The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, the Confusion, and the System of the World (316 page)

T
HE
H
OUSE BEING INFORMED,
That the Secretary of the
South Sea
Company attended;

He was called in; and, at the Bar, presented to the House, a Book containing the Proceedings of the Directors of the
South Sea
Company, relating to the
Assiento
Trade; together with all Directions, Letters, and Informations, which the Directors, or any Committee of Directors, have received concerning the same.

And then he withdrew.

The Title of the said Book was read.

Ordered,
That the said Book do lie upon the Table, to be perused by the Members of the House.

—J
OURNALS OF THE
H
OUSE OF
C
OMMONS,
V
ENERIS,
25°
DIE
J
ULII;
A
NNO
13° A
NNÆ
R
EGINÆ,
1714

Dr. Daniel Waterhouse

c/o the Royal Society

Crane Court

London

Mr. Enoch Root

Thorn Bush Tavern

Boston

25 June 1714

Mr. Root,

Forgive the use of that barbarous convenience, the Pencil. For I write these words over a cup of Java in Waghorn’s Coffee-house, which as you may know is a sort of annex to the lobby of the House of Lords.

From which you may infer that I am pressed in on all sides by that species of bipedal parasite known as the Lobbyer. Indeed, you may even be tugging fretfully at your red beard, wondering whether I have
become
a Lobbyer. The fact that I am writing a letter—instead of sidling up to well-dressed gentlemen and feigning interest in their children’s welfare—is evidence to the contrary. My sojourn to Westminster today was occasioned by the need to speak to the Longitude Committee, and is being extended by my hope—vain, as it turns out—that Lords shall wind up their deliberations in a timely manner so that I may have a few words with one of their number. So perhaps in the end I
am
a Lobbyer.

I write to
you
because I wish to communicate with my
son
, Godfrey. This might seem a curiously indirect way of doing it. Indeed I often send the lad birthday-greetings and short paternal homilies, addressed to him care of my beloved wife. The little notes that come back to me months later, veering across the page in his deranged, expansive hand, and riddled with ink-bursts, are evidence that Faith is passing my correspondence on to him. Why, then, should I route this letter through the circuitous channel of Mr. Root’s Table at the Thorn Bush Tavern? Because what I wish to convey to my son is not easily set down in phrases that a boy of his age has the wit to parse rightly.

It is known to everyone who has studied the life of my son’s namesake, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, that when he was a boy, he was, for a time, locked out of the library of his dead father. A petty nobleman of Leipzig, learning of this atrocity, intervened on the boy’s behalf, and saw to it that the library-door was unlocked, and little Gottfried was given the run of the place. What is less well known is that the mysterious nobleman was named Egon von Hacklheber—a contemporary of the mighty and orgulous banker, Lothar, who made the House of Hacklheber what it is, and is not, today. Rather than offering a physical description of Lother’s little-known “stepbrother” Egon, I shall make this letter a good bit shorter by saying that he looked like you, Enoch. He vanished shortly after the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ War and was presumed murdered by highwaymen.

Now in Boston lives a boy Godfrey William who may shortly find himself in the same plight that Gottfried Wilhelm faced in Leipzig sixty years ago. To wit, it is likely that his father shall turn up dead, and that the boy shall find himself in the care of a mother who is loving and well-intentioned but entirely too apt
to be swayed by the counsels of neighbors, teachers, ministers, &c. I have spent enough time around Puritans in general, and Boston Puritans in particular, to know what these people will tell her: lock up the library! Or in other words—since I left only a paltry library behind—raise the boy to think of his father as a kindly but inept, fanciful but harmless character (rather like our neighbor, Mrs. Goose), who wandered off on a fool’s errand, and met with a wholly predictable, and therefore richly deserved, fate—a sort of fate that Godfrey may avoid, by steering clear of his father’s eccentricities and enthusiasms. In other words, Faith will let the boy partake of whatever nourishment he wants, provided it smacks not of Philosophy.

I charge you, Enoch, with saving the boy. A weighty burden I know; but much is afoot here. To assist you in this difficult task, I shall from time to time send you letters such as this one, that you may read in a few minutes what I have done in a few weeks. If these are shown to Godfrey when he is older, their contents may help to dispel any illusions as to my sanity and my seriousness that may have been planted in his mind by his fellow colonists. Months may pass, however, during which I do not have leisure to write to you again, even hastily with a pencil, as now. The odds are high that during those months I shall have an encounter with a nicotine-smirched poniard, a Black-guard’s bludgeon, a court-fop’s epee, or Jack Ketch’s rope. I may even—unlikely as it now seems—die of natural causes.

