The Old Order (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 7)

by Andrew Wareham

  “No doubt your people could make their voices heard in State elections, sir. I would, of course, take responsibility for any men and their families, paying their way, guaranteeing their wages and covering any costs you had already been to. Educated men, such as could possibly become masters in a school, would be especially welcome.”

  Quillerson had been tipped the wink that a number of troublemakers had surfaced in recent years, politically aware Irishmen from the middle order of folk who had fought their English masters and had not come to New York to obey orders and had particularly not wished to pay the Hall taxes on their wages. These ungrateful fellows were becoming a problem in the city and had made a loud fuss when a couple had been found well-beaten in back alleys; there was word of some of them considering creating a Fenian Lodge, both for protection and to fight the English again, certainly to make trouble and upset the peaceful tenor of life in the city..

  Getting rid of disloyal elements who could not be trusted near a ballot box was a different matter; it seemed they might be able to cooperate to an extent.

  “I have a number of stores in the upstate villages, sir. Perhaps you could point me towards merchants I could buy from in bulk.”

  With that quid pro quo they could certainly find common ground. It did occur to the sachem that this man Quillerson seemed overly anxious to ingratiate himself with Tammany Hall, but perhaps he had future political ambitions, wanted to be recognised as a candidate for a few years hence.

  Nothing could be done overnight, obviously, but Mr Quillerson should come back in three or four weeks; there should be some progress in that time.

  That was as much as he had hoped for.

  Tammany Hall was openly political, an organisation that served the poor and downtrodden, and did some good as well. It was covertly criminal, its fingers in a lot of messy pies – and where it was not directly involved it could give very useful introductions to trusted acquaintances,

  John Quillerson had never been on close terms with his father, but he had been grieved and distressed at his casual murder. He had received word that Godby Fletcher, the killer, had fled England and was quite probably in New York; if he was then his whereabouts could be discovered by any man who was well-in with Tammany Hall.

  Additionally, he was intending to stay in the States and if possible make his fortune and that really demanded political friends.

  Colonel Miller seemed to have embraced respectability and had told him that he might possibly be moving out of New York. That meant doing business with Thomas Miller, who he did not like or trust – he was too intelligent and had taken the younger man’s measure too quickly. If he worked with the Millers then he would very rapidly find himself in second place, their favours bought too expensively. That being the case, logic demanded that he should put himself in the opposite camp to them. The Millers saw themselves as gentry; Tammany Hall was as far distant as one could find.

  A month later Quillerson was back in the office of the fat cigar smoker, who had never quite managed to come up with his name. Two other, older, men flanked him.

  “Your people are all British by extraction, Mr Quillerson. Off of the estate of Lord Andrews in the English Midlands.”

  Quillerson agreed that that was broadly correct.

  “A well-known man, Lord Andrews, one who has paid the cost of more than one shipload of Irish men and women, and put them ashore with a few dollars in their pocket to get by with. Never did work out why.”

  The suspicion was obvious – Lord Andrews was part of the English ruling classes and might be working for the English government for unexplained but undoubtedly anti-American purposes.

  “Most of his workers in Lancashire and South Wales are Irish born or second generation, sir. They know that their cousins and distant relatives have been treated well, and that makes them better disposed to my lord. Add to that, simple generosity, for I know from personal experience that he is a kind-hearted man in many ways, though he can be fearsomely hard in others, I am told. My father worked for him for most of his life, and died standing in front of a bullet aimed at him. He has not yet tracked the killer down; when he does I have no doubt of what he will do, and I am sure he will not give up the hunt while he has a breath in him.”

  The three nodded approval in unison – they were not about to turn the other cheek in their dealings, respected the same in their acquaintance and believed whole-heartedly in loyalty to their own folk.

  “Are you in his employ now, Mr Quillerson?”

  “Not directly, though I have been performing commissions for him off and on. Mostly, sir, I am in business for myself, in the inland areas. Furs and hides as well as agricultural products and a little in the way of ingot metals brought into New York. Sugar and whisky and gunpowder and cotton cloth and needles and thread and coffee and tea, all the goods that thrifty villagers do not produce for themselves, I sell in my stores in the villages. I am forever looking for other profitable lines.”

  “I did hear mention, Mr Quillerson, of some interest in the slavery question.”

  One of the older men, idly putting the matter forward; Quillerson was instantly alert, he had thought he had been sufficiently discreet in his dealings. Presumably one of the men he had bribed had also been in the hand of Tammany Hall and had passed the word to them.

  “I have seen working men here being undercut by black labour, the weekly wage reduced to a pittance by their unfair competition. I think we want none of them working here, sir. Let the Southerners have their slaves if they must, but keep them off our backs, sir.”

  “We certainly do not want them in our factories and mills, sir. Will we not be undone by their labour in the South?”

