Foreign Mud

by Andrew Wareham

I like the place, but it is no more than an attractive old house to me.

  You hear an awful lot about the ‘ancestral lands’ and the connection between them and the family honour… Perhaps I ain’t an honourable chap.

  I took my orders from Ainslie and paid the proper visits in the locality and found I was welcome indeed in all of the big houses. I had returned Shawford Manor to the gentry. Stephens, it seemed, had never been ‘quite the thing’ – he had never entirely fitted into the County scene.

  “Bit of a strange fellow in some ways, Mr Jackson. Talked about money a bit too much and was forever hinting he could ‘put me onto a good thing’.”

  Squire Denham was one of a large brood of interconnected families in the County – they had been marrying into each other for two hundred years and it was starting to show. Their chins were disappearing and Adam’s Apples protruding and the gap between eyebrows and hairline was remarkably small. There might be much to say for inbreeding dogs and racehorses; it don’t seem so successful in the gentry. That, of course, is to say nothing of Royalty, mainly because the wise man never says anything about them, not in public. In any case, there is no reason to suppose that lunacy is hereditary, even if Prinny and Silly Billy do raise a few doubts.

  Not to worry – at least young Fred has strong blood behind him. Well mixed, although he is not likely to admit to it.

  Mrs Denham had her say about the Stephens family as well.

  “His wife, Mr Jackson! I do not know where he found her, but I could wish he had put her back again! Not the sort one wishes to see in one’s withdrawing rooms! Vulgar in her dress – never appeared but she was wearing a necklace of supposed diamonds or sapphires, enormous stones and obviously paste! Must have been, so big as they were. She claimed they were given her by her father, and him some sort of money man in a place called Birmingham, wherever that might be! Not a lady!”

  I later discovered that Mrs Stephens was the sole daughter of a man big in the gun trade in Birmingham and worth a hundred thousand of anybody’s money. It seemed that he had believed Stephens to be a country gentleman and had been pleased to marry his girl to him, rising in the world. I do not doubt he was disappointed when Stephens rose in a noose. At least he was well-placed to look after her when her foolish husband came to his inevitable end. Very unwise, Stephens – he repeated a successful crime, time and again. Took his bucket to that well far too many times.

  A word of advice – if you are to commit crime, then indulge in something different each time round; habits hang felons. That’s one of the reasons I was pleased to shake the dust of Canton off my feet.

  Not to worry. I was made welcome around the area for having the right sort of blood and being known to be a rich associate of the Nabob, Ainslie. Money from trade was deprecated, except when it came in huge quantities. A successful produce merchant with twenty thousand was sneered at; an India trader with multiple hundreds of thousands was a very good neighbour.

  I was introduced to Denham’s two grown daughters and smiled my best, from a cautious distance. Neither girl was ordinarily clever or out of the ordinarily handsome. Not my fancy – dull brood mares do not attract me.

  A month and I was more than ready to go, to leave for the Americas. The County round was not for me – tedious in the extreme and with more than its fair share of the stupid and foolish. Little squires who had done nothing, seen nothing, understood nothing! They were small landowners with an income of one or two thousand from their rents and home farms and with no idea of improving themselves or acknowledging change. They had been born into their acres and expected their descendants to be the same, constricted into a tiny corner of nowhere in particular where they were the great men, Gullivers in their own Lilliputs. Not that there was any point to drawing that comparison for none of them read for pleasure; indeed, they deprecated those who did choose to open a book as ‘unmanly’. The squire rode his horse, chased his foxes, shot his tame pheasants, drank too much port and thought the world was a wonderful place.

  Mention a steam engine or talk of a spinning jenny and they were left behind – what had such devilish devices to do with them? They had heard of enclosure and embraced that with delight – it gave them money for nothing, allowed them to steal common land with the blessing of the Law, was a wonderful innovation. That enclosure was dangerous did not occur to them – it produced a few malcontents, but the Militia could put them down and the Sheriff would see them hanged. That was what the authorities were there for.

