Privilege Preserved (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 5)

by Andrew Wareham

  “A word to Mr Walker, the member for Finedon, might not come amiss, Robert.”

  “Together with a whisper in James’ ear, sir.”

  They smiled in unison, a similar predatory expression on each face, feeding time for the sharks, one might say.

  “An excellent suggestion, Mr Rumpage! Not this week, nor even necessarily this month, but within reason soon, we may well beg of you that you should travel to Spithead, to discover the lie of the land, as it might be. Perhaps a honeymoon journey, sir?”

  “On the subject of travelling, sir?”

  “Ah yes, Robert! Mr Rumpage, bend your mind, if you would be so good, to the question of selecting a young man with knowledge of steam and our yard to make his way along the shores of the German Ocean, say from Harbour-Grace in France as far as to Hamburg in the Germanies. Just visiting and, in passing, discovering the state of enterprise in the various yards he might come to.”

  “A spy, my lord.”

  “Well… one might not wish to express the matter so bluntly, Mr Rumpage.”

  “So… bright, knows how to use his headpiece, dressed like a gent, so any bugger that sees him will know he’s making holiday not working at anything at all. There’s not one in the yard could fit that bill, my lord. Needs be a young gentleman what was in the navy until the wars came to an end. One of them young captains, my lord. If there’s any questions, he can always say he’s looking to see if Roberts can sell steamships or go into partners in a yard to build ‘em. Make sure he’s one who can talk right, my lord, all pansified like the gentry do. Be useful if he could talk Frog or German.”

  They realised they had not thought the matter through sufficiently.

  “Glad we talked to you about it first, Mr Rumpage. Thank you. Michael, I think, Robert?”

  “Probably, sir, he could find a bright young mariner, I am sure. We could, in fact, take Mr Rumpage’s suggestion. Employ the young man as a traveller, selling for us.”

  “Quite right. If we expand overseas, Mr Rumpage, in the ship-building way, that is, be sure we shall not forget you.”

  “Thank’ee, my lord. Before you go, there is one other thing, if I may make so bold. To go with the tugging boats we are running ourselves, my lord. I been thinking that one or two of the ferry boats could be used come summer time in running trips down the coast, say to Ramsgate, just taking people who wanted to see the place and travel on a steamer as well. Holiday, sort of thing.”

  They stared at him. Trips? Holiday?

  “Do you think people would do that? Really?”

  “Any time one of our lads goes into a pub for a beer there’s always people to ask him about the boats, my lord. Young men, mostly. There ain’t never been anything like ‘em, my lord. If a lad’s got five bob spare and a day off work, well, it’s like nothing that’s ever been done before. Talk to everybody about it for a twelvemonth, his trip on a steamboat!”

  “Cost it up. If you can see a chance of a profit, then give it a try.”

  Rumpo Willy locked his front door and set off down the road, down his street, where he lived, his home.

  ‘Poor old Mum, she’d have loved a place like that with her Billy. Time to become really respectable, for her sake’.

  William Rumpage strode confidently into the baker’s, Rumpo Willy consigned to the past. He smiled at Millicent, waved his keys triumphantly.

  “I walked into my house this morning, Miss Millicent! Mine, for the rest of my life and to hand on when I’m finished. Yours as well, if you will wed me!”

  She stared at him, straight-faced, then turned to her mother behind the counter.

  “Do you think I should, Mum?”

  Her mother, equally grave, shook her head.

  “Better wait, Milly! There’s men with more prospects than him just queuing up for you.”

  “That’s what I thought, Mum. But, I suppose I might as well take him on the offchance that he might get a good job one day.”

  “Don’t know, gal. Shipyard managers are two a penny round here.”

  Her father appeared at Rumpage’s shoulder, brandy bottle and a pair of glasses in hand. “Her mother did the same to me. They think it’s funny. Congratulations!”