  “I think not, sir. Mr Henry Star, youngest son of the Cotton King, Lord Star, who is the great friend of Lord Andrews, has a shipyard in New Orleans. He tells me that the slaves are incapable of skilled tasks and that free tradesmen are few and far between, because they upset the slaves. By adhering to slave labour the South keeps itself agricultural, gentlemen; they are unable to compete with our manufacturing because they cannot employ skilled men.”

  That was an interesting concept, one they discussed at some length before finding it to be sensible.

  “Perhaps we should be less enthusiastic in our support for Abolitionism, Mr Quillerson. We can do better in industry than in the fields, I believe, and we should leave grubbing in the dirt to those better suited to it. If they need slaves for that purpose… well, it is a pity, but, really, it is none of our affair and we certainly do not want competition with our own people. It seems that we may be able to do business, sir. Not to any extent in the matter of finding workers for you, I fear, though a teacher or two might eventually be possible, but we might discuss questions of wholesale supply of certain goods.”

  The speaker was very anglicised in accent, suggesting a position in the leadership of the Hall, a conscious attempt to climb out of the plebeian gutter in his speech.

  “Cards on the table, gentlemen? I will be very happy to deal with the merchants you point me to, and will be pleased to pay my dues appropriately. In exchange… well, gentlemen, I am an Englishman still, would wish to change that status and as well would welcome helpful advice on any matters that might not be obvious to me as a foreigner. I have every intention of becoming successful as a businessman and will be glad of any assistance that might come my way, and I am not begging something for nothing!”

  “Plain speaking indeed, Mr Quillerson! And welcomed, it makes a pleasant change from the tergiversations that so often come our way. Tammany Hall is not without influence, and will grow – and those who are our friends will not be forgotten over the years, sir!”

  A week later and Quillerson was invited to buy four wagonloads of sugar and spirits and denim cloth, at a price that was well below that prevailing in the markets. It was very strongly suggested that the goods should be moved out of New York on an early day, should in fact be sold in stores located a good distance out of town.r />
  He shrugged, paid up in immediate cash and loaded a flatboat that afternoon.

  It was quite clear that their first favour to him was overtly criminal in its nature, the goods were stolen; as a result they had a noose round his neck, for they would certainly have kept evidence sufficient to satisfy a court. He was tied into their nexus of favours and corruption now, could not back out: his loyalty was assured.

  A few months and he would ask his first little service of them, just the name Fletcher was now using and a location for him; he could give them the rough date when the young gentleman would have appeared in New York, money in his pocket, and they would be able to find out the rest. They had been forewarned, knew that his father had been murdered, and by then he would be one of their own people and they would support his desire for justice; Tammany Hall looked after its own. The only problem that could arise would be if Fletcher had also made himself one of them – but he was not Irish, so it was less likely.

  Colonel Miller was slowing, the world of business was demanding too much energy of him and he had decided that it was now time that he sought the comforts of retirement from active life.

  “Virginia, Thomas, that is the place for me. I was born not so far from Richmond, you know, left when I was a young man. I expect the hue and cry has died down now! Certainly my name has changed and I cannot imagine that there would be any difficulties after forty years – in any case, my activities irritated the British authorities of the day, so I can claim early patriotism!”

  Thomas laughed and shook his head – he had never heard any details of his adopted father’s youth, was inclined now to be thankful that he had not.

  “A house in town, sir? Or would you think to buy a plantation for your final years? I suggest that a piece of land would make good sense; better than sitting down and vegetating, sir! A mature plantation with a good overseer would provide you with some interest and not too much activity, the best of both worlds!”

  It was a sensible suggestion, the Colonel thought; it would give the family a very respectable pedigree in future years when political eminence beckoned the grandchildren.

  “I have always wished to be a landowner, Thomas, riding out over broad cultivated acres - the hard work done by other, inferior folk, the pleasures all mine! Buy into cotton, I think, not tobacco or rice lands in the hotter south of the state, and not a wholly new venture in the west, in the less civilised parts, though I wonder if we might not do something about that one day.”

  “We shall be taking up lands in the north, around the Lakes sir, just as soon as the Canal is finished.”

  Proxy settlers would file on the acreages for them, transferring the land, apparently in their own family, as soon as they had established title and moving on to areas where their names would be unknown to the authorities. Men who did not wish to enjoy the unending labour of the pioneer farmer’s life yet wanted to profit from the new lands were often amenable to earning a commission from the rich who intended to build up estates for their families. The process was unlawful, but the chance of being caught out was almost nil…

  “I thought perhaps of the Spanish lands in the west,” the colonel said. “Purchase of Spanish land grants will avoid American homesteading laws; the Spanish measure their holdings in multiples of the square mile, not in acres, and even if much of the land is dry it is still an estate, and canals can be dug in time. The Spanish will not wish to encourage Americans to encroach, but have showed much less hostility to the English – there have been quite large purchases in the Texas Presidency. I have had suspicions on occasion, have wondered whether London is seeking to establish a new colony to the west of the States, one that might creep northwards to the Canadian border eventually and fence us in on the East Coast. Enquiries over the years have brought no evidence of such being the overt policy, but the nature of English government is such that often the right hand does not know what the left is doing. Their Foreign Office could be doing one thing while their Prime Minister said, and believed, something else entirely.”

