‘I have been so dejected since Wednesday,’ he said. ‘What with Hume, and Margaret’s illness, and … other things.’
‘How is Margaret?’
‘A little better. She feared she was consumptive but it is not serious, thank God. But it’s not that that vexes me … John, I have been a wicked man again. After the bowls.’
‘You mean,’ said Maclaurin, mockingly wide-eyed, ‘when ye left us the ither nicht, ye didna gang straucht hame tae Mrs Boswell? Weel, I’m astonished at ye, James.’
‘I don’t know what got into me. Anxiety, fear for Margaret’s health …’
‘A guid three bottles o wine.’
‘Well, whatever, I wandered about town until I saw a fresh-looking girl –’
‘Fresh-looking!’ Maclaurin said derisively.
‘– and lay with her up by the Castle. And then of course I was struck with remorse, and went home and confessed everything.’
‘Whit? Ye tellt Margaret that nicht? Wi her seik, and you fou and your breeks hardly done up? James, I dinna ken why I’m freens wi ye. Ye’re a monster.’
‘I don’t know what got into me,’ Boswell repeated. ‘I cannot help it. My depravity has been exercising me most cruelly in my journal.’
‘Dae ye ever think whit would happen if somebody ither than your wife got haud o your precious journal? A disgruntled servant for example? Think o the shame!’
‘Oh, I do, I do! Just the other day in the street, a wretched creature caught my eye and tried to lure me off on an … adventure. I resisted, and she caught me by the arm and actually begged me by name, “Mr Boswell!” Fortunately I was not in company.’
‘Wi some men, their reputation precedes them,’ Maclaurin said, ‘but yours slinks aboot in the shadows waitin tae molest ye.’
‘And now, to cap it all,’ Boswell said, ‘I think I may have caught something. I’ll have to get Cameron to find out who this lass is and if she’s clean.’
Maclaurin stopped to let Crosbie catch up.
‘Not a word now,’ Boswell said.
‘I wish ye didna feel ye had tae tell me whit ye canna tell him,’ said Maclaurin. ‘I dinna wish tae hear it, and it seems tae dae ye nae guid tae tell me. Ye’ll be awa wi anither strumpet next week, I dinna dout.’
‘Oh, do not nag me, my wife does enough of that!’ Boswell said, suddenly pettish. As Crosbie reached them, he set off at a pace, leaving the other two behind.
‘Whit’s up wi him?’ Crosbie asked.
‘Och, dinna fash, it’s jist James. He’ll be as sunny as the day in five minutes.’
Nothing, though, would fully shake Boswell out of his mood this evening, although he could not bear to be left out of the conversation and so rejoined them by slowing to a dawdle. They talked of Hume.
‘Puir Davie,’ Maclaurin said. ‘That was a lang, sair struggle he had.’
‘Well, scarcely a struggle,’ Boswell said. ‘More like a mild dispute. I never saw a man face illness with such equanimity. He did not even seem much to resent it, though it must have given him terrible pain.’
‘It was very shocking,’ said Crosbie, ‘tae pass him in the street and see the pounds drap frae him even faster than he pit them on when he was weel.’
‘Oh aye, he was a grey, gash fellow at the end,’ said Maclaurin. ‘And yet it’s true, he generally managed a smile if he was receiving visitors. If he couldna manage the smile, his servant didna let ye in.’
‘I went to see him buried yesterday on the Calton Hill,’ said Boswell. ‘There was quite a procession of carriages. I watched from behind the graveyard wall. I didn’t feel it was quite right of me to be there.’
‘I dout the kirkmen stayed away for the same reason,’ Maclaurin remarked. ‘Even his moderate minister freens wouldna want tae be seen paying their last respects tae an atheist.’
‘Weel,’ Crosbie said, ‘he would hae preferred it that way. He wouldna hae wanted tae be herried oot o the world by ministers at the hinner end.’
‘I saw him just a month past,’ said Boswell. ‘I missed church and went to see Hume instead – a compound error. You know, I could not get him to shift his views one bit. He was quite calm about being annihilated, even faced with the certainty of death perhaps only days away.’
‘Or the uncertainty o it,’ Crosbie said. ‘Surely that’s the point. He didna believe in an afterlife because ye couldna prove it, so it was a waste o time fashin aboot it.’