  “There is talk of a meeting to be held in Birmingham, Mark. Next week, on Friday. A peaceful gathering of those who are opposed to the Coercive Policies the government is proposing, the aim being to petition Parliament to preserve our ancient liberties and restore Habeas Corpus.”

  Mark shook his head; he could not possibly attend such a meeting. Fortunately, he was in court for the whole of the week, would be unable to travel so far; he did not actually need to explain to Christopher that he could not be seen in his company and in such a place.

  “If you do not object, Mark, I shall go. By canal boat, the journey can be accomplished on the Thursday and I can stay at an inn quite cheaply. I can use my own funds. You should approve, Mark, it is a peaceful, parliamentary activity.”

  Mark raised no objection. There had been a coolness growing between him and Christopher due to his refusal to countenance any form of violence and his insistence that Christopher should have nothing to do with those who had advocated machine-breaking. He could not be seen to disapprove of an open meeting of like-minded people.

  “Will Humphrey be attending?”

  Christopher said he thought not.

  There had been some more tension between them on the grounds of Christopher’s growing friendship with Humphrey, a man who Mark found himself to dislike, one who seemed to be a bloody-handed Red in Christopher’s company, a mild reformer in Mark’s.

  Christopher, very carefully, was not lying in his reply. Humphrey had said that he considered the meeting a foolish waste of time and did not plan to attend, but he had promised to introduce Christopher to ‘a more practical group’.

  “There is to be a recital on the Saturday, Mark, at the Methodist meeting hall. The Messiah, as always, but some violin pieces composed by the French virtuoso, Rode, as well. The player is a young German who I have never heard of.”

  “He will need to be skilled indeed if he is to do Rode justice, Christopher! Few violinists would be so bold. I wish I could join you but it is not possible. I must prepare for the sitting of the Assizes – the fraud is a complex case and I nearly despair of presenting it to a jury in a form simple enough for them to comprehend!”

  The return to growth in the economy had led to a resurgence amongst the more marginal businessmen, those who promoted schemes that would infallibly earn one hundred per cent this year and probably more next. Mark despaired sometimes – the gullible queued up to pass their money into the hands of the criminal, and then complained bitterly that they had not received their something for nothing. They never learnt that there was no substitute for caution and simple common sense.

  Fortunately, he had overstated his difficulties to Christopher. Mr Twynham, the gentleman he fully intended to hang next week, had promised his clients five pounds in the hundred every month. He had invested nothing, had paid the ‘income’ out of the monies handed across to him by the next batch to sign up, most of whom were the friends of original victims and anxious to share their luck. It was an old trick and remained profitable while the number of investors expanded; the sole skill it demanded of the con man was that he should judge the moment to run. Twynham had delayed too long, unaware of the naval son of a widow woman returning to England and investigating his mama’s wonderful new source of income. The bailiffs had descended on Mr Twynham with a civil writ that had rapidly been followed by a set of criminal charges; nearly one half of the funds had been recovered, an unusually high proportion. Provided the case against Twynham was made clearly, in sufficiently simple language for the jury to comprehend, but not so short of legalese as to cause the judge to reject it, then there should be a guilty verdict on a charge of theft; being for a sum greater than one shilling the rope was available as a punishment.

  Mark completed his notes on Twynham and proceeded to
the next case, five men apprehended at the scene of a drunken brawl. In itself a fight outside a beerhouse was insignificant, would never normally come to court, but in this instance there had been a third party, a lay preacher who had called shame on them and had received a punch in the mouth for his pains. There had been a militia platoon in sight, doing nothing other than to lay bets on the outcome of the fight until it had involved the general public. The defendants were all layabouts, it seemed, men without work but with funds enough to get drunk together. The word included in their file was that three of the five acted on commission to a local loan-shark, collecting his bad debts, and the other two were younger brothers, along for an evening out. Nasty people, Mark concluded, beating pennies out of the poor, sometimes forcing them to prostitute their daughters or wives to pay off their debts; the penal colonies would be the better for their presence. The docket included a well-worded deposition from the preacher and a promise to be present in court to testify. It should be a simple conviction.

