by John Creasey
All James and a dozen or so Members could do about the many inequities was to protest. Never had he so hated party politics, the double-dealing, the secret pacts, the support given to the King by those members whose families received titles, honours or substantial pensions in return. The power of the King was absolute although it was exercised under the cloak of representation of the people. Only a few honourable men stood out against the system.
It was the anniversary of the opening of Furnival Docks. Across the room at Furnival Tower House, James saw Johnny.
Francis was present, looking old and parchment-faced. William had a fine bold presence. Sarah retained much of her ebullience. Timothy, at James’s side, remained irrepressible and unstinting in his support for James. Jeremy Siddle and Martin Montmorency had been dead for some years, and now other, younger men were the unofficial representatives of the House of Furnival within the House of Commons.
When he had agreed to come James had wondered whether he would meet his half brother. Now Johnny was watching him from across the room. He had with him a young, elegant and beautiful Italian woman, with whom he was known to have established a permanent liaison; he had not yet married, but the capitals of Europe were said to be littered with a trail of his neglected mistresses. This woman had changed her religion to please Johnny, James knew, and was now a member of the Church of England. Timothy, also still a bachelor, was obviously glad to escort her to the buffet while Johnny made his way towards James, who went forward to meet him, and as if of one mind they moved towards the terrace. It was a fine October evening, and still warm. The river was congested with boats of all sizes and they could see the new outline of London Bridge, denuded of its shops and houses since a barge had rammed one of the piles and made so much weight unsafe for the old structure to carry. Otherwise the scene had hardly changed.
‘Well, half brother,’ Johnny said in a jeering tone, ‘I told you you were a fool and would be wasting your time.’
‘No minute has been wasted,’ James retorted. ‘Every minute, everything you do is a waste,’ Johnny declared. ‘We will never have rule by the mob here, and the time will arrive when the King’s rule will be absolute. When that day comes be careful they do not have you executed for a damned rebel.’
‘Or hanged, drawn and quartered.’
‘Even that,’ agreed Johnny, but his eyes were aglow, as if touched by some demon’s humour. ‘There is still time to become a King’s man, half brother.’
‘I am England’s man.’
‘Fine sentiment from one who consorts with the mob that wants to bring the nation to its knees. I am warning you again. Remember the day.’ Johnny shrugged and looked over the river for a moment before changing his tone and asking, ‘How is Mary?’
‘She is well.’
‘And our delightful mother?’
‘Well and happy, but neglected by her youngest son.’
‘She wants none of me; I am not cut off the right block. Better I neglect her than cause her distress whenever I reveal how different I am from my father. You are much more in his mould though not of the same blood.’
‘You are the image of him in appearance,’ James said quietly.
‘Aye, in appearance but in no other way. Have you heard it said that he left at least a dozen bastards when he died, farming them out on families that needed the money he would pay?’ When James did not comment the younger brother went on: ‘That’s another way I am not like him, half brother. I’ve never met the woman yet who could bear me a child. . . Isn’t that a relief to you? When I die my like will die with me.’
‘Johnny, what has hardened you so?’ asked James.
‘Hardened?’ Johnny replied, the jeering note still in his voice. ‘I’m the same as I always was, half brother. I was born with different qualities in me, and it is against my nature to conform. Every now and again I become sentimental, but I’m a hard nut, Jamey. Don’t waste your time trying to reform me.’ He threw back his head and roared with laughter so that a few people who were sauntering back from the bigger rooms looked across at them in surprise. ‘The truth is that God and the devil merged in John Furnival’s nature, and I’m from the devil’s side.’
‘No side of your father was a fool,’ James retorted.
‘Touche! Only a lunatic would behave as I sometimes do. All right, half brother! But rather a fool than a tool of the papists.’
The switch in conversation was so sudden that James was taken completely off his balance and echoed, ‘Papists? Where do they concern us?’