‘But that’s what I find so … so shocking. What if he was wrong? I mean, as I’m sure he was. What if you were to die thinking you would pass into oblivion, and then you did not? How would you face God then?’
‘Presumably ye would jist hae tae apologise,’ Maclaurin said. ‘And God would either say, “Weel, Mr Hume, ye were mistaken, and noo ye’ll burn in hellfire for your mistake,” which wouldna be very Christian, or he’d say, “Weel, Davie, ye were quite aff on the wrang track there but ye’re a cosy kind o chiel in spite o your delusions so come awa in and we’ll hae a crack aboot it. Your auld freens are here tae – weel, maist o them onywey.”’
Crosbie laughed, but Boswell did not like the flippancy of Maclaurin’s tone. ‘You’re as bad as Hume. I did ask him, would it not be agreeable to see your friends again, and he said it would be but he thought it highly unlikely and anyway if he did not exist he would not miss them. Really, he was quite immovable, but perfectly pleasant all the while. We parted on very good terms, for which I am grateful.’
‘If ye had been a minister trying tae save his soul frae himsel, he micht no hae been sae nice,’ Crosbie said.
‘Oh, ministers!’ cried Boswell. ‘They make me ashamed to be a Scotsman. The fanatics are intolerable, and even the moderates are less moderate than they seem. Mr Blair at St Giles’, for heaven’s sake, has taken to praying against the Americans, and with a ferocity that is ridiculous in such a mild man. Asking God to defeat your enemies in bloody conflict does not seem very Christian to me.’
‘It isna very Christian,’ Maclaurin said. ‘Or if it is, and it’s no wrang to ask God tae smite the Americans, it must also be acceptable tae ask him tae smite your opposite coonsel in court, or your ill-mainnered neighbour. But that’s religion for ye.’
‘No, no,’ said Boswell, ‘it’s not religion’s fault. It’s the narrowness of men.’
‘Ye canna hae it baith weys. Mr Blair isna a narrow man. He’s a literary man, a philosopher, a man o taste. He’s rid himsel o barbarities like Scotch words, James, so he must be braid-minded, eh? And he was a freen o Hume’s tae. Yet he’s a Christian that rails against the Americans – jist like your Dr Johnson – when aw they hae done is assert their independence and write it doun in a fine document, if ye want my opinion.’
‘On that subject – I think we ken – where aw oor sympathies lie,’ Crosbie said. He was beginning to pech as they climbed past St Anthony’s Chapel.
‘I disagree with Johnson on this, as you know,’ said Boswell, ‘but at least he is consistent. An Anglican, a loyalist, a man who believes in authority – whereas our ministers only believe in it when they possess it.’
‘Aye,’ said Maclaurin, ‘a Presbyterian in opposition tae government is a noble beast. A touch fanatical, it may be, but noble. But a Presbyterian licking the Government’s fud is a miserable craitur.’
This image did at least draw a laugh from Boswell. ‘There should be a cartoon done of that,’ he said.
‘Whether ye’re in favour o it or no,’ Crosbie said, ‘it seems obvious tae me that the war canna be won by this country. No in the lang term. It grieves me that the folk in London winna see that and get peace noo, afore thoosands mair men are killt on baith sides. If it drags on intae next year, and beyond, the Americans will finish free and independent, jist as they should be, but there’ll be aw this bluid skailt in the meantime and bad bluid atween the nations for a generation. Ye canna win a war across such an ocean, no against men in their ain country. Ye may think ye’ve won, then up it’ll flare again, and again a
nd again until ye accept it and come hame.’
‘The King canna see that,’ said Maclaurin. ‘He refuses tae see it. And his ministers either winna tell him, or they refuse tae see it as weel.’
‘Dundas is the worst,’ Boswell said. ‘He’ll not budge an inch. He always was thrawn, but he’s politic enough in law, so why does he dig in his heels so against America?’
‘Because he is ambitious,’ Crosbie said, ‘and as lang as the King says “nae concessions”, so will Harry.’
‘Maybe he genuinely believes it,’ Maclaurin said. ‘That it would be wrang tae gie in tae the colonists – an abrogation o responsibility, o authority.’