  What else?

  Two child pickpockets, caught in the act of robbing a gentleman by a watchful shopkeeper who had seen them enter his store but make no attempt to inspect his goods. Nine years old and ten, they would be sentenced to death but were almost certain to be reprieved, children of that age were rarely hanged these days, particularly since the newssheets had taken against it. Too young to be transported, no prison available at their age – they would be flogged and put out on the streets, to return to crime and probably be taken up again within weeks. Pointless! So was their existence, of course.

  Mark came close to despair as he worked through the list – casual drunkenness, violence and theft rather than planned criminality in almost all cases. Only the fraudster, Twynham, could be seen as a true felon, an enemy of organised society, the others were all just flotsam, the scum that floated on the top of the human world, drifting aimlessly, eventually disappearing beneath the surface, unnoticed, uncared for.

  A pity, he consoled himself, that such should exist, but the population was vast and the numbers coming before the courts small – most people, the overwhelming majority, managed to survive in decency. Perhaps the children were no more than victims, but the adults had chosen their course, or at least had not fought hard enough against their circumstances. Their fate was to an extent, he believed, of their own making.

  Christopher took passage on the accommodation boat on the canal south from Manchester. Two horses and ten miles an hour, slowed by locks in the upland sections, but less than ten hours to make the journey. Cheaper than the stage by a few pennies, faster and more comfortable, the sole drawback being that small farmers habitually took their chickens and geese to market on the canal boats, even occasionally a litter of piglets, and these were both noisy and smelly. One could not have everything and he had brought a book with him, was able to survive.

  Humphrey met him at the canal basin in the centre of Birmingham, led him off to a friend’s house where they dined, very comfortably, and met a few of his acquaintances.

  “No great need for family names, I think, Christopher. I call myself Maximilien here, after Robespierre. We are all of a like mind, and that is what counts, as I am certain you will agree.”

  Christopher was excited to be part of their group, was quite sure that he had met with the real progenitors of the revolution that must come. They did not need to give their true names, indeed he should possibly think of a proper soubriquet for himself, one that would demonstrate his revolutionary credentials.

  “We must show the bullying aristos that we do not fear them, that their sabres and muskets will not turn us from our cause!”

  The speaker refilled his water glass – no alcohol, no Mother’s Ruin, no Dutch Comfort for him, he had proclaimed.

  “They are men of violence, and understand nothing else. We should do unto them as they do unto us. A great act of defiance, one that will make them learnt that they do not terrify us!”

  Christopher agreed, he had been delighted when shots had been fired at the Prince Regent in the previous year, regretted only that they had missed. He said as much, pointing out that such an example must become known to every man in the country, the word of such an act must spread.

  “The government can tax and silence our newspapers, sir, but they cannot prevent the echoes of gunshots being heard across the whole land.”

  The brave would-be assassin of the Prince had failed, primarily because he had little experience of firearms and had not been able to aim straight. Perhaps the bomb would be more effective than the bullet.

  Christopher, anxious to play his part but wholly without military experience, agreed.

  They talked long into the night, the speaker eventually offering him a name.

  “Call me Oliver, if you will. A good name in British history!”

  Christopher accepted the offer of a bed, discovered he was sharing a room with Humphrey, raised no protest – what Mark did not hear about would cause him no grief, after all.

  In the morning they attended the meeting, together, cheering and clapping mightily. That evening they met more friends at a different house.

  Oliver was there again and said that he knew a ‘good man and true’ who was a carter by trade, an ‘honest, horny-handed toiler’, and one who habitually transported kegs of gunpowder from the mills in Kent. He had a mate, of course, and always an armed escort, so he could not simply appropriate his load and disappear with it.

  Christopher liked the word ‘appropriate’, so much more revolutionary than the expression ‘theft’ which Mark would undoubtedly have used.

