A King`s Trade

his side. Under the circumstances, perhaps horrid, devious, and brutal aid was just what was needed!

'Besides…' Twigg simpered again. 'Watching you twist about in the wind is devilish-amusing… now and then. Eat up, man! Your food's going cold, and 'tis too tasty to go to waste. More wine? See to him, Ajit Roy jee. Bharnaa opar! Fill him up!'

Suddenly in a much better mood, Lewrie accepted more piping-hot rice, more yogurt gravy, more slices of meat, and began to eat, about to rave over the exotic, long-missed, flavours, 'til…

'How to achieve that aim, though… aye, there's the rub,' Mr. Twigg mused over new-steepled fingers, with his fierce hatchet face in a daunting scowl. 'Stealing those slaves and making sailors out of 'em rather exceeded your usual harum-scarum antics. Left 'em in the shade, as it were.'

'You mentioned that Sir Malcolm Shockley might be of some help, sir?' Lewrie dared to suggest, with curry sauce tingling his lips.

'Aye, Shockley. He likes you, and he isn't your run-of-the-mill backbencher in the Commons, either. No Vicar of Bray, is he, nor is he the Great Mute, either. Allied with Sir Samuel Whitbread, and those younger 'progressives' who associate with him. Shockley's not a typical 'Country-Put,' like most of our rural, squirearchy, 'John Bull' Members are… damn 'em for the unsophisticate twits they are. There's wit behind his eyes!'

'Fox, perhaps, sir?' Lewrie chimed in, hopefully

'The Great Commoner?' Twigg sneered. 'Following the Spithead and the Nore naval mutinies, the Prime Minister, Pitt the Younger, and the Tories crushed the man. I fear that the formerly-esteemed Charles James Fox is as powerless as a parish pensioner… and has about as many friends. That will be a real problem for you, for most of those who revile the institution of slavery are the same ones who spoke out so openly in praise of the French Revolution in

the late '80s… men like Jeremy Bentham, Doctor Joseph Priestley, Wedgwood, the pottery fellow, Boulton and Watt, the steam-engine men, and the light-headed scribblers such as Blake and Coleridge… even Robert Burns, come to think of it. All the so-called Progressives, what? They run with the same pack. Still, that was ten years ago, and memories fade. No one got round to hanging them for uttering such rot, even if the French made them honorary citizens for their vocal public support.'

'But, that was before the Frogs lopped off King Louis's head,' Lewrie sourly observed.

'Well, that changed everything… but for the true hen-headed, of course.' Twigg smirked most evilly. 'No, knowing those worthies as I do, the vehemence with which they revile slavery will naturally make them raise up a too public hue and cry, a veritable crusade, with you the heart of their righteous blather. Make a martyr of you…'

'And don't most martyrs end up dyin', Mister Twigg?'

'Well, of course they do, Lewrie! Can't have martyrs without a good bonfire, and shrieks of agony!' Twigg chortled. 'What we need is the subtile back-gate approach, else the pro-slavery colonial and shipping interests in Parliament demand your cashiering, and hanging… to spite the do-gooders, if for no better reason. No, we must go to cleverer men, who can see the longer view. Wilberforce, perhaps. Aye, Wilberforce would be your man!'

God save me! Lewrie thought, shrinking at the mention of that name. William Wilberforce and his coven of familiars had been a bane on English Society for years, marching on age-old morals (or the lack of them!) like a vengeful army of pitchfork-armed Puritans through the 'Progressive' wing of the Church of England, evinced by the so-called Clapham Sect; on another front via the House of Commons since so many Members were of like minds; and through Philanthropy in the public arena, a third front led by rich and influential women like Mrs. Hannah More and Elizabeth Fry… by Jeremy Bentham, himself, with his Vice Society and his damnable concept of Utilitarianism. If things didn't meet his strict and narrow key-holes of the most benefit for the most people, then damn it to Hell and do away with it… whatever it was. Lt. Langlie had gotten a copy of Bentham's Panopticon, his view of an ideal England, and had been aghast, as had Lewrie, that it called for total surveillance of everyone's waking actions by a 'morality police' as an infernal machine to 'grind rogues honest'!