‘Submit or starvate!’ Boswell shouted, momentarily gleeful. Henry Dundas, in a speech in the Commons the previous year, after his elevation to the post of Lord Advocate, had had the House in uproar when he had said that the New Englanders could choose not only between rebellion and ‘starvation’, they could choose a third way, to submit. The English MPs, who already loved to mock his thick accent and frequent Scotticisms, had hooted at this new invention, and now went about calling him ‘Starvation’ Dundas. Boswell, never fond of the Dundases in any case, still found this entertaining. The others disagreed with Dundas’s views, but they respected his refusal, or his inability, to give up being Scottish, and as for the new word neither of them thought it a particularly awful coinage.
‘Dinna be tiresome, James,’ said Crosbie. ‘Harry’s no aw bad. For a Lord Advocate he’s quite liberal in some areas o the law. He’s got a wise auld heid on him.’
‘He’s two years younger than I am!’ Boswell cried. ‘How do you get to be Lord Advocate at thirty-three? He may be clever but he’s damned lucky as well. It must help to have a half-brother as Lord President.’
‘Ye’d better no start hurling thae stanes aboot,’ Crosbie said. ‘You wi a faither on the Bench, and on dining terms wi twa-three ither o their lordships. It’s aye been like that here: faithers and sons and uncles and brithers, Dundases and Fergusons and Dalrymples and Lockharts and Erskines. Good God, man, oor law’s as thrang wi relations as a Persian palace!’
‘We’re a small country,’ Maclaurin said. ‘It’s inevitable.’
By now they were approaching the summit of Arthur’s Seat. The last short haul was steep and all talk ceased till they had perched themselves on the rocks, warm from the heat of the sun, which was still well clear of the western horizon. Below them the city was spread out in the softening light. As ever, a few other people were also on the hill top, pointing out particular buildings and streets to one another or just admiring the view in silence. The three lawyers caught their breath. Crosbie, the heaviest of the three, was sweating, Boswell’s pulse was racing, and even Maclaurin felt obliged to loosen his cravat.
They saw as a whole what they more often saw as a confusion of layers and fragments – the old city on its rock, the various construction sites on the north side of the new bridge, the houses going up all along Princes Street and behind. It was borne in upon them how huge the changes were that had already taken place, and how, in time, all the fields and gardens as far even as the village of Broughton might become paved over and built on. That seemed incredible, yet looking to the southside, at George Square and Newington, it was possible to see how rapidly such expansion could take place.
‘By the way,’ Crosbie said to Maclaurin after a while, ‘I hear Harry Dundas is interested in your Negro case.’
‘Interested?’ said Boswell.
‘Aye. The case John and Maconochie hae taen on frae Perth. Am I richt, John? Harry wants tae be involved?’
‘He is involved,’ Maclaurin said. ‘I’ve yet tae speak tae him aboot it in detail, but Mr Davidson – our client’s solicitor, James – had the notion of approaching Harry tae strengthen oor hand, and I thocht it would dae nae hairm. He agreed tae commit his services the other nicht when we were at dinner at Purves’s.’
‘What can he offer that you and Maconochie don’t already bring to the case?’ Boswell asked.
‘The fact that he is Lord Advocate,’ said Maclaurin. ‘His eloquence – dinna smirk, man. His general antipathy tae slavery.’
‘Much he has done about it,’ Boswell said.
‘He moves wi the times,’ said Crosbie. ‘He kens it canna jist be gotten rid o in a week. But that disna mean he mislikes it ony less. It’s the same wi the colliers and salters here at hame.’
The previous year, an Act had been passed emancipating these workers from their peculiar bonds of servitude, guided through Parliament by Dundas’s predecessor as Lord Advocate. Dundas had not been involved, but had approved of the measure. Until then, Scottish colliers and salters had been bound for life to their masters, the mine and saltworks owners. It had been something of an embarrassment among enlightened men, that such bondage should survive in a society as advanced as Scotland had become. And yet, as Crosbie, Maclaurin and Boswell all knew, the driving motivation in the movement for change had not been the liberation of the oppressed labourer. Instead an argument had raged between conservative and modernising masters. The former resented any outside interference in the way they exploited their coal reserves. The latter were keen to open up mining to a much larger workforce, subject both wages and prices to competition and make far bigger profits. Only by destroying the old labour system, which was in effect a closed shop, could this be achieved.