  I asked a little man down Boorley Green way, “what of the French Revolution?”

  “Frogs, my dear fellow! All one can expect of them! Nothing for us to fear. Quite the opposite! My second boy, Frederick, went to sea as a mid ten years ago and has picked up a good few thousand in prize money from this war the Frogs started and done well for promotion. John, my cousin’s second son, is a lieutenant in the Hampshires and expects his promotion to come much sooner than he could have hoped for – and for free, quite possibly. Robert, his fourth lad, third since young Michael died – spotted fever came through a few years ago - is no more than sixteen and a cornet in the Yeomanry and might have the chance to exchange into a cavalry regiment, without purchase! A wonderful war, this one!”

  I enquired about the chance of an uprising in England and was corrected – I had been overseas and did not understand England.

  “No revolutions here, Mr Jackson. We don’t have them! A few of the underbred and ignorant might call for change, but the great mass of the people know that all is for the best in England! Finest country on Earth! Can’t be made better. Obvious, isn’t it!”

  It was easier to agree and thank the poor little man for his elucidation – not that I used so big a word to him. Argument would have achieved nothing. It was a dinner, I recall, and every man and woman around the table knew that all was well in their world.

  The complacent irritate me – they are almost always stupid, and that riles me more.

  “Wonderful people the small squires of the Hampshire Basin, Sir Alexander.”

  “Fine chaps all, Mr Jackson! Rich lands - worth thirty shillings profit an acre each year, their wheatfields. Such being the case, they know the world is a grand place and all is as it should be. When the day comes that wheat drops in price, then they will howl and demand that the government must ‘do something’. Until then, they will sit vacantly smiling, happy as pigs in the muck, and definitely resembling them, except in intellects. A clever animal, the hog!”

  I agreed.

  “My bank is ready to meet my requests for the transfers to America, Mr Jackson. Moving as much as thirty thousand pounds across the Atlantic has been no small task for a country banker. I have had to explain how to do it! However, the Winchester and South Hampshire Bank now has a correspondent in Richmond, Virginia and drafts and actual coin have been sent across the ocean to New York and transferred south and the cash is to hand in the Richmond Tobacco and Cotton Bank – believe the name or not! My own correspondents have assured me that the bank is sound and the banker aware that I have the power to do him considerable personal harm should he be tempted by the huge sum of money to do anything foolish. Ordinary business, in fact. He knows your name and will deal with you as the occasion requires. Should you see the opportunity, you may wish to discuss trading in his own crops – there is a call for more cotton in the North Country, I am reliably informed, and the demand for the noxious weed is ever-increasing among the pipe smokers and snuff-takers. There are such things as cigarillos as well, I understand – rolled leaves which are placed directly in the mouth and lit! Disgusting!”

  It seemed something of a vulgar habit, certainly.

  “One must not forget those who actually chew the appalling weed, sir. I saw it at sea not infrequently.”

  We deplored such vice and felt better for our moral superiority.

  Always fun to be holier than thou. I recommend it to any man who is feeling down. There is ever a lesser being to sneer at because of his habits a
nd it’s more fun than kicking the cat. The religious picked up the habit years ago – always a heathen somewhere to be deplored.

  Not to worry! Lesser mortals need their little pleasures and beating a Jew or a black man or a Papist keeps them from other, more hazardous entertainments, such as revolution.

  Always useful to keep the lower classes down, as our leaders have long learned. Give them somebody else to hate and they won’t turn against King and Country.

  Where was I? An old man does tend to ramble… That’s it, making the arrangements to pay off Ainslie’s dull sons and remove them from the succession. Ainslie was kinder than I might have been, but I must imagine he had some affection for the three young men – they were his sons, after all. I suppose, when it comes down to it, I do not actively dislike my boy Fred; I merely regret that he could not be a lot more than he is.

  I packed my bags and made my farewells and discussed the estate with Pillings. That last was the easiest task.

