The Devil's Company (19 page)

“You have the right of it. But they mean only to show a pattern, for there is a great edifice upon which they mean to build their attack: the legislation of 1721.”

I gave him a quizzical look. I have never been a political creature, and though I’d received a rude education in the late election, I knew not of what he spoke.

“You are utterly ignorant,” he said, with evident disgust. “I see that now. Very well. Listen carefully, Weaver, but do not expect this to be a happy story, for it is a story of government men, and that can never be good. These government men, Weaver, they scheme of how to hurt the man of business, how to take away his money. And they have little minds, for were it otherwise, the world of business would hire them away. Shall I tell you of their calumny?”

“Please do.”

“Cures have been developed when there is no disease, I tell you. And so, as of this Christmas the wearing of imported calicoes will be made illegal. With the exception of a few items, like neckcloths or blue fabrics that are so deeply entrenched in our society Parliament would not dare act against them, those scoundrels in the Commons have stood up for the wool interest and those villainous silk weavers and acted against the Company.”

I knew from my associations with Mr. Hale that the wealth and influence of Britain’s indigenous wool interest had wedded very nicely with the blistering violence of the silk weavers. Hale and his men had rioted, demonstrated, and lashed out. They had struck down men and women in the streets for wearing India prints. They broke the windows of shops that sold imported calicoes. The nation had been moving steadily away from fabrics made or woven at home, but the silk weavers did a fine job of making any man who stepped in the street with foreign-woven threads on his back feel as if he had an archer’s target upon him. Now I understood that Parliament had bowed to the pressure of the wool interest, who, Ellershaw explained, had succeeded by threatening to withhold support for candidates in the late election. Thus, as of December 25, I, and every other citizen in the nation, would be empowered to bring before a magistrate any person wearing imported fabrics, and if the victim should be found guilty I should receive five pounds.

Ellershaw recounted all this for me, though his descriptions were peppered with condemnations of the silk workers and the wool interest and praise of the effects of imports upon the British economy.

“The men who were in my office earlier,” he said, “the Holy Trinity, as I style them—they understood the absurdity of contriving to convince the populace to purchase goods they will soon be fined for wearing, but we shall do our best. We must surely sell what we can when we can by what means we can contrive.”

I nodded, wishing to give no more sign of my feelings.

“So, there you have the long and short of it, Mr. Weaver. I chaired the Company’s Parliamentary Committee meant to prevent such legislation, and now that the fruits of that year are coming to ripen, this legislation will be wielded against me as a weapon by my enemies, men who tell themselves they work for the best interest of the Company. Perhaps they even believe it.”

“Surely,” I proposed, “such men always work in their own best interest, and the interest of the Company be damned.”

He nodded most approvingly. “I believe you have the right of it, sir. They will sacrifice me on the altar of their ambition, for this disaster is no fault of mine. You must understand that I had my men in Parliament, I had my men in the Lords, I worked quite hard to counter this business. But with the general election looming, the Parliament took the coward’s way out.”

“What will the Company do?”

He waved his hand. “Without the home market, you mean? Well, I shall tell you what the other members of the Court believe we will do. We will keep selling to the European and colonial markets. They look upon past colonial and continental purchases and believe these shall predict future purchases, but they know nothing. Those fabrics we have sold abroad before sold only because they were fashionable in the home market. Without British fashion to lead the charge, I cannot say how the other markets will respond.”

“How could you predict that the clothes you sold would remain fashionable at home?” I inquired.

“Oh, that was the very beauty of it. When we sold to the home market, we could contain the trends, you know. Say the little black buggers in India were producing more white fabric with red design than we would wish for. It was nothing to give these fabrics to my Holy Trinity of men or my collection of ladies. We could make the fashions bow to the warehouses rather than take the trouble of stocking warehouses that bowed to fashions. With the markets moved overseas, that will be much harder to do. The truth is, sir, we have to undo the legislation of 1721. We have to take the power back from the Parliament and put it where it belongs.”

“With the East India Company?” I proposed.

“That is exactly right: with the East India Company, and the chartered companies, and those men of wealth and ingenuity who wield the power in our economy. To them must go the spoils of the earth, not members of Parliament. Government growing beyond our consent has become a lumbering giant, sir, slamming shut the gates of opportunity, threatening to crush the very roots of our freedom. What will bring us back? The Englishman of means will bring us back—with quiet courage and common sense; with undying faith that in this nation the future will be ours, for the future belongs to the free.”