There were some colliers and salters who, miserable though their lot was, were as fierce against gaining their liberty as some of their masters were determined to impose it on them. With life bondage came back-breaking labour, danger, disease and an early death, but also certain benefits: higher wages than those of other workers such as farm labourers; free or cheap housing; security of a sort. There were other colliers and salters who bitterly resented their serfdom, the fact that not only they but their wives, sons and daughters were bound into the system for life. Among both owners and workers there had been much argument, anger and confusion over the way forward. As a result the 1775 Act was so beset with age qualifications, exclusions and time lags that it had not made a clean break with the past. Dundas, the feeling was, wanted a further Act to make the emancipation complete.
‘You would think,’ said Boswell, ‘with his great enthusiasm for the war, and all his other ploys, he had enough on his plate without interfering in this Negro case. Who’s acting for Wedderburn?’
‘Young Ferguson, Pitfour’s son, Robert Cullen, and Ilay Campbell,’ Crosbie said.
‘That’s a team of the first rank. Your Negro will be up against it.’
‘Our client has a name,’ said Maclaurin testily. ‘It is Joseph Knight. He’s no a zoological specimen.’
‘Ye’re richt, of course,’ said Crosbie. ‘Still, it is aboot his race, is it no? If he wasna a Negro he wouldna be a slave.’
‘Quite,’ Boswell said. ‘That is why people speak of the “Negro case". It is not just about one man. It’s about the institution, our trade, our empire, our prosperity. Ignore all that and of course there is no good reason why Mr Knight should not be free. But you cannot ignore it, and there is the difficulty.’
‘So ye would sacrifice Knight and the rest o his race for oor trade?’ Maclaurin asked.
‘I see no other option.’
‘Be grateful ye were not born an African, then.’
‘Believe me, I am.’
‘If ye’re richt, James,’ said Maclaurin, ‘that ye canna isolate Mr Knight frae the bigger picture, then ye lead us back tae the very point Dr Johnson made that nicht at your hoose. We must get back tae first principles. If we canna omit the haill question o slavery in oor colonies – the immorality, the illegality, the barbarity o slavery – if we canna leave aw that oot, then we must keep it aw in. As, indeed, Allan Maconochie and I decided some while back. Oor memorials, therefore, are an entire history o slavery, frae the ancients tae modern times. Even Monboddo ought tae approve oor classical references.’
‘I could ask Dr Johnson to contri
bute, if you wish,’ said Boswell, suddenly enlivened. ‘You know his views. His opinion would, I am sure, lend a good deal more gravitas to your arguments than anything Dundas may come up with.’
‘Aye, weel, that would be fine,’ said Maclaurin. ‘Every little helps.’
‘I’m sure it would be more than a little.’
‘And we’ll welcome it if and when it comes, James. But oor memorials were delivered months ago, so it would be guid only for the day in court, and I dinna ken when that’s tae be. It’s Wedderburn’s side that’s haudin the process up. I’ve complained tae the President aboot it, but they jist winna submit their papers. Meanwhile Joseph Knight is half destitute in Dundee, scrapin a livin at God kens whit. It’s as weel we’re no chairgin him fees or the puir man would likely hae gien himsel back tae his maister by noo. And he’s a wife and bairn and the wife’s mither tae fash aboot tae.’
‘Maybe Wedderburn’s draggin his heels deliberately, tae break him,’ Crosbie suggested.
‘No, I think it’s Cullen that’s at fault. I believe the miners’ and salters’ Act has sent him away tae think again. Whitever else it has or hasna done, it has certainly destroyed the idea that perpetual servitude is something we should accept jist because it’s Scottish! Did I tell ye, by the way, that the colliers in Fife raised some money for Mr Knight? They sent a representative tae meet him the last time he was in Edinburgh. They see him as a fellow-sufferer.’
‘They’re certainly about the same colour,’ Boswell said.
‘Aye,’ Crosbie said, ‘but the colliers start aff as white as you and me.’
They sat in silence for a while, until Boswell said, indicating the scene below them with a sweep of his arm – the castle, the city, the broad gleaming firth, the green fields and woods extending westward, the Pentlands, the coast of Fife – ‘Am I hopelessly prejudiced, or is there another view in the world to better this one?’
The others added their murmurs of appreciation. The previous discussion suddenly seemed out of place, as if that shining expanse could contain nothing disagreeable. But the argument continued in Maclaurin’s head as they lay there, and later as they made their way off the hill nose to tail like the cattle they had seen earlier. That night it revisited him in the form of a dream.
Joseph Knight Page 27
