Revolution (30 page)

“The Americans have not acted in all things with prudence and temper; they have been wronged; they have been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned? Rather let prudence and temper come first from
this
side. I will undertake for America that she will follow the example. There are two lines in a ballad of Prior’s, of a man’s behavior to his wife, so applicable to you and
your colonies, that I cannot help repeating them:

Jones, from his seat, scowled and muttered to himself the next lines of the ballad:
“Let all her ways be unconfined, and clap your padlock on her mind.”

William Pitt glanced around the House, and uttered his summation. “Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the House what is my opinion. It is that the Stamp Act be repealed
absolutely, totally, and immediately!
And that the reason for the repeal be assigned — because it was founded on an erroneous principle. At the same time, let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation whatsoever; that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever, except that of taking money from their pockets without consent.”

All through Pitt’s oration, Jones’s hopes, and those of many others, were dashed, raised, and dashed again. The member for Swansditch had closed his eyes in despair each time the Great Commoner uttered a baffling, reason-defying contradiction. He gasped imprecations as his pencil hurried across the paper on his lap. Wanting to rise and correct Pitt, he fidgeted to the distraction of the members who sat next to him. As Pitt hobbled back to his seat, Jones finished his transcription, then dropped his pencil on the paper. He resisted hanging his head in despair, remarking plaintively instead to Colonel Barré, “There goes the father of another kingdom. The die is cast, and we shall be conquerors of our own citizens.”

Colonel Barré glanced at his colleague, wanting to ask what he meant by that, but George Grenville had risen and was recognized by Rose Fuller from the Chair. Grenville and Pitt then commenced an exchange of vitriolic remarks on policy and constitutional matters that lasted two hours. Pitt, at one point, walked out as his brother-in-law addressed the House.

Emboldened by Pitt’s assertion of Parliament’s authority and supremacy, and by a realization now that certain defeat need not be risked by questioning or denying that power, William Beckford and George Cooke delivered their own arguments for repeal of the Stamp Act. They were joined by John Huske, member for Malden, a former colonist and Boston merchant who had voted for the Act last year, and as a consequence had been burned in effigy by his former countrymen. He was one of a handful
of American-born members of the House.

Sir Dogmael Jones did not rise to speak. For the first time in his career, he was at a loss for words.

The House did not adjourn until close to midnight. The next day, the wording and resolutions of the Address to the King from the Commons on the American crisis were reported from the Committee to the House and approved. The only speaker was James Harris, member for Christchurch and a close friend of Grenville’s. On the premise that the colonies were truly in rebellion, and not merely in a state of tumult and riot, as Beckford before him had claimed, he opined that the Address was imbued with “too much delicacy and tenderness.”

* * *

“W
hatsoever! Whatsoever! Whatsoever!” Jones exclaimed furiously that next evening over supper at Cricklegate, Garnet Kenrick’s Chelsea home. “That single word has exploded the whole edifice of his principles! It gives Lord Rocking-horse a three-sparred sail and the wind to propel it!”

“I don’t understand why you are so disturbed, Mr. Jones,” said Effney Kenrick, who regarded her other guest with worry. “He defended the colonies, did he not?’

“Oh, yes! He defended them!” answered Jones. “But one cannot decide whether he opposed internal taxation of the colonies and likewise our right to impose it or not. One cannot decide whether he asserted that the colonies, in terms of ‘internal’ taxation, are beyond the realm of our legislative authority or within it. His memorable assertions on the matter are to the contrary notwithstanding. One cannot determine where he stands at all, for he obfuscated the encompassed issue, so that it is no longer a clean, round circle, but a mere blur. This phenomenon, I predict, will be Lord Rocking-horse’s salvation, for while that man was unable to navigate his policy aided by the sun of clarity, he has been made a gift of the means of finding port in a miserable fog! Mr. Pitt? It must be said that he is checked by a worse infirmity than mere gout.”