  “Do what you must, Pillings. If you find yourself needing more money, send a stable lad up to Sir Alexander with a note. Make sure your house is complete before winter and move in at an early day – I do not want you in a damp, cold cottage for longer than must be. Did I see you in company with young Liz, the parlour maid, by the way?”

  Pillings actually blushed before confirming that I did.

  “Not half my age, sir, and yet more than willing to become my wife! Such a pretty lass, too!”

  And with her eye on a house with six bedrooms and a husband with a respectable income. I dug into my pocket and found ten guineas which I tucked into his hand.

  “A wedding present, Mr Pillings, and my very best wishes to you both!”

  He simpered in his joy.

  Thirty years he was wed before old age took him, and happy all his days, and young Liz too, so it seemed. I lost count of their children; a son stepped into his shoes and others are variously employed around the whole area. Wholly successful philanthropy on our part, though it did not put me into the habit of patronising the deserving poor. My daughter does that since she married the vicar.

  We set off for Bristol in a hired post chaise, Fred at my side and enjoying the luxury. We overnighted Devizes way, I recall, not for the last time. I used the Bristol road too often over the following forty years. Never no more!

  We took ship direct for Richmond, there being a regular trade to the southern parts of the States. The ship stank, I recall, a result of carrying bales of tobacco for the previous decade and the noxious fumes impregnating the timbers. The master informed me that a ship could carry either cotton or tobacco, but the smell meant that the two could not be mixed.

  “Limits the number of passengers, one might think as well, sir.”

  “The knowing all take tobacco ships, Mr Jackson. Far fewer of bugs and roaches to be found aboard and even the rats are less froward. The weed seems not to favour varmints, sir. Add to that, the cargo is costly and so the ships are better kept – the owners can afford to pay out for the hulls and sails. The crew are paid a living wage as well. I can always hire the best of seamen in my trade. What is a little smell when compared to a passage maybe four days quicker than a cotton carrier and safer by far? Add to that, my master, Mr Player of Bristol, has bought five heavy cannon for our protection. Do you see them?”

  I did and was properly amazed. Unless I was much mistook he carried a long eighteen as a stern chaser and two of short-barrelled twenty-fours on either broadside.

  “John Company’s cannonades, are they not, Captain?”

  “Like to them, Mr Jackson, but a bigger piece. The Company uses eighteens solely and cast to their specification. These are old naval guns and literally sawn down in the barrel. Used them just the once in the four years I have carried them. Fired one round of ball and four of grape from the pair that bore. A little French lugger, close inshore, just off Lundy, in fact. You can still see her bones on the island’s foreshore – the grape ripped her rigging to shreds and she blew ashore, unmanageable. Lost with all hands, so they told me when we made port in Bristol three months later, having completed the return voyage. I did not send a boat to find out for myself.”

  I complimented him on his wisdom – rescuing privateers was a fool’s game. They could never be trusted once brought aboard.

  We made the fast passage the captain had predicted and sailed up the river to Richmond in the middle of the year, which was not the ideal time for a visit.

  The town was hot, wet and stinking. It reminded me of Bombay for that but was somewhat less prosperous. There were no great hordes of poverty-stricken Hindoos, I will admit; equally, there was no swathe of rich merchants and lesser nobility.

  The gentry – self-styled – of Richmond were rough at the edges and not so well-off as they wanted to be. Almost all of the comfortable classes were merchants or plantation owners, though the latter were not so much to be seen in town. There were almost none of the leisured sort, born into money and not needing to work for a living. They reminded me of country merchants, on the small side, still scrabbling for every penny. A thing that surprised me was to quickly discover that lawyers and bankers were regarded as on a par with the gentry – not the way things were in Bombay, or in London.

  Strange habits the Americans have! To imagine a lawyer as a gentleman is a contradiction in terms, surely!

  Not to worry.