I have just been interrupted for some minutes by an acquaintance, one Mr. Threader. He is flitting and hopping about Waghorn’s and the Lobby like a sparrow whose nest has just been blown down in a wind-storm. Most of his energies are directed towards what is going on in Lords, which has to do with some Asiento money that has gone missing (if you have not heard of this scandal,
vide
any of the newspapers on the ship that brought you this letter). But he has graciously spared a few minutes to feign some concern for Sir Isaac. Two weeks have passed since Newton came here to discourse of Longitude before Commons, was pulled aside to treat of Mint matters in Star Chamber, and suffered a nervous collapse. Countless rumors have circulated concerning the nature and gravity of his illness, and Mr. Threader has just recited
all
of them to me whilst studying my face. I cannot guess what my phizz told him, but my words let him know that the stories are all falsehoods. The truth of the matter is that Newton has been
moved back to his house in St. Martin’s, and is recovering satisfactorily. Today I addressed the Longitude Committee in his stead—not because he is really all that sick, but because no inducement will now prevail on him to come back to Westminster Palace, which he looks on as a thriving nest of vipers, hornets, Jesuits, &c., &c. If he ever sets foot in this place again—which will happen only if he is compelled to, by a Trial of the Pyx—he will not come naïve and unready, as he did a fortnight ago. He will come in the habit of a Grenadier, viz. as bedizened with Bombs as is the Apple Tree with Fruit.

You will be shocked to learn that
gambling
is the order of the hour, here in Waghorn’s. The lobbyers have all lobbied one another to exhaustion, and still the Lords show grievously bad form by continuing to deliberate behind closed doors. Nothing is left to the lobbyers, as a way of passing the hours, than Vices. Having drunk up all the spiritous matter and smoked up all the air in Waghorn’s, the only feasible vice left to them is the laying of wagers. Coins brought hither this morning for the honest purpose of bribing legislators, are being put to base uses.

When I began writing this letter, they were laying odds on whether Bolingbroke would achieve his paramount goal, which is to induce the Privy Council to call for a Trial of the Pyx. But the scraps of paper and snatches of gossip percolating out of Lords seem to say that things are not going Bolingbroke’s way. His very survival may be at stake; the Pyx gambit, though excellent, may have to be set aside, for now, so that he may mass all his efforts on rebuttal of the Asiento allegations. Those who gambled on a Pyx trial an hour ago, have given up as lost whatever money they staked then, and are now trying to recoup their losses by betting that Her Britannic Majesty will prorogue Parliament simply to save her Secretary of State from going down—and perhaps taking the South Sea Company with him.

The doors to Lords have been opened. I shall close for now and continue when I can. A lot of money is changing hands. Lostwithiel is approaching.

I am writing this on my lap, sitting on the edge of the Thames embankment, legs adangle above the flow. I am, I should estimate, the ninety-fifth in a queue of a hundred, waiting for watermen at Westminster Stairs. The other ninety-nine regard me with scorn for my boyish posture; but as the eldest
man in the queue I have certain perquisities, viz. I may sit down.

The reason I am so far back in the queue is that I stayed late at Waghorn’s to chat with the Earl of Lostwithiel and with Mr. Threader, who irrupted upon us and would not be moved away. He noted, more than once, that by barging in upon us he was effecting a small re-union of three who were together in Devon in January. Indeed, it was there that I first drew Mr. Threader’s notice by endorsing Lostwithiel’s venture, the Proprietors of the Engine for Raising Water by Fire, and causing a small run on Mr. Threader’s stock of capital, as several of his clients were (improbable as this must seem) moved by my discourse to invest. This was but the first disturbance I caused in Mr. Threader’s well-regulated and steady life. Since then there have been explosions, arguments about politics, letters from the Tsar, and diverse other novelties: making me into a persistent and alarming presence in his life.