“By what, Uncle Dog?” asked Alice Kenrick shyly. The Kenricks’ daughter was approaching her late teens, and blossoming into a beauty with gray eyes, nearly perfect features, and black hair made blacker by the immaculately laundered mobcap atop her head. She was not as a rule present during these political discussions — which were often spiced with Jones’s coarse language — but tonight was special, chiefly because of the presence of the second guest.

“By a discomposed mind, milady,” answered Jones.

Effney Kenrick ventured, “Perhaps he spoke that way just to spite his brother-in-law, Mr. Grenville.” She paused to glance at her husband. “It is
not beyond modern politics that I can see, not so unlike the division between Garnet and his brother, the Earl.” She turned to address her husband. “Basil’s politics are half animosity for you, my dear. I cannot be dissuaded from that observation.”

Garnet Kenrick simply nodded in agreement.

Jones shook his head. “Begging your pardon, milady, but that is hardly the case. Mr. Pitt simply detests Mr. Grenville’s politics. He can only hate them the more, now, because his other brother-in-law, Lord Temple, heard Mr. Pitt’s speech yesterday, and it is rumored that that eminence has sided with his luckless sibling and this morning has made a present to him of one thousand pounds! That is the word I heard in the Yard this afternoon. It is a moot point whether he was motivated by spite or politics.”

“‘Whatsoever’?” mused Garnet Kenrick. “I don’t agree that it explodes his principles. Would you not say, rather, that his contrary notions
are
the keystone to his edifice?”

Jones smiled at his patron and friend. “My apologies, milord. You are right.” He shook his head again. “
Whatsoever
,” he mused with a sigh. “With that single, innocuous word, he has granted Parliament unlimited powers, which are incompatible with the liberty he defends. One or the other must yield. In such a union, the greater must absorb the less, rendering the less a nullity.”

Effney Kenrick remarked, “And then it is a union no more.”

Jones laughed in bitter triumph. “A deduction, milady, lost on Mr. Pitt himself! My compliments.”

Garnet Kenrick smiled and attempted to bring some levity to the conversation. “Well, perhaps, accounting for all that, it is well the colonials have named a fort and several towns after Mr. Pitt.”

Jones sighed. “True, milord. But what an insidious luxury they have now, to indulge his fondness for liberty, yet neglect to fault his confusion!”

“No doubt you plan to send my son a transcript of Mr. Pitt’s speech.”

“Yes, of course. Of his, and a précis of some of the other speeches.”

“To judge by the quality of many of the pamphlets Hugh has sent us, I am certain that many colonials will be sharp enough to detect the contraries in Mr. Pitt’s mare’s nest,” remarked Garnet Kenrick. “And Hugh will make the same observations as you have.”

“I am certain he will.”

Alice Kenrick ventured, “What about the king? Surely he has some role in this affair.”

Jones chuckled. “Oh, His Majesty? Well, our royal papadendrion of the colonies bends this way and that, like a sapling in a stiff breeze.”

The second guest, Roger Tallmadge, who sat next to Alice at the table, grinned in amusement. “Well, here is one sapling that will not bend,” he said. “I shall also vote for repeal, if such a resolution is reported to the House.”

Jones grinned at the other guest. “In all modesty, sir, I must say that, as you have benefited from a close association with wisdom, so may the nation.”

“Your modesty in this house and in the House is notoriously
legend
, Sir Dogmael,” replied the newcomer. “I now quite appreciate the appellation that milord Kenrick said was your
nom de guerre
in the House — the Demosthenes of the demimonde!” The company laughed, including the object of the jest.

The House would not sit again for three days. When Jones journeyed up to Chelsea the day after Pitt’s momentous speech, he was surprised to encounter another guest of the Kenricks’, an army lieutenant on half-pay and a member for Bromhead, a borough on the outskirts of Sheffield, a manufacturing town that did not itself have representation in the Commons. He recognized the young man from among all the other members he saw in the House, but until now had had no reason to mark him for special attention as either friend or foe.

