Dislocated to Success (17 page)

There then came the vexed question of what to do about Haiti; Biron suggested that a message be sent to Cap-Français and the locals would investigate. We didn't need the translators to deal with the "No, No, No" from the PM. Chauvelin looked to defuse this, suggesting a joint mission. The PM was clearly unhappy about this and suggested that time was of the essence, given what she knew of Haiti. There was an impasse and the French withdrew for a few minutes. When they returned, Havers asked a very good question: did they know if Chatillon had estates on the island? It seemed he had an interest in an estate; Havers then suggested that the UK should investigate that immediately, but any wider investigation of the island should be done by the French with some English officers in tow. I must admit, he surprises me sometimes; it was a decent solution compared to his usual ideas. Fleury insisted that there must be some French authority involved, even with the plantation, otherwise it would just be an invasion. He was quite firm on this and even had Biron's approval.

After a lengthy discussion, the PM suggested a compromise - the French would have officers present at the investigation of the specific estate, which would otherwise be done by the UK. Any investigation of the rest of the island, if needed, would be dealt with by France with UK officers present. I emphasised that this was only due to the need for speed to save lives, that we could react more swiftly. The PM then cornered Biron by suggesting that he should go - a deft move. He blustered, but she pointed out he could fly to Bermuda and then onto Nassau where naval transport could be arranged. I'm sure I saw Fleury smiling at this. We did have to agree that the ship would fly the
drapeau blanc
as well as the Union Jack.

Eventually it was decided: the French would talk to Versailles, but subject to agreement the Duc de Biron and the French military attache would leave tomorrow for Bermuda, where they would accompany some Marines to the plantation of interest. Otherwise, four UK officers would go to Cap-Français to be ready if needed for further investigations. Honour was satisfied on all sides, just.  We then returned to 10 Downing Street, where Francis and Willie were waiting for us.

Of course, Liverpool absolutely erupted at this news, and there were several unpleasant and unfortunate incidents as the young lady’s information spread out amongst the population. At one point there was almost a lynching of a member of a suspect’s family, only stopped by the deft action of a somewhat charismatic young far-left councillor who launched his career into Parliament on the basis of his demeanour that night. There was a certain amount of criticism about how the Government had dealt with the matters, but this was the breakthrough in the case; it ensured both the convictions, some of which I was told had otherwise looked rocky, and some very long sentences as opposed to the more likely successful charges of false imprisonment of the Irish teenagers.

This sense of rage was somewhat mitigated when the news came back from Haiti that several of the abducted youngsters had been found alive and relatively well. Liverpool again exploded, but this time in a burst of joy rather than a burst of rage; it was also the day that the Prime Minister and Willie became Liverpudlian heroes. Before the news had been released, they had made sure that each relative of those still missing knew if their child had been found or if their child was dead or missing. The PM herself did the difficult cases on the phone. The Conservatives may not be popular in Liverpool - it is a very red city these days - but I am told either Margaret or Willie would always be welcomed in Toxteth or Everton.

These events kept the papers busy for weeks, which as far as Governments are concerned is never a bad thing; it is not unknown for small unpopular announcements to be made whilst both Fleet Street and the general populace are distracted on one of their little frenzies. Of course, it is very awkward when you get caught doing it, and there are some obsessives out there on the Labour and Liberal benches who have nothing better to do than look at every minor announcement. Luckily, as it started to subside, there was another distraction which kept people away from announcement about reforms to the Wages Councils.

Prince Frederick of Hannover had been rather keen to get married. He was rather conscious of the fact that, should he die, the Electorate would pass to his cousins of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel; he also wanted to remove the Salic Law, but did not want to do that whilst his non-Salic successor was the Queen of Prussia. I suspect had this not been an imperative, he would have been a bit of a rake around town - as were a few of the more presentable young nobles who seemed frequent visitors to London.