‘They concern everyone,’ declared Johnny, a harsh note springing to his voice. ‘The devils are everywhere, plotting against the Church and the State. Why do you think France and Spain hate us so? And even Ireland! We’re victims of a papist plot, Jamey, and anyone who is not against them is for them. Just as’ - gripping James’s arm so tightly that the pressure hurt, he lowered his voice so that only James could catch the words - ‘anyone who is against the King is for the papists. Open your eyes, half brother! See what goes on about you instead of wearing your heart on your sleeve for the mob.’
Turning on his heel, he strode off, rejoining the beautiful young Italian, now talking to a tall youth whom James recognised but could not immediately place. James was still puzzling over Johnny’s words when Timothy caught his elbow.
‘Cousin, if I didn’t know you better I would say you were trying to avoid me,’ Timothy declared. ‘It isn’t like you to go sneaking off with Johnny or anyone else on these occasions. How is Mary? And Little Seb?’
‘They are both well,’ James assured him, still looking across the crowded room and the host of beautifully dressed people. ‘Who is that with Johnny? Do you know?’
‘Shame on you! Are your thoughts turning from Mary at last? That is Isabella—’.
‘I mean the youth.’
‘Oh, how unromantic,’ protested Timothy. ‘I thought I had found your Achilles’ heel at last. That is Lord George Gordon. Johnny has been seeing much of his family lately. But let us consider Johnny’s plight. Could his companionship with that young fop explain his reported failure as a man? One hundred mistresses and nor a single babe!’ Then, seeing the shadow cast over James’s face, his tone changed. ‘Oh, fie, Jamey! May I not joke?’
‘I was feeling sorry for Johnny,’ James remarked, ‘and I did not expect ever to feel like that about him.’
He walked away, still remembering the sudden cry that had saved him: ‘Cut him down, Jacob. Cut him down, I say.’ Even over the years there seemed no doubt whose voice it had been.
27: THE PAPISTS
Three weeks later James was faced with what he considered a crushing blow.
Just at the time when most people were beginning to feel that the metropolitan area had been cleared of the worst criminal elements, the government refused Fielding’s request to make the patrols permanent. It agreed that they were successful and that the people did not object to the use of troops, but insisted that the cost was too great.
‘A thousand pounds a year too much for the security of the whole metropolitan area!’ James exclaimed angrily in the House of Commons. ‘This is the most senseless and penny-pinching decision I have ever heard!’
But despite a chorus of ‘Hear! Hear!’ from both sides of the House, the government was adamant.
By now the condition of the watchmen in the parishes was so bad that many citizens joined together to employ other, stronger men, and at last the government agreed to a committee of inquiry, to which James was appointed. Fielding presented the case for more and younger watchmen who should be better paid. But one by one the main proposals were dropped by the nation’s leaders.
Sir John put as many of them into practice as he could afford, one being the keeping of a register of all crimes reported to the office.
‘It is a disgrace that the government will not pay for the register,’ James told Mary as he sat with her after a long day at Bow Street, ‘but it must be prepared. That register leads to m
ore arrests than anyone would guess.’
Partly because of the register’s success, Fielding was now considering producing a journal giving news and descriptions of all known criminals, to be circulated to all in authority throughout Britain.
‘But how long will it be before the government will finance it is a matter for conjecture,’ he said wryly at the end of a day’s hearings.
‘What will you call it, sir?’ James asked.
‘Perhaps your friend Benedict Sly will have some ideas!’ Fielding smiled thoughtfully.
The journal was founded in the autumn of 1772, and after a number of variations the name was finally settled; the expression ‘hue and cry’ now became the name of the official peace journal.
One of the first things reported was the robbing by a highwayman of the Prime Minister, Lord North, but even this would not persuade him to work for the return of the horse patrol.
‘With the patrol and the journal together we could stamp out crime in all England,’ Benedict Sly growled. ‘Why is the government always so reluctant to pay a trifle to fight outrages which cost the people hundreds of thousands?’
