The Sparrowhawk Companion (10 page)

“It has been heard in this assembly on a number of occasions that the colonials are unhappy with the means with which this coming war is to be paid for and prosecuted. Oh, how they grumble, those rustical Harries! The means, as we all know, and as they rightly fear, must in the end come out of their own rough, bucolic purses. To my mind, that is but a logical expectation. Yet, you would think, to judge by some of the protestations
that have reached our ears, that the Crown was proposing to engage the French over Madagascar for possession of that pirates’ nest, and obliging them to pay the costs of an adventure far removed from their concerns. But—the threat is to their own lives, their own homes and families, their fields, their shops, their seaports, their own livelihoods, and they higgle and haggle over the burden of expense! A very
strange
state of mind, indeed! I am merely a messenger, sirs. Do not entertain thoughts of murdering me for what I have said, or am about to say.

“And, no doubt, many of these same said colonials will pay with their own skins, too. However, if the reports of officers in His Majesty’s service in the colonies in the past are to be warranted—and I don’t for a minute doubt the substance of their complaints or the truth of their anecdotes—not many colonial skins will be cut by French bayonet or bruised by Indian war club. The colonials, it is commonly said, are uniformly lazy, undisciplined, contentious, quarrelsome, niggardly, presumptuous, and cowardly, amongst themselves as well as amongst our brave officers and troops! It is thought by many in high and middling places that if the colonial auxiliaries under General Braddock’s command had been more forthright and daring with their musketry in that fatal wood near the Ohio, that brave and enterprising officer would be sitting in this very chamber today to receive our thanks, and not buried in some ignominious patch of mud in the wilderness. But—the colonial temperament is a matter of record.
Our
colonials! Scullions all, the sons of convicts, whores, and malcontents! From the greedy gentry of the northern parts, to the posturing macaronis of the southern, every man Jack of them unmindful of the fact that he is a
colonial
, a mere plant nurtured in exotic soil for the benefit of this nation! Oh! How
ungrateful
, our Britannic flora!

“Yes!
Ungrateful
, their noggins emboldened by a few leagues of water! Now, it is thought here in this hall, and in London, and in all of England, and even in Wales and Scotland, that His Majesty’s government—we here, within these ancient walls,
and
they
across the way, in
Lords
are the corporate lawgiver
and
defender of our excellent constitution. Why, the most ignoble knife-grinder and blasphemous fishwife would be able to tell you that! Yet, proposals for new laws, or for the repeal of old ones, or for changes in existing statutes from colonial legislatures—those self-important congresses of coggers, costermongers, and cork farmers—arrive by the bulging barrelful on nearly every merchant vessel that drops anchor at Custom House. These proposals are dutifully conveyed by liveried but sweaty porters to the Privy Council and the Board of Trade, to the Admiralty and the Surveyor-General and the Commissioner of Customs.

“I am not friend to many members of those august bodies, but they truly have my sympathies, for they have the thankless task of sorting through those mountains of malign missives to segregate the specious from the serious. Many of these pleadings and addresses are shot through with a constant harping on the rights of the colonials as Englishmen, and so on with that kind of blather, like a one-tune hurdy-gurdy, a tiresome thing to endure, as many of you can attest. Virginia and Massachusetts are particularly monotonous and noisome in this respect. The planters would like to sell their weed directly to Spain or Holland, without the benefit of our lawful brokerage, while the Boston felt factors wish to fashion their own hats for sale there—or
here
!—without the material ever crossing the sea to be knocked together by our own artists. Well, sirs! We must needs remind our distant brethren that we are busy bees, too, and that the rights of Englishmen are only as good as the laws we enact allow—
here
, as well as
there
!

“Gentlemen, must I ask these questions? Does the beadle instruct the university? Does the postilion choose his employer’s destination? Does the bailiff counsel the magistrate?
No!
Should the colonials be permitted to advise
us
of
our
business? No! This is a custom unwisely indulged and which must be corrected! They must be reminded as civilly but as strenuously
as possible that they are residents of that far land at this nation’s leisure, pleasure, expense, and tolerance! This nation’s,
and
His Majesty’s! They wish us to respect their rights. Well, and why not? We would not deny them those rights. But, if they wish a greater role in the public affairs of this empire, let them repatriate themselves to this fair island, and queue up at the polling places—
here!—
where they may exercise those
native
rights on the soil from which they and those rights have sprung!

“Yes! For that is the nub of the matter!
Here
they will find no special circumstances, no calculated abridgement of their rights!
There
in New York, and in Boston, in Philadelphia, and Williamsburg, and Charleston, they find themselves in special circumstances that necessitate abridgement, and like it not! But—they elect to be
there
, and not
here
! And if they cannot purchase this simple reasoning, if they persist in pelting us with petitions, memorials, and remonstrances,
I
say it must be the time to forget civility, and chastise the colonials as good parents would wisely chastise wayward and misbehaved children!”