Having spent so much of my life in close contact with the poor, laborers who struggled to earn enough silver each week to fend off starvation, who lived in terror of an illness or a disruption in their work that would drive them and their families to ruin or death, this notion seemed almost comical. While I could not easily believe that the men of Parliament had acted in an entirely altruistic way, the legislation Mr. Ellershaw railed against seemed to me a perfectly reasonable corrective to balance the unrestrained power of the Company, for it protected the laborers at home from those abroad and favored the native woolen industry over foreign trade. It looked after Englishmen before foreigners and companies. Yet as he spoke one would think it were a crime against nature to prevent these companies, though they were possessed of massive wealth, from doing anything they liked to amass more wealth at the cost of anyone they chose.

On this point, however, I knew to hold my tongue.

“Mr. Ellershaw,” I began, “you speak of the doings of people and institutions far beyond my power. I hardly see what I can offer to help shape the course of the East India Company or of Parliament.”

“Nevertheless, I see it, Mr. Weaver. I see it with remarkable clarity. You will be my club to wield, sir, and wield you I shall. By the devil, we will fight back against those rascals, and when the Court of Proprietors meets, no one shall dare speak a word against me. And that, sir, is why you must be at dinner at my house. Do you imagine I don’t know how scandalous it is to have a Jew sitting at my table? Not even a Jew of wealth, which might be excusable, if someone there needed something of him. But you, a man who now, by my charity, earns forty pounds a year? I know it, sir, but you may leave it to me. You may leave it all to me.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TOOK MYSELF TO MR. COBB’S HOUSE, THINKING I HAD BETTER INFORM him of what I’d done with Elias’s name. As he did not want me plotting with my friend, I suspected he might be angered that I had recruited my near associate and fellow victim. On the contrary, Cobb regarded my decision with approbation.

“I trust you can control your friend,” he told me. “He must get a sense as quickly as possible of what it is Ellershaw wants to hear, and he will tell him that. Placate the man in any way you can. Earn his love through your surgeon. Do not think of discussing other matters with him, however. No matter how private you believe yourself to be, I can assure you I will know of your conversation.”

I said nothing, for there was nothing to say.

OVER THE NEXT TWO DAYS, I began to make something of a routine of my work at the East India House. After the first day, when I wandered in at ten in the morning, Ellershaw informed me that I was expected to keep company hours, from eight to six, like everyone else, but otherwise my work was unsupervised. I began by obtaining from the fastidious Mr. Blackburn a list of every watchman hired by the Company. Once I explained that I wished to establish an organized schedule of work and routine, he warmed to me considerably and praised my sense of order.

“What do you know of that East Indian fellow, Aadil?” I asked him.

Blackburn spent a few moments looking through some papers before announcing that he earned twenty-five pounds per annum.

I realized I had to clarify the question. “I meant to say, what sort of man is he?”

Blackburn looked at me, the vaguest hint of puzzlement on his face. “He earns twenty-five pounds per annum,” he repeated.

I saw that I should not get very far with this matter, so I attempted to shift to another area of inquiry. I had not forgotten my curious encounter with the gentleman from the Seahawk Insurance Office, and I thought perhaps Mr. Blackburn might be able to help me in that matter. Accordingly, I asked what he knew of them.

“Oh, yes. They have their offices at Throgmorton Street, near the bank. Mr. Slade, the director, lives above the office. They run a good business, indeed.”

“And how do you know that?”

He colored slightly. “I own that my services are in demand, sir, and not only by the gentlemen of Craven House. On occasion I am contracted by various concerns to set their records in order, and my reputation is well known in both the mercantile and insurance worlds. Last year, in fact, I spent several consecutive Sundays restoring order to the books at the Seahawk.”

Here was good news indeed, but I could not appear overly eager and thereby raise his suspicions. “Can you tell me how you went about such a thing? I am marvelous ignorant of how a man might reorder a set of records.”

No question could have made the gentleman happier, and while it meant that I listened to an astonishingly dull tale that stretched out over the most expansive hour I have ever endured, I learned a number of highly valuable details—namely, that the records of the company’s interactions were kept on the main floor, in the offices of a Mr. Samuel Ingram, one of the principal figures in the office, generally charged with making assessments of the riskiest propositions.

Having obtained that information, the moment I could politely extricate myself, I did not fail to do so. I could see, however, that my inquiries, rather than incurring the suspicions of Mr. Blackburn, had instead endeared me to him.

THE ROUTINES OF MY NEW life took only a day or two to puzzle out, and I began then to post a schedule at the main warehouse. It indicated who worked when and for how long, what patrol each man was to take, and so forth. Those men who could read were obligated to inform those who could not of their requirements. While the newness of the system produced some consternation in its offing, the men soon discovered that they would work fewer hours if they all attended to their duties. Only Aadil and a small band of some three or four sour-looking fellows, who appeared to be his inner circle, indicated any displeasure with the new arrangement.