Over the years, maypoles and dancing about them had been banned, village football and Sunday cricket had all but disappeared; good old Church Ales were completely gone. Fairs, bear-baiting, dog- and cock-fighting, throwing at cocks, greased-goose pulls, beating the bounds (and springtime beating of boys to keep them honest!), pig- racing, and all sorts of light-hearted amusements had been done away with, which had reputedly led Mrs. Hannah More to declare that sooner or later, all that would be left would be the new-fangled Sunday schools, and that the people of England 'would have nothing else to look at but ourselves'!

Why, by now, the reformers might've even done away with fox-hunting and steeplechasing! Damn 'em. Newly- rich arrivistes, Non-Conforming Anglicans, Dissenters, and Methodists barred from Public Office, Service, or Honours; jumped-up tradesmen become wealthy, grand landowners; even that ex-slaver John Newton (who'd written Mr. Winwood's poem and hymn and had been Saved)… oh, but it was a devious conspiracy of do-gooding that opposed almost all that Lewrie thought he fought to preserve! Why, give them a few more years, and topping goose-girls, milk-maids, and serving wenches would be right out, too!

'Such flam,' Lewrie muttered. 'Bentham, Fry, those sort. That writer, Macauley, and Wilberforce and the Evangelical Society, they're all of a piece, Mister Twigg. Are you sure we need their…?'

'Sarah Trimmer, don't forget,' Twigg added. 'She who thinks our old fairy tales too indecent for today's children. 'Dick Whittington's Cat' leads the poor to aspire above their proper stations, for instance. 'Cinderella,' which my granddaughter adores, by the way, is too harsh on step-mothers and step-sisters. To Trimmer's lights, we need tales more uplifting, instructional, and useful. Gad, though, just try reading some of her alternatives. Horrid, simpering, blathering pap!

'It's the war, I suppose,' Twigg continued, after a moment of gloom. 'You were in England during the naval mutinies, which, for a time, looked to become a nationwide Levellers' rebellion that might've overthrown Crown, Parliament, and the Established Church, to boot! In dread of the French revolutionary Terror being replicated here, perhaps the Mob needs taming, and our upstarts quashed.

'Thankfully, however,' Twigg said with a sardonically amused leer, 'our earnest reformers wish to do their chiefest work among our semi-savage poor, not the well-to-do. So far, that is. More wine?'

'Uhm, aye… but!' Lewrie replied, impatient with the niceties. 'Let that lot get their hooks in me, and I'm done for, Mister Twigg!'

'You are surely 'done for' do they not, Lewrie,' Twigg sombrely pointed out. 'Where else could you find aid?'

'Well…' Lewrie said after a deep breath, shrugging without a single clue. 'Damn my eyes.'

'Exactly,' Twigg said with a sage simper. 'How was the ride up from

London?'

'Just bloody lovely!' Lewrie snapped. 'Bucolic, and…' 'I meant the state of the roads, and the weather, Lewrie!' Mr. Twigg snapped back in exasperation. ' 'Less there's a thunderstorm and washed-out roads, there's daylight enough to get us down to London and lodgings… where I may write to those I believe most-able to give you aid. No time like the present, what? If pouring rain, we'll take my coach, if not, my chariot. Much faster. Your hired 'prad' I'll stable here and have my groom send down, later. Leading an indifferent horse at the cart's tail will only slow us down. Eat up, and we're off.'

'Do you really think we'll be able to…?' Lewrie asked in awe of Twigg's alacrity, and in great relief that, dubious as he was, there was one ally willing to save him from a 'hemp neck- stock.'

'Hope springs eternal… all that,' Twigg responded, roughly shovelling in a last bite or two, taking a last sip or two of wine.

Damme, but this is going to irk, but…! Lewrie thought; under the circumstances, there was nothing else for it.