‘It is a kind of blindness,’ James said, resignedly. ‘I never cease talking to fellow Members, never cease pointing out the obvious truth, but few listen. True,’ he added grimly, ‘they have cause for deep anxiety these days. There is talk that as a result of our tax policies there is much unrest in the American colonies and even sentiment for rebellion. If that is true. . .’
In the year 1775 came war with the colonies.
A war that would be over in weeks, boasted Lord North.
And at last, in 1781, surrender.
Slowly the wounds of war began to heal, and for a while the madness was done.
During those years, James maintained his friendship with Benedict Sly and often visited the coffee houses patronised by editors and reporters. He made some friends among the more independent minded men in the House of Commons, was constantly in touch with his constituents, and occasionally met Simon Rattray, who would sometimes ask him to raise some matter in the House or with the government - always a reasonable request. He saw little of the Furnival family except Timothy, who had helped when he had fought and won Minshall at the General Election, and he spent much less time in Bow Street, although he still interceded for poor clients whenever need arose. He was at ‘Mr. Londoner’ at least one morning each week and came to look on Nicholas, now married and with three children, as a younger brother.
The one man he seldom saw, except in court, was David Winfrith. And David now looked so gaunt that his face was like a skull. He had withdrawn from his old haunts and friendships. Nobody could persuade him to visit or to receive callers, and conditions at his house became so bad that fewer and fewer tried. Sir John Fielding, as concerned as any, tried to ease his mind, but the death of his two children and its effect on his wife had made too deep a mark. Mary had been to see him, offering help with the remaining child, but he would not admit her to the house. Whenever the front or back door opened a great stench billowed out, and David smelled as bad as if he had come from the Fleet or Newgate.
No one knew for certain but it was rumoured that a Bow Street magistrate had told him that unless he cleaned himself there would be no position for him.
One morning early in 1777, David did not come to court, the first time he had missed since his children had died. Word came from Bow Street to ‘Mr. Londoner’ on a morning when James was there, and he hurried out, called a sedan chair, and was carried at a sharp pace to Bell Lane. As he turned into it he saw people streaming towards the corner where David lived and an eddy of smoke sweeping down from the chimneys; the word ‘Fire!’ was bellowed once and was immediately taken up in a great refrain. The parish fire engine was already at the scene and men were working the wooden pump and trying to make sure that the flames did not spread. The house itself was already a charred ruin, the roof burned through and only two walls standing.
‘Was anyone inside?’ James demanded.
‘No one came out,’ a neighbour told him. ‘They perished in the flames, that’s what they did. Tell you one thing, the ‘ouse ain’t no loss, like a stinking sewer that place was.’
James had never seen Mary cry so bitterly as when he told her. It was several weeks before she seemed fully to recover.
Meanwhile, much had happened to change the face of London.
If he were called upon to name the change he most approved, James would say, ‘The covering over of the Fleet River!’ Like many other once open sewers, it had been completely covered. Many of the old rookeries had been pulled down because of the danger of fire, whilst in the Strand the greatest palace in all London, Somerset House, was now near completion.
Much was stirring, also, in the fields of science and invention. James Watt was making a new kind of steam engine, which, it was said, would not fail, as earlier attempts had done, and some prophesied an enormous revolution in industry.
More traffic than ever crowded London’s roads and thronged on the nation’s highways, some no more than rutted tracks linking towns and villages, some - controlled by the Turnpike Boards - improving whenever they were close to the larger towns. Many towns were now growing beyond a population of fifty thousand as industry moved north. Lancashire proved to be far better than London for the treatment of cotton, with the greater use of Arkwright’s spinning machine, Hargreaves’ spinning jenny and Crompton’s mule. Yorkshire was better for the treatment of wool, but silk weavers stayed a long time in Spitalfields. London became more sharply aware of competition from other ports as well as industrial towns, yet continued to grow at an almost frightening pace. More than three thousand miles of canal now eased traffic on highways and inside many great cities.
