The Testament Of Jeremy Lord NorthamChapter 16
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Boston was not large by European standards, barely 15,000 souls, but it had the feel of a real city. I quickly settled in. One evening, I was dining at the Green Dragon and happened to speak to a man who mentioned he was reading a book by my old friend Voltaire. I told the man I knew Voltaire having dined at his house and attended his salons. The man shook my hand and engaged me in conversation till late at night. He made me promise to return the next night, introducing himself as a lawyer, John Adams.
I did return the next evening and Mr. Adams was joined by several friends. I was introduced and the questions began about Voltaire and his philosophy. I hesitated, explaining I was no philosophe myself, but they would have nothing else but my answers. I was able to tell them of the questions I had asked of Voltaire and his answers to my questions. I became something of a celebrity among the leading men of Boston.
I could not live my life at the Inn however. I found myself in an English Crown colony without any real occupation. In this state, a young man engaged me in conversation one evening. It was known among the men that I had been a tradesman in England. None knew I was a Lord as I did not want that known, there being at this time some tension between the colonists and the Crown. This young man, George Smith, had a burning passion to establish a trading company in Boston but lacked the necessary means to start. He proposed a partnership, him running the business, me providing the start. He was eager and sincere.
Young Smith was currently employed by a firm engaged in trade. I went round and spoke to the manager of the firm, who gave me very good recommendations for Smith's work and commitment. That evening, I accepted his proposal. I had enough on me to rent a warehouse and hire some rough men for the hard work. I also immediately sent off to England a letter requesting funds be sent immediately.
With this additional money, we were able to establish a first class trading company. I even was able to establish contact with Monsieur Pichette, who was trapping with many men in New York, and provide a regular outlet for their furs to the European markets when George established a branch office in that city. My knowledge of French allowed Smith and Northam to become the largest trader of furs to Europe.
It was during this period that France and Britain once again waged war, a seemingly endless occupation from before the Norman Conquest until the present Eighteenth Century. The French and Indian War was fought in the colonies and resulted in a general militarization of the Americas, with many regulars coming from Britain and the active involvement of the colonists. It was during this war, which extended the influence of the Crown in the Americas, that the colonists learned the arts of war which they would employ so soon for their revolution. It was to pay for this needless war that the Crown would impose so many onerous taxes on the colonies.
My partner was also an able smuggler, bringing in molasses to manufacture rum from non-British islands in the Caribbean, though the British were actively seeking to block such trade to collect tariffs on molasses to the colonies. The choice was between smuggling and bribery since no one paid the tariffs. Why 20,000 hogsheads of molasses were used in the distilleries each year to manufacture rum and tariffs were paid on perhaps 600 or so hogsheads of molasses. My partner and I were responsible for many of those 20,000 and none of the 600. The Bostonians were sorely vexed by these attempts to block trade. Perhaps rum was more responsible for the revolution than tea. Young George's energy and acumen actually grew our company until it was worth more per year than the Barony, though that was some years in the future.
Even in the beginning, I was earning enough from the business that I did not require funds from the estate. I let them accumulate in England, and actually expanded the Barony, purchasing several prime lands bordering it and renting these out. I became respected and admired in Boston for the colonists had little truck with titles but respected accomplishment and enterprise beyond all else.
But what of the ring? Ah, yes, this is the story of the ring. I had little occasion to use it. A neighbor was a woman of some repute, a few years old than I, a Mrs. Chatham, who had lost her sea-faring husband. His ship had sailed into the vast reaches of the great Pacific Ocean and none had returned from the voyage.
His loss had left her with little. I, being a Good Christian, offered her some help. Without trying to seem too overbearing, I might bring a goose and ask if she could prepare it as I had no wits in the kitchen, then share it with her and family. I might ask for a pie, leaving a sack of flour, butter and fruits enough for her family. And so I became in some ways, part of the family.
It was then I learned my next lesson of the fair sex. Having once been familiar with a man's bed, women do not forget the pleasures available. One night, after the children were asleep, she walked me back to my door and followed me in. I found myself led to my bedroom and she expressed her gratitude in a most delightful way. Older women, make grateful lovers and with their experience, pleasant as well. In short, I was well tended in body and soul as I tended to business.
It was some years later that the tensions between the Crown and the colonists began to reach fever pitch. I can say that I was an objective observer, being a servant of the Crown as a Lord, and a working colonist as a trader, I had feet in both worlds. As such, the Crown, so far away and with pressing concerns on the continent, made several horrible blunders in dealing with the colonies. The Crown desperately needed money to pay off the debt incurred in the French and Indian War and allowed that need to press it into these blunders.
Even without those blunders I believe that the colonies were ripe for their revolt. Too many of the leading men of the colonies were steeped in the doctrines of my old teacher, Voltaire and others, like Trenchard and Gordon and their Cato Letters, men of the new thought concerning Man's Natural Rights. I had never imagined what others would do with the philosophy of Voltaire, he being such a gentle and civilized man, but many in the colonies used them to reach conclusions I found an anathema.
In 1762, I believe it was, a lawyer, James Otis, argued in a British court in the colony that the King's actions in issuing Writs of Assistance, what would be called unlimited search warrants later, were unconstitutional because they deprived a person of their property without the person's consent. My dear friend, John Adams, had witnessed the trial and told me later at the Green Dragon that, "The child independence was then and there born, every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away as I did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance." The founding of the new nation was based on the sacred right of persons to be secure in the possession of their own property. Even though my allegiance to the Crown did not waiver, I found myself in sympathy with this position.
Pamphleteers sprang up like weeds in an untended garden, and the Crown's indifference was much like letting the garden grow wild. One pamphlet, Common Sense, sold 500,000 copies, an unheard of number that meant nearly every house in the colonies possessed a copy. Agitators and lunatics wrote long treatises proclaiming the rights of man. Whereas in the thinkers I had read, these rights were natural, the agitators drew perverse syllogisms that the natural rights of man allowed a man to abrogate his duties to the Crown.
It was about this time that my old friend sent me a new work. I read it gladly. Stunned, I began to see that the calls of the pamphleteers were one and the same with the works of my esteemed teacher. I began to understand why Monsieur Voltaire was disliked by the French nobility and adored by the colonists. They fought the same fight. The call for the rights of man echoed on both side of the Atlantic.
I was now a fixture at the Green Dragon having many years residence and began to converse with especial interest in the thoughts of several of the leading men of Boston who had also read much of the work of Voltaire and an Englishman, Locke. One man, Samuel Adams who would become a bit of a firebrand, lent me a copy of the works of Locke in exchange for my recent works of Voltaire. We had many fruitful conversations on the meaning and import of these ideas. I was drawn into the ferment. I was of two minds on this issue. One, as a servant of the Crown, I had certain duties and responsibilities. Two, as a man, I also had duties, rights, and responsibilities and these seemed to be in conflict. The arguments at the Green Dragon were lively.
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