Roger Tallmadge was a close childhood friend of his host’s son, he learned after introductions were made shortly after his own arrival. The officer had arrived at Cricklegate the day before, and was to stay there for the duration of the session. At the moment, Tallmadge was an occasional artillery instructor at Woolwich down the river and was awaiting an appointment to a regiment. He had recently returned from Prussia, where he spent a year as an attaché in the court of King Frederick. He had traveled the Continent on similar postings for two years, and had also seen action in the late war.

This tall, blondish, handsome young man, neatly garbed in a gentleman’s attire, blessed with a seraphic face, sat next to Alice Kenrick. Jones noted that a special rapport existed between him and the Kenricks’ daughter. Jones, who was in love with the girl, had not yet made his affections known to her or to her parents. His observation of the pair’s behavior this evening caused him to curse both his age and his duties at the Inns of Court and in the Commons, important distractions which had not given him enough time to consider a proper, inoffensive way to broach the subject.

He was certain that her parents, usually sensitive to such things, were unaware of his affections, but were markedly, and approvingly, conscious of the wordless regard their daughter and Lieutenant Tallmadge had for each other. The young people sat comfortably together, shoulders nearly touching, like a married couple whose sense of propriety would not permit them outlandish public displays of affection for each other. Doubtless many letters had been exchanged between them. Now, he thought, it was too late for him to pen his own.

And, doubtless, Alice’s brother Hugh would welcome such a union, thought Jones. But he himself would not. He managed to repress a bitter sigh and continued the conversation. He asked, “How did you come by your seat, Mr. Tallmadge?”

“Through no ambition or fault of my own, I can assure you! My father wished me to preserve my hearing, and thought that I might by listening to the babble of a hundred voices in the House. He served with a Sheffield alderman in the ’Forty-five, and this fellow arranged for my election opposite another chap who fell out of favor with his constituents for having voted for the cider tax against their express wishes. That was two years ago. I was at the Prussian court last year, and only took my seat this last December. Until yesterday, I had been dividing my time between the House and my duties at Woolwich.” Tallmadge paused. “I must say, auditing the House’s business is every bit as horrific as a cannonade, deafening to the ears, and numbing to the mind!”

Jones grinned in agreement, then asked, “Would you vote for repeal at the risk of your commission, Mr. Tallmadge?”

Tallmadge blinked once and frowned. “How would I risk my commission by voting with my conscience?”

“Surely you must know that during the last ministry, a number of officers lost their appointments for having voted against Mr. Grenville’s schemes, or were pressed to resign them. Colonel Barré, for instance, and old General Howard, to name a few of the more prominent officers, were dismissed from their ministerial appointments, as well.”

“I was not aware of that. How naïve I have been! What villainy!”

“It’s quite true, Mr. Tallmadge, what Sir Dogmael says,” said Garnet Kenrick. “Lords of vengeance haunt both Houses and smite mere innocent mortals on the slightest offense.”

“Oh,” Tallmadge said in wonder. He leaned forward and asked, “But, who would be responsible for such a contemptible action?”

“Everyone, and no one,” answered Jones. “Mr. Charles Townshend, for instance, is Army Paymaster, and a friend of Mr. Grenville and his policies. He could easily arrange the demise of your career, but you could never prove it, never file a suit against him, for he would simply plead economy or budget. Then there is Viscount Barrington, Lord Rocking-horse’s Secretary at War, also a staunch advocate of strict enforcement of the Act. Our Great Jockey’s government, after all, is half composed of its enemies. A wise man would have stuffed his stockings with friends.”

Effney Kenrick remarked, “Barrington is an Irish lord, which counts for nothing here, allowing him to sit for Plymouth.”

“I did not know that, either, milady,” Tallmadge said. “Why, I made his acquaintance yesterday, and we sat together in the House. He seemed an affable and jovial fellow. We shared ale afterward, at the Cocoa Tree.”

