what capacity has never been vouchsafed to me, and returned to England in his middle years as a wealthy man. The old gentleman bought his estate and eventually took a wife, a County lady of respectable pedigree and with a few acres in her own right. In the fullness of time Cousin Jabez was born to his elderly father and inevitably inherited as a young man. While his mother remained in the land of the living all was well with him, but when she died a few years ago then there was no restraint upon him. One is given to understand that he chose to live in London, sir!"

  Living in London was seen, often correctly, by the rural and respectable as a certain cause of moral degradation.

  "Ah! I presume he fell among thieves while he was there, ma'am."

  "Horses, sir, and, I blush to say, from whispers not meant for my ears I assure you, the company of Scarlet Women!"