He had also decided he wanted a British wife, which was rather more of a challenge, and had altered his house law to give British nobility a vastly improved status to avoid the problems of morganatic marriages. The problem was finding one who would have him; he was regarded as a good sport by many, and was a commonly invited guest to parties, but there was a certain amount of prejudice about actually marrying someone from trans-Europe.

He almost succeeded with one of the daughters of an Earl, who was a jolly hockey-sticks type and regarded trans-Europe as ‘dreadfully fun”, but it fell apart on his desire for a very large number of children. She bolted when he said he wanted at least eight. This left him somewhat disconsolate, and he fell into a short wooing of a daughter of the Mecklenburg-Strelitz’s; but she was very unhappy about the Prince being very modern, and whilst her father was willing to make sure she married him the always publicity-aware Prince decided that would spoil his image of The Modern Prince.

To be fair, at that time he probably had the most enlightened attitudes of any of the rulers, but a certain amount of it was front and his imp of the perverse often led him into a bit of problem with authority, which was awkward when he was the authority in Hannover - although his Hannoverian Privy Council would have been delighted if he had removed himself to the UK permanently.

However, he had the possession of Minorca and had a fine and modern house built there for his use. The island had settled down; there was a sense that rejoining Spain was not an option anyone wanted to take, and that being a possession of Hannover was tolerable. He was also a reasonably  frequent visitor and a free spender and had left the governance mainly to what was called the Nautical Junta back in London. He often hired a flying boat to have house parties there, which were mainly made up of a selection of cis and trans young things looking to enjoy themselves. He came back from one of them with a new official girlfriend and, after the usual period of courting, requested the hand of the Paget lass from her father and permission from the Queen to marry. It was granted.

This happy news, which was fairly popular, at least managed to distract the newspapers from Liverpool and Haiti. But it didn’t take long for the anti-slavery agenda to be rather more prominent than it had been for some time. Margaret had been quite monstered by Labour MP's at the previous Thursday's PMQ's, and had only been saved by the idiot Reg Race
[52]
uttering the f-word - which had brought the Speaker and the House down around his ears.

With this in mind, and instructions to be very forceful, I had gathered together the Ambassadors of France, Spain, Portugal and the United Provinces for a Monday meeting about what the UK was going to do about the issue. I had Francis and Norman T in on the meeting as well; Francis was very good at explaining the UK's military reach, and Norman bares his teeth beautifully at the appropriate moments.

We went through the measures that were being taken in some detail; we stressed that it was not up for a great deal of discussion and that it would happen - the British public demanded that something had to be done. All the ambassadors had read the British papers, and had seen the articles and leaders; to reinforce the point, I mentioned that the freed teenagers would be arriving back in the UK the next morning and that a number of others were still missing. They had all been here long enough to know what that meant.

The French, the Portuguese and the Spanish all accepted the ban on trans-atlantic slavery without much comment; all three had effectively a public ban in place, although we all knew there was the odd French ship which transgressed the ban, usually via Goreé. The United Provinces people were much less happy; there would be problems with the WIC - it was construed as an attack on their commerce. Francis explained that we would not even seize the ships permanently, just take the slaves off and return them to Africa and take any evidence. He also invited them to join the patrols which would be starting soon. The UPers then asked about slave trading by the Ottomans; this was an awkward question, and I fielded by stating that if any nation tried to ship slaves in the patrol zone they would be dealt with the same way. The UPers said this would not go down well in the United Provinces and some might consider it tantamount to a
casus belli
. I replied that the United Kingdom had made up its mind and that this would be happening no matter what was said. I swear I saw the Portuguese ambassador smile faintly at that point.

The new trade tariff was somewhat more difficult; there was an enquiry on what was to constitute slave-produced goods. Norman fielded that one well, saying it would only be goods produced in the colonies that had this tariff and only if they were imported to the UK. He then swiftly added that it would be imposed if they were re-exported from a UK colony. However, there would still be work to be done on this, so it wouldn't be imposed until this was done. There was then a short break whilst the ambassadors conferred with their advisors.

