A Spectacle Of Corruption

CHAPTER 22

I DID NOT LIKE that my fate should be bound as closely as it was to a man like John Littleton, but I saw no way to avoid calling upon his services once more. I wrote him and asked that he meet me in a tavern on Broad Street in Wapping. I went undisguised, for Littleton knew nothing of my Matthew Evans persona and I thought it safer that way. He had thus far proved himself willing to aid me after his own fashion, but I could never know when I might have asked too much or provided too great a temptation.

As it happened, Littleton was eager to meet with me. The entry of his rivals into the political fