It might be interesting to discover just what he was. He rang the bell on his desk, called for his bodyguard.
"Mitch, this Englishman, he ain't what he seems to be, I think. Bring him upstairs for me, take a look at him, he might be carrying. If he's tooled up then come in with him - you know the score and can play his music better."
"I'll watch him, sir, never you fear."
Mitch had come well recommended from Richmond - he had had to leave after a minor episode with a local gang who had targeted his previous employer and then objected to losing six dead. He could be relied upon.
Bates was a very ordinary-seeming man, one who could lose himself quietly in a small group, let alone a crowd. In his thirties, Henry estimated, medium height, not fat, walking very light on his feet - not a soldier, he did not have the straight back; naval, perhaps.
"Good morning, Mr... Bates, is it?"
No harm in letting him know that he had doubts about the name.
"Good morning, Mr Star. I represent a committee of planters from Jamaica, sir, with, I suspect, some interests in common with you."
The Sugar Islands, where slavery was soon to be abolished and the plantations were to become worthless, or next best thing. The word was that the planters had no intention of paying wages to their ex-slaves - they had ideas about share-cropping, it seemed, which would amount to bondage in disguise. It would not work, because the blacks were becoming organised, partly through their own endeavours, to an extent with help from London. The probability was that most of the plantations would fail, go bankrupt, and then be broken up into smaller sections to be farmed by the ex-slaves. The planters themselves stood to lose a lot of money, everything in most cases, and must be anxious to secure the little they could, to sell up. What could they send to New Orleans?
A few thousands of slaves would be very welcome, there was a shortage of labour since the trade had been brought almost to an end.
Henry very quickly thought his way through the possibilities - far too risky!
The probability was that one or two shiploads could be moved unnoticed, all unseen, but anything more would come to the attention of the authorities, the word spreading rapidly to the missionaries and anti-slavers on the island. Then it would be the Navy taking the slave-ships and bringing their crews to trial; ships' officers faced with the choice of the noose or informing would spill the beans and there would be outraged complaints to Washington. Six months, at most, before there were Federal agents banging on the doors at dawn.
"I cannot imagine what interests I might share with the British in Jamaica or any of the other islands, sir. Do tell me more."
Bates had no choice other than to be candid, little though he fancied the prospect.
"My principals have it in mind to move some of their surplus slave population while the opportunity remains, Mr Star. They calculate that it might be possible to send as many as four thousands of strong young bucks north, sir, and a substantial quantity of prime female breeding stock. Prices could be discussed, of course, a discount being appropriate."
"More than a million dollars, sir - a large amount of cash. I do not know whether I could lay my hands on that sum in notes and coin, which would be necessary for this sort of transaction. Give me two days, Mr Bates, while I speak to my bankers. Can you hold yourself available till Thursday?"
Bates could and would. He bowed himself out.
"Mitch, go to the gentleman's hotel, if you would be so good. Have a word in the right ears, and put a few dollars in their hands. I want to know instantly if Mr Bates checks out. I want to know as well who else he is talking to."
Henry whistled for a boy from the downstairs office, sent him off to the Federal building with a note.
Mr Colcroft, the Federal attorney, called soon after dusk.
"Has an Englishman called Bates come to your attention, Mr Colcroft?"
Colcroft had never heard of the gentleman, was rapidly informed of his purpose in the city.
"Oh, my word, sir! That we cannot tolerate! International upsets! Our good name besmirched in London, where our friends are strong at the moment and would not welcome this sort of thing. I must speak with the senior in the office before I take any action - and that I shall do tonight, at his home - far fewer ears there, in any case. I think I can almost guarantee that this man will be taken up very quickly indeed, Mr Star. I presume that your name can be mentioned? It will do you no harm in Washington, sir."
"The man Bates, boss."
"Something happened to him, Mitch?"
"Picked up on the street outside his hotel, sir. Police and three men in ordinary clothes. Him taken off in the paddy-wagon and the civilians turning his room over and taking out every bit he possessed."
"Poor fellow! He will not enjoy a sojourn in the common cells, especially once it becomes known that he was blackbirding."
"Twenty-four hours and he will sing his little heart out, sir, rather than be dumped back for another night."
"You may well be right, Mitch."
Colcroft came back to him a few days later.
"A full set of statements - with several names detailed - has been sent to Washington, and I am sure will soon be in London. You received word of this man's purpose and took immediate action, Mr Star, which will redound to your credit, I have no doubt."
"Fool seems to have been living in the dark ages, Mr Colcroft. Times have changed and slave-trading just ain't practical any more in these parts. Still strong in the East, of course, into the Arab countries, but not here."
"Rich men faced with losing money, Mr Star - they tend to go wild when ruin stares them in the face."
"Well they can go wild somewhere else, Mr Colcroft. We do not want them here upsetting the order of things."
There was a note on Henry's desk next day, a memo from a clerk to the effect that Mr Schultz, who he had entertained to dinner a fortnight before, would enjoy the favour of another meeting with him.