Oddly, it was the Portuguese who brought up the salient point. There were contracts for deliveries from Brazil with fixed prices for some goods which would be partly produced by slaves - who would pay the additional tariff on those? Norman said that he would have to consult further on that issue. The French asked about indentures, the Dutch asked about serfdom and the Spanish commented on the corveé system.

After the ambassadors withdrew, we decided that it had generally gone well; obviously the tariff was going to need a little more work, and Norman considered that some states might be reaching for their lawyers. He would go back and put the fear of God into the mandarins and talk to the Treasury Lawyers. He then gave that grin of his, and asked how long Francis felt a war with the UP would last. Francis deadpanned and said "about twelve hours”; I understand the actual plan allowed for the UP to fold within 2 days, 3 at the outside.

Sadly, all this had a backlash in Versailles, which we had feared; luckily it wasn’t the full backlash we had expected. Both Orry and Fleury survived, but Fleury was very much demoted to dealing with ourselves and with colonial policy. The new effective Prime Minister was the Count of Toulouse, who was an
ancien regime
type through and through and whose only interest in modernisation appeared to be with the military. In fact, I was informed that he was even against that until he was sat down and shown “The Film” - a rather nice little study of British military capabilities done by some ex-BBC types in 1980. Toulouse was always careful not to anger us, and was not particularly more troublesome in the North  America talks, but he very much clamped down on other matters.

To some extent, France showed what was wrong with absolutism as a counter-point to Portugal showing how it could work. João ruled his country through some very able men with purpose and direction, he made a number of very good decisions and he stuck to his plan. Louis XV, on the other hand, took a more hands-off approach; he did on occasion rise and produce a good idea like the sanitation plan, but his ministers and the Parlements did not have the will to carry it through. Unfortunately, France has too many ingrained institutions to properly reap the benefits of modernisation, but it has done remarkably well in a number of fields despite that. Louis’ hands-off policy has not worked that well in
ancien regime
-riddled France, but Québec has been rising since 1983 and even more strongly since 1985. However, I do feel that the Toulouse years were the locust years for France, where a lot of opportunity and potential was wasted.

It was at this point that I had a lengthy discussion with Norman Tebbit about Spain. Norman and I have rarely seen eye to eye on issues, and some people have remarked that they didn’t know how we could be in the same party; I suspect both of us have had the same thought at various points. However, he was a very good minister and he’d even paid me the odd compliment of late, although as usual he was quick to castigate. I have long come to the opinion that had Margaret been Dislocated, the party would have had to have fallen back on Tebbit as the only other person with the steel needed at times.

However, Norman came to see me expressing an emotion that was regarded as rare for him - concern. He was worried that we had pushed the Spanish State too far and that Spain was now likely to collapse. I could see his point; all the reports we had said that things were getting no better, the King had little control over anything more than the area around Madrid and - after some effort - Toledo. Catalonia, Valencia, the Basque Country and Galicia were essentially operating as quasi-independent states; Andalucia and Murcia were still in some turmoil; both the remaining Balearics and the Canaries were mainly dependent on the good wishes of the UK for contact with Spain. Abroad was better, but we knew of a slave rebellion on Cuba, a criollo rebellion in New Granada and a lot of discontent in Peru. We had no effective contact with Mexico, Hispaniola or the Philippines.

Norman was concerned that if Spain fell apart, it would create a void and France would take over the richer areas of the North, at least as puppet states; he’d spoken to Francis and Francis had indicated that he had no capacity left at all without withdrawing units from Northern Ireland. The home defence units were too heavily equipped to intervene; he had suggested that we might be able to move forward again to bring order to the rest of Andalucia, but that was the giddy limit. I said that France might also move on Hispaniola and maybe Cuba, although both were likely to be extremely difficult. What would happen in South America was a bit unknown to all of us; our contacts were limited, and the research work on those areas was still a work in progress.