One day, after three men had been brought into Bow Street and charged with inciting to riot, Sir John Fielding dismissed the charges so summarily that those who knew him well were surprised. He had been ailing on and off for years, but never had he looked as ill as then.
He was helped from the bench and was taken home. Now and again in the next year he returned, but slowly it dawned on James and on Benedict Sly that this great and powerful man had little longer to live.
Other magistrates sat at Bow Street although no one was appointed to replace Sir John. James now found Bow Street and the nearby streets and yards strange and unfamiliar. He knew few people, for many new houses had been built and more families had moved in. Only when he went into the courtroom itself did he find the same grimy walls, the same stale odours, the same hapless prisoners; there everything was unchanged.
Caught up inextricably in parliamentary work, gradually accepted by many who had at one time cursed his name, he had become a familiar figure at Westminster, renowned for slowly delivered, well-informed speeches and for never missing an opportunity for calling for a London, if not a national, police force. He was grey at the temples now, and his face had acquired dignity as well as greater handsomeness; the hooked nose and deep-set eyes had begun to feature in cartoons, as had his bow-shaped lips and thrusting chin.
It was his custom to meet with any who wanted his help.
One day in late May of 1780, a day when the sun shone from behind the Abbey onto the far bank of the river and gave the whole scene a golden cloak of beauty, he glanced up from his table in Miller’s Coffee House to see Simon Rattray and a stranger.
Rattray looked not only older but thinner, and gave the impression of a man who did not get enough to eat, but nothing of this reflected in his manner as he bowed before James and said, ‘Jack Bowyer, sir, a friend of mine.’
‘Mr. Bowyer.’ James half rose and indicated two empty chairs to Rattray and a small man with a leathery face and piercing blue eyes.
‘My pleasure, sir,’ he said in an unexpectedly well-modulated voice, and they waited until a lad brought coffee. As James poured from an earthenware pitcher, Rattray spoke again.
‘I brought Mr. Bowyer along because he is my chief informant,
sir. He is a potboy at a coaching inn called the Coal Hole, at Blackfriars, and they do a big trade.’
‘Very big trade indeed, sir, and much bigger since the Blackfriars Bridge went up.’ Although it had now been there for ten years, it was still talked of in awe.
‘And a lot of people meet to make plans there,’ Rattray put in. ‘For years it was a favourite haunt of highwaymen, and certain trading justices still hold court there.’
‘Four, that’s a fact, exactly four,’ Bowyer declared.
‘And they have private rooms where groups can meet and cellars for secret meetings,’ continued Rattray.
‘Secret meetings, that be the truth,’ affirmed the potboy.
Knowing Rattray, James did not doubt that all this was going to lead up to a revelation of much significance, although nothing yet said gave a hint of what it was. Usually Rattray was quick to reach the point, but now he edged slowly towards it, as if anxious to build a strong foundation.
‘There was one last week and two more this week,’ he went on, ‘attended by the same people and for the same purpose, sir. To plan an uprising in London against the papists.’
‘To do what?’ James gasped.
‘That’s right, sir, and a terrible thing it’s going to be,’ declared Bowyer. ‘They’ll likely plan some terrible deeds. Lord George Gordon has been battling for the repeal of the Catholic Relief Act, but Parliament won’t take it back, sir, will they?’
James thought back to the passing of the Act, which gave Catholics privileges they had not had for generations, and the accompanying protests and demonstrations.
‘I doubt very much if they will,’ he replied. ‘There is a petition before the House for repeal but I expect it to be heavily defeated.’
‘If it is, sir, then the Gordon lot - begging your pardon, sir - are going to attack all papists they can lay hands on, and anyone who tries to stop them. A terrible thing it’s going to be.’
James thought: Papists! And had a swift mental picture of Johnny and the way he had spat the word out.