"Bloody squareheads! I do not want Prussians hanging about the office - it gives a place a bad name. Better see him, but let him wait a couple of days."
"Two things, Mr Star. Sugar, first, molasses in the barrel, and that I believe I have secured, sir. But also, there is a shortage of land at home, sir, and a need to encourage young men to make their way west as settlers. Most will go to the north, to the Lakes, where they can grow wheat exactly as they would at home. Some will come to the more southern parts of the Plains, sir, mainly for religious reasons, to settle separately. Assistance in locating them would be much prized, sir."
"There are Indians on the Plains, Mr Schultz - no place for the mild and peace-loving."
"Many of these people are choosing to leave because they are anything but peaceable souls, sir. In any case, all will have performed military service."
Henry agreed to assist, for a nominal fee - he would not give the services of his office for free but did not wish to profiteer from settlers. There must be much more to be made from them once they had established prosperous communities.
The flow of settlers seemed to be turning into a flood and the great bulk of them seeking land rather than work in the towns. There had to be a way of making a profit from them.
Wheat would be grown by the millions of tons before too many years, which meant storage and transport to Europe. England had blocked wheat imports by its Corn Laws, preferring that its people should starve to make a profit for its own landowners, but France and the Low Countries were open, and their population was growing fast as well.
Shipping, river and ocean both, that would be a first priority; then could come farm tools and machinery - most of which would be horse-drawn. Heavy horse studs must be needed, tens of thousands of draught animals to work the newly opened lands. Not in Louisiana - far too hot for the purpose - but the Atlantic Seaboard States had pasture land and a stock of horses already. A few tens of thousands invested there could expand existing studs and build up the herd that would be needed.
The suppl
y of horses increased over the next decade, the next requirement would be wagons and farm-carts and ploughs and harrows and seed drills and all of the new mechanised tools to be found in England.
The works at Thingdon in England produced almost entirely for farmers - perhaps they could be persuaded to set up an offshoot in the States, an exemplar which would very rapidly be imitated and then surpassed. All it would need would be a set of ideas to trigger interest, then American knowhow would very quickly outstrip the British.
Perhaps he should go to England himself - he should visit his brothers again, and really ought to introduce his wife and sons to them. He was to go to the plantation very soon - he would talk to Grace then, ask her if she thought it good to take a vacation to the Old Country.
Grace was delighted at the prospect - if only because it would give her at least six months in the unbroken company of her husband.
She accepted that the children must benefit from growing up on the plantation, well away from the miasmas of the city - New Orleans was not a healthy town. Henry must attend his business every day, and had to be available to the demands of the Governor and his people - he was an important man, the state could hardly run without him, she was so proud! But she was also alone for seven weeks out of the eight - a sacrifice, for him as well she truly believed. Necessary, but not enjoyable.
"Are the children to come with us, my love?"
"Unless you fear it might be bad for them, my dear, most certainly. I would not wish to be separated from them if it can be avoided. I see too little of the boys as it is."
Henry no longer needed the patronage of the Chards, could have left Grace with very little public comment, but he found himself tied to his children - he could not simply discard them. Two healthy, strong sons, bright lads as well - not every man was so blessed, and he supposed there could well be more, almost must be in the circumstances.
"When we return it will be time to think about the boys' education, my dear. There are no schools worthy of the name in the South, and do we want to send them away to grow up as Northerners? What of the great English schools? We could find them a place, but, do we wish to?"
"A tutor is always possible, Henry. We might be able to find a man in England while we are there - more literate than any Southerner is likely to be, yet without the stigma of the North."
The idea struck Henry as highly sensible, but then, Grace very often was.
"Marcus must be capable of keeping his books - he will inherit the plantation and much more besides. Joe, though, will have other needs as the younger son."
"He will have some inheritance, surely, husband."
"He will never be poor, that I can promise, but he cannot expect riches from me - the estate should not be broken up to an excessive extent. In the same way that any daughter we may have will be well-dowered, our younger sons will have a few thousands of their own, but they must also have careers. If we were living in England then I would say Army or Navy, or the Church perhaps; the Law would be respectable as well for a second son who might yet inherit. Here, the prospects are a little different. I could set him up as a businessman, or assist him to claim land in the West, but there is less of a military future for a boy."
The Federal army was very small and lacked prestige, particularly in the Southern States, and the Navy seemed to be almost wholly New England in provenance. A Southern gentleman of the day was unlikely to espouse a military career, although many were enthusiastically amateur in the several militias.
"What of their English cousins, Henry? Might we perhaps arrange for the boys to take protracted visits to them, and they, indeed, to us? The boys would benefit from English polish and exposure to the true aristocracy. As well, and I am loath to say this, sir, we are more than a little behind the times in the Southern States. Apart from our steamships, what have we to show of the new world of industry?"
Henry could not argue a counter case - the North had a monopoly of manufacturing in America. The South had merely a predominance in claims to gentility. Henry had a strong suspicion which party had the better of the bargain.