“Nonetheless, he is influential,” Jones said. He shook his head. “His pointed smiles may conceal daggers of deceit. And, the Cocoa Tree is a den of Tory iniquity, although I must concede the place serves the best coffee, cakes, and ale to be found in Whitehall.”

Tallmadge looked grim, and after a moment answered with angry defiance, “I should still vote for repeal!”

Jones smiled, but not in answer to Tallmadge’s assertion. “If repeal is not attained, and it is decided to discard practical reason and enforce the Act, would you accept a commission to go to America and help to oppress the colonials? Perhaps to draw your sword, and command your troops to fire on them, as though they were a nation of smugglers and pirates?”

“Goodness, no, Sir Dogmael!” protested Tallmadge with genuine anger. “They are not merely colonials! They are Englishmen, like us! But, to hear some of the talk in the House, you would think we were judging the fate of upstart colonial Frenchmen!”

Jones remarked, “Well, they may as well be Frenchmen, for all that it matters to many in either House. And there is a difference between the arrogance of a Frenchman and that of an Englishmen.”

Garnet Kenrick, who had been looking pensive, said, “I have just had an original realization, and it is not irrelevant to this matter of voting for or against repeal. It is this: For the first time in my memory, at least, the Commons has been made divisive. So many members who owe their places to the ministry will refuse to vote with it. A remarkable phenomenon! It may augur well for the future of liberty!”

“Indeed, milord,” agreed Jones somberly, as though he doubted it. “A
remarkable phenomenon, worthy, perhaps, of a treatise.” But then his face brightened, and he picked up his glass of wine. Holding it aloft, he said, “A toast to Mr. Tallmadge’s role in that phenomenon, and to his unmitigated conscience and principles, as well!”

“Hear, hear!” answered Garnet Kenrick, emulating Jones.

His wife and daughter raised their glasses, too, and exclaimed together, “Hear, hear!”

Roger Tallmadge, blushing at the attention, nodded in silent acknowledgement.

In part payment for the tribute, Tallmadge regaled the company with stories from the late war, and from the courts of Prussia, Hanover, and Denmark.

That evening, after the Kenricks had retired, Jones invited the lieutenant out for a stroll along Cheyne Walk. As they passed beneath the lampposts, they talked of many things — Parliament, the French, the Prussians, the colonies, and Hugh.

“You are a fellow of granite principle,” said Tallmadge to the barrister at one point, “and I would not deny that, tonight, I have benefited from your wisdom. I think I shall count you among my closest friends.”

Jones waved the compliment away with his silver-capped cane. “I will accept admission into that company only if you include me with your friend, Hugh.”

“I do, sir. I haven’t many friends, Sir Dogmael, but he is one of them. I am indebted to him for so much. You see, he was my first true mentor.” Tallmadge chuckled. “He once adopted me as his younger brother.”

“A mentor? In what subject?”

Tallmadge said, “It was not so much what he taught me, as in what he was. What he is. I correspond with him, and know that he has not changed a whit.”

Jones smiled with irony. “On that point, I must own he has been something of a mentor to me, as well, in some respects.” He paused to brave the next question. “A brother, you say? Would I be correct to suppose you would both welcome the chance to become brothers-in-law?”

Tallmadge grinned, and said without special emphasis, “In a few years, yes. I suppose we will both welcome the chance. The prospect absolutely enthralls Alice, and me.” The lieutenant glanced at his companion, and remarked, “Speaking of wisdom, I enjoyed your remarks about Mr. Pitt’s speech. I think you are right that it contains so many contraries, as Alice’s
father called them, and those contraries do form a keystone.”

Jones stopped to light a pipe, saying, “What I deemed his keystone would establish a benevolent despotism of the Commons, that is all. But if we are to learn anything from the histories of ancient Greece and Rome, it is that such a benign despotism must by its nature and without exception sour into a malevolent one. It is a historical law.”