  Thomas acknowledged the possibility but was not convinced.

  “My less broad knowledge of the English, coupled with personal observation, sir, suggests that the right hand does not know what the right hand is doing all of the time. So much of their policy is not ‘policy’ at all, sir, in the sense of being thought out in advance – a situation arises and they react, then, a year or two later, they discover all that they have done and produce a rationale to justify it, or offer a disclaimer and say they did not do it at all!”

  The colonel was entertained; he had not considered the effects of government by blunder.

  “No great plots and conspiracies, you say? Just Nature’s innocents wandering the world and dropping into one hole after another, and so powerful now that they can always pull themselves out again. They keep but a small army in England now, but I would not wish to guess how many sepoy battalions they could ship out of India if the occasion arose, and their navy is still very great.”

  “I think so, sir. I believe they are leaders by default, a side-effect of the long and wide-spread war. Like it or not, and whether they want it or not, England is the great power of our world, for now.” Thomas sat a minute in thought then started to smile. “As a result, it might well be possible to extend our proxy purchases by way of London. Was we to commission a bona fide Englishman or two to travel out from Bristol and potter about in the Texas or California, then the results could well be very interesting to us and the English government would have no objections, probably having no knowledge of our activities.”

  “The gentlemen to purchase for themselves, using money very clearly originating in London, uncontaminated by the dollar. Thus lulling the Spanish into compliance, for they will inevitably be willing to bend their laws on foreign ownership of their soil, if paid enough and if the dreaded Americans are nowhere to be seen. The lands then to be placed into the possession of a joint-stock venture, for business reasons, and all of the shares to be ours, without any great trumpeting of the fact until ten or twenty or more years are gone by and the Spanish colonists have been sent the way of Mad King George and we can then surface in proud, legal possession.”

  Thomas agreed, asked whether they should use Goldsmids or Mostyns for their go-betweens.

  “I tend to favour Mostyns, sir, being as that Mr Robert Andrews would probably take a personal interest in us, and he is a banker who is less inclined, shall we say, to consider the more trivial aspects of legality.”

  Colonel Miller found he liked that concept, savoured it aloud.

  “Trivial aspects of legality. You know, Thomas, I never quite managed to complete my schooling, and I never before appreciated just how useful a way with words could be. We must just make sure always to stand before judges who share that same understanding!”

  Thomas had been to the best of schools but had chosen not to proceed to a college. A greater feeling for the works of the Ancients might have been fine for his moral development, but he had been able to see little gain for his business career. His own son, still at the breast, would however be exposed to all of the benefits of tertiary education – but he would be kept at a distance from matters of business, unless urgent in his demands to follow in his father’s footsteps.

  “Should we deal with the New York branches of the banks, sir? Would it be better to send an emissary to London and conduct all of the procedure there?”

  They considered the point at some length, concluded that the ideal would be to work out of the Old World, leave no possible trail to surface in New York, but that it was impossible to achieve.

  “Forty days typically from New York to London, a week more or less depending upon season and winds. Three months to send a message to our London agent and receive a reply, meaning that the decisions must either be taken on the spot in London or risk being hopelessly behind the fair. Who could be our absolutely to be trusted man in London?”

  Thomas was the only possibility, and he would the
n be visible to the Spanish embassy people, a known, rich American whose affairs could never be kept wholly secret. Besides that, Thomas had no wish to spend the next five years in England; he was American and wanted to stay in his own proper place.

  “What about that young man, Quillerson, Thomas? He is one of Lord Andrews’ people.”

  “He was, certainly, sir. He is his own man now, I believe, and one who I might trust just as far as I could throw him! Mr John Quillerson is minded to make his fortune, sir, and will do so as expeditiously as he may, and without consideration for the methods he uses. I have certain word that he is not unknown to the sachems of Tammany, though I am not in fact entirely convinced that it is money he seeks with their aid.”

  “Political advancement? He is young for that and as yet too poor, surely.”

  “I don’t think so, sir. I wonder if he might not be upset that slight progress has been made in the discovery of the assassin who butchered his father. The search led from England would seem to have stalled and, according to my lady wife’s last communication from her parents, it is almost certain that the killer fled the country. He will surely have gone to one of the English-speaking lands, and there is no trace of him in the Antipodes or the Cape or India, all of them with small populations and easy to winnow through, and so he almost must be in America or Canada.”

  The colonel agreed, asked what he intended.

  “Not to poke my nose into the affairs of the gangs in our fair city, sir. I have no desire to rub shoulders with the low-life denizens of New York, for the contiguity once achieved, it can never be reversed. I passed word to our correspondents in Boston and to the south more than a twelvemonth ago, but there is no word of a possible suspect yet, leading me to suppose that New York is his most likely place of abode. Apparently the murderer possessed ample funds, having first fallen upon his employer of the day, a usurer to whom he was bodyguard.”