"I would like as well that the boys should learn the English habit of speech. Marcus only this morning said, 'I do declare, Papa'. I brought him up short, as you may imagine, ma'am, but it would do them no harm at all to be taken out of the local ways for some of their formative years. Not too long, though - I have no wish to be separated from them for ages at a time."
It was arranged between them that Henry would return to New Orleans to make all tidy and that Grace would follow with the boys four weeks later, then off on a protracted holiday, the family together.
"Good morning, Mitch, all well?"
"No clouds on the horizon, boss. One little matter, though, sir. You remember that Englishman, Bates he called himself, fellow who was wanting to bring slaves up from Jamaica?"
"I had thought he was locked away."
"He was released, about two weeks since, sir, being that he had not yet actually committed any crime in the States, or so it would seem."
"There's policemen for you, Mitch! No imagination at all!"
"Not my experience of them, to be sure, sir, but he had the voice of an English gentleman and that counts, sir."
"Just what I was telling my lady wife lately - my boys must grow up with the correct habits of speech, it will save them no end of money and time in the right places."
"You are right at that, sir - so often 'tis not who you are but what you sound to be that counts."
"Be that as it may, Mitch, what of Mr Bates?"
"Upset, he was, sir. He even was so unwise as to come here demanding to see you and shouting that you had set the law upon him. I begged him very kindly to take himself elsewhere and he made some very silly threats, so he did, sir."
"Foolish of him. What did you do?"
"Told him that you was away from the office, so I did, sir, far distant up the River, at your home, sir."
"Why did you tell him that, Mitch?"
Henry was intrigued - it seemed quite unnecessary to have given out that information, so he assumed that it had been done deliberately.
"Just to see how serious he was, boss, so as to decide what was best to do."
"Sensible!"
"He said that he would go after you, sir, and was seen to inquire of passage upriver, that very afternoon. I had him warned that it might be unwise, but he made a public fuss of what he was to do and how no man could stop him or it would be worse for them. He had friends, so he said. Be that as it may, he retired to his hotel room for the evening, called for pen and paper. In the morning he gave the boy at the hotel desk two letters to put in the mail for him, and set out to the wharves, speaking to steamboat captains for a cabin. Then, sir, it would seem that he disappeared, and none have seen him since, though it is said that he might have gone aboard one of the yard's workboats which happened to be tied up near the passenger wharves."
"I assume that there are no witnesses who might testify to such an event, Mitch?"
"Not one who will be inclined to open his mouth, sir."
"Paid, I trust, not threatened."
"Of course, sir - threats can put men's backs up but fifty in the pocket never causes offence."
"Excellent! Did you destroy the letters?"
"No, sir, I thought you might wish to look at them."
Mitch produced the letters - 'Private and Confidential' scrawled across the covers.
Henry read them with interest.
"Addressed to private persons, Mitch, not to any government office. A banker, I think, and a gentleman in the sugar trade in London, which is as one might have expected. Indignant little man, was he not? He seemed to believe he had been treated outrageously - which he quite probably was, poor chap! Nothing of great interest, Mitch."
"Burn them, sir?"
"If you would."
There was a fireplace in the room, though it was rare that the weather was cold enough to call for it to be lit; it was a useful place to d
ispose of irritating documents.
"I am for England for half a year or so, Mitch. Partly business, more for the family. I am right in thinking that you might prefer not to be seen on British shores?"
"Perhaps wiser to keep a thousand or two of miles between me and them, sir. You will not be wanting me to hang around in idleness, sir. I am sure I will be able to find employment."
"Half right, Mitch – I do not favour idleness, want even less to lose your services. I am become too visible, I believe. How does it come about that an Englishman from the Sugar Islands knows to knock on my door in New Orleans when he has dark business to transact? Better that I should step further back, I think. So I need a man to conduct day-to-day transactions for me. Not just a front man, he will have to be a trusted manager with a free hand to take decisions and disburse money - and earn it! I trust you, Mitch. I wish you to spend the next four weeks sat at this desk with me - learning all that you need. I know that you must have picked up most of the business already - you have been two years at my side and your ears are not deaf, nor your eyes blind!"
Mitch laughed.
"The pay will be more than good, as goes without saying, I trust. Ten years and you will own a plantation, I doubt not!"
"Not me, sir. I do not approve of slavery, sir."
"Who does? But it makes money, and I am not in the Reform trade myself. Suffice it to say that you will not be poor."
"A respectable businessman, with a family of me own, no doubt."
"There are worse fates, Mitch. Will you do it?"
"The bodyguarding trade has its moments, sir, but it is not a business for a career-minded man. At thirty it is all very well, but a fifty year old, slowing and the fingers stiffening with the rheumatics - not so much fun then, sir. I shall be very pleased to become your public face, sir."
"More than that, Mitch. Lieutenant, senior at that."
"My thanks, sir."
"My pleasure, Mitch. Now then, business... The man Bates will trouble us no more, it seems."
A Parade Of Virtue (A Poor Man At The Gate Series Book 9) Page 7