My relationship with the Silver Comstocks is ancient, and ambiguous in the extreme; but recent generations have seen fit to denominate me a friend of the family. So hereinafter I shall refer to my lord the Earl of Lostwithiel as Will Comstock. Will confirmed what was already implied by the settlement of diverse wagers all round us, namely, that the day had gone badly for Bolingbroke and the Tories. The Marquis of Ravenscar has—by dint of plots, maneuvers, and skirmishes too diverse and far-fetched for my tired brain to hold or my cramped hand to write down—literally called the Secretary of the South Sea Company on the carpet. The call went out (sensationally) a week ago. It was answered a few hours ago, when the said Secretary appeared before the bar in Commons, and presented a book—a compendium of all the Company’s documents relating to the Asiento. The Tories regard this book as a lit granadoe, the Whigs as a golden apple, and it has moved back and forth between Commons and Lords this afternoon as the factions have exhausted all resources to put it where it can deal the most or the least damage. Important men have been reading from it aloud. It contains nothing to explain or excuse the disappearance of the slave-trade revenues. This shifts the burden of culpability to Bolingbroke, who was never viewed as an honest chap to begin with—even by his admirers.

Note that only yesterday Commons voted to post £100,000 as a reward to anyone who apprehends the Pretender should he dare to set foot on British soil. So the tide, which was running
strongly in Bolingbroke’s favor a fortnight ago, has quite reversed.

Thus news. I confess I did not attend closely to young Will during his narration, so fascinated was I by the phizz of Mr. Threader. As a rule there is nothing to see in his face; but today it was a fascinating study in warring passions, such as no van Dyck could have rendered. As a Tory, Mr. Threader is troubled to see the Tories back on their heels, and as a money-scrivener he is horrified by the public airing of the South Sea Company’s soiled bedsheets. And yet, when Will told us that a Trial of the Pyx had been postponed indefinitely, it was impossible not to perceive relief, even elation, upon Mr. Threader’s face. He has lately been coming by at all hours, or mailing me curious, hastily written notes, concerning the investigation of the coinage that has been set afoot by Bolingbroke. H.B.M.’s Sec’y of State pursues this (as everyone knows) to discredit the Whigs; yet it causes Mr. Threader the most intense anxiety. When Will let it be known that the Pyx would be unmolested for at least two months, Mr. Threader’s face was suddenly illuminated from within, like a Jack-o’-lantern receiving its candle. He excused himself and lit out for the City.

Will and I both marked this. But Will is better bred than I, and does not like to gossip about others behind their backs. So he changed the subject, or rather deflected it, with a wry remark: “Mr. Threader’s worries about the direction of the markets would be as nothing if the Duchess of Qwghlm got her hands round his neck.” I inquired as to why Eliza would wish to strangle an old money-scrivener. Will replied that he and Eliza had met recently to discuss the Prop. of the Eng. for R.W. by F. Will had mentioned in passing that Engines were, in certain applications, an alternative to Slavery—and thereby triggered a spate of ranting from the Duchess as to the evils of that Institution, of the So. Sea Co., and all who like Mr. Threader credit its loathsome Equity. I had been chary of over-stressing this during my talks with Eliza, for fear that I would seem to manipulate her well-known passions on this subject, however it was clear from Will’s account that she has been pondering it. The recent turning of the tide against the So. Sea Co. may give comfort to Eliza that to invest in the P.E.R.W.F. is not only Shrewd but Righteous. At any rate, Will seemed to say, by a well-timed wink, that such an investment is now in the works. He then changed subject again, inquiring as to the progress of the Logic Mill, and expressing polite curiosity about the same.
I let him know that, just as a printer sends proof-sheets to his client, we were making ready to ship a sample of our golden cards to our investor in the east. True to form, I did not fail to mention that we would benefit from certain financial expediencies. Will seemed to expect this; he allowed that he might be the bearer of some news concerning it, and handed me a sealed message from Eliza. Then he drained his coffee-cup and most courteously excused himself.

As I glance downriver I see a flotilla of watermen’s boats approaching, drawn hither by the comely spectacle of a long queue of fuming Quality stamping their spurs in frustration. So I shall conclude directly. I opened Eliza’s message. Out of it fell a smaller piece of paper. The message describes Will—grudgingly—as “a good Tory” and “worth knowing” and states that she and he have arrived at an agreement. This by itself would have been enough to
improve
my day considerably; but it was
perfected
by the smaller document, which was a goldsmith’s note, drawn on the House of Hacklheber, and made out to your humble correspondent. There is enough here to support the operations of Clerkenwell Court for a week, and I flatter myself that she will see fit to provide another installment when it has been spent. We should have three card-punching organs installed at Bridewell within a fortnight; Hannah Spates is already training the women to make them work.

The queue is coming to life, like a torpid snake warmed by the sun; I close for now; an errand of a rather different nature awaits me.