  “The escort is of two men with pistols and muskets, soldiers whose battalions were disbanded and think themselves lucky to have any work. His mate is no more than a youth and normally carries a cutlass.”

  “Six men, say, to stop them on the road and the job would be done, Oliver. Holding them at gunpoint there would be no need for any actual violence.”

  Oliver agreed that it could be done, changed the topic of conversation, preferring, it seemed, to discuss other matters. He refilled Christopher’s glass from the punch bowl on the table – a ‘weak mixture’ of rum and one or two other things.

  “How big is the powder wagon?” Christopher asked later, his mind still on bombs rather than a national petition to be laid before the King.

  “Two tons. One hundred and sixty barrels of white mark, fine-grain gunpowder suitable for any purpose or occasionally of the red coarser grain that is used in quarries and pits.”

  Christopher subsided into silent thought, unaware that the others were watching him carefully.

  Oliver shook his head when Humphrey quietly asked whether they should take the matter further that night.

  “Let him come to you on another day,” Oliver whispered.

  Music was the order of Saturday, Humphrey apparently quite uninterested in matters political. On Sunday, defying the old maids who condemned such activity, Christopher travelled back to Manchester. He hardly read his book, his mind wholly taken up with the thought of two tons of gunpowder and where it could be placed to the best possible effect.

  London provided obvious targets, but had the drawback that it was a long way away and he had never been there, knew none of its inhabitants, doubted he would even be able to find Westminster or Downing Street. Best to stay close to home.

  There were cavalry and militia barracks, some the new, permanent red brick constructions, many more just canvas camps, and scattered across all of industrial Lancashire. Every garrison had an Officers Mess and each such Mess had its kitchens attached, deliveries of meats and greenstuffs made every day. No doubt there were pantries and stores at the depots in the bigger towns, but the tented cantonments would be without such refinements. Deliveries would be made by cart or wagon and probably, almost certainly, left in those wagons until they were all used when the team would be hitched up again and the empty taken away. An extra wagon appearing at dusk and left as close as possible to the Mess tent would
never be noticed. Two tons of powder, forty hundredweights, say eight bombs, the powder kegs perhaps buried under barrels of road stone.

  Dragoons, Yeomanry and Militia alike had butchered protesting workers, claiming to be ‘quelling riot’. The rank and file could not be blamed for their part, they could not disobey orders except at the price of hanging or five hundred, even a thousand lashes, but the officers were all drawn from the bully-boy classes. They were overdue for a lesson.

  He decided that he must make contact with Oliver, in a week or two perhaps, when he had time to present a plan, a scheme naming each target and stating where he would obtain the carts. Oliver could then, as he had hinted, find a way to ‘appropriate’ the powder.

  “So, I think, sir, that we must make an attempt to bring order to our streets. A degree of control offered by our own constables will serve to keep the soldiers away in future.”

  Joseph Star listened to his son, patiently waiting for the sting in the tail of his reasoned argument. The upturn in business had come just in time to avoid insurrection, that was obvious to him. Six more months of depression would have brought civil war, one that the government would have lost for lack of manpower to fight it. Another set of business failures, a banking collapse like ‘95, say, would recreate the conditions for a successful revolution, unless changes were made. It seemed to Joe that they could go one of two ways – repression and coercion, the Irish cure for unrest, or some degree of protection for the poorest, a guarantee that come what may, starvation could not be tolerated. It sounded as if Thomas was advocating the Irish course.

  “An Improvement Commission, sir, that is what is required. A local board to introduce a Watch Force and to build sewers and reticulate potable water, paid for by a locally levied rate on all property owners.”

  “What of feeding the elderly and the destitute, Thomas?”

  “In times of hardship, yes, sir. During bad winters or deep depression, then perhaps it might be necessary, but we should take care not to usurp the rights and duties of the head of the family. Care of the weak is the responsibility of their own kin, except when all of them are also destitute.”