  I landed and took up residence in the largest of hotels – needing to impress the proprietor of the Tobacco and Cotton Bank. If he thought me to be more than a messenger boy, it would make my task far simpler. I visited the bank on my second day in town, finding it easy to obtain an appointment with the manager.

  Banker Bailey was a short man carrying a massive belly – as broad as he was tall. He had the habit of chewing upon a cigarillo which I found more than a little offensive. I imagine it was his intent to disarm his customers, to play the bumpkin’s part so that they would be less cautious of him. I simply presumed he was a rogue. I make that assumption of all bankers; occasionally I am proved wrong.

  I introduced myself, producing a letter from Ainslie and offering, verbally, a pair of code words he had been given when the transfers were made.

  “You are Mr Giles Jackson, sir? One minute while I find the folder.”

  Bailey produced the paperwork and consulted a letter.

  “’A tall man, young and fair. Much tanned of the skin for residence in India’s clime. Strong built and will carry pistols. Is that so, sir?”

  I was wearing a light coat, having been warned to carry Indian clothing with me rather than heavy English wools, and opened the buttons to disclose a single pistol tucked inside my waistband. I shrugged the coat further open and let him see the butt of another flintlock high on the side of my chest, under my right arm. I did not disclose the other holster to the left, the one I would more naturally use. He did not spot the little bulge in the small of my back where I wore my fourth holster, carrying a short double-barrel. Canton had been a dangerous location and I had developed the habit of carrying protection at all times.

  I don’t any more – fingers are getting stiff and I might drop the damned things.

  Bailey accepted that I was the man I claimed to be.

  “You have the sum of thirty thousand pounds, English, on deposit, sir. In the name of Sir Alexander Ainslie.”

  “I do, Mr Jackson.”

  “Good. It is my intent to locate Sir Alexander’s three sons of his first marriage and disburse the funds equally between them, at their father’s instruction. In return, they will deposit statements of disclaimer. They will have no demands or expectations of their father’s Will. He is no more than sixty years of age and may well live a good few more years yet. It is his intention, Mr Bailey, that the great bulk of his funds shall descend to his family by the second wife.”

  “As I recall, Mr Jackson, the three young gentlemen arrived here from India some three years since and took up residence on plantations procured for them by their fa
ther.”

  “They did, Mr Bailey. It was his expectation that they would be able to live in some prosperity for the remainder of their lives. They were none of them suited for the life of a merchant of Bombay and Canton.”

  Bailey had met the three and knew what I was not saying. He chuckled around his appalling tobacco.

  “The three live somewhat south of the city, sir. A day or so distant. They have plantations of a square mile or thereabouts apiece and will be able to greatly expand them, if that is their wish, possessing cash money, which is rare in Richmond. There is a shortage of specie, do you see, Mr Jackson, and business is generally done by Bill. Credit is our master. The plantation master makes his purchases through the year by Bills and sends in his crop, which is paid for by Bills in its turn and uses the one to pay off the other, and hopefully turn a profit. Most years, the price of tobacco and cotton is high and the plantations are rich. The merchants of Bristol and Liverpool extend shipping on credit, of course, and most plantations send their crops to England to be sold there at wharfside. All done by paper and slowly. Your Sir Ainslie sent an amount of coin across to me, rather than notes or Bills, and I shall meet the drafts in American dollars, thus putting cash money into the young men’s hands.”

  I understood all he was saying, and the amount that he neglected to mention.

  “The American dollars, Mr Bailey – I presume they will be paper notes issued by your bank, convertible on demand?”

  Bailey grinned his appreciation.

  “The gold coins remain with me, Mr Jackson.”

  I suspected he would issue the better part of forty thousand English in notes on the back of those coins, expecting that many of his customers would be happy to use paper money and would not wish to demand gold in exchange for them. It would make him a substantial profit.

  “I could issue you with a commission in notes, Mr Jackson, to cover your expenses while in Virginia?”

  A sweetener to keep my mouth shut. What he was doing was not unlawful but he might not wish me to make any comments that could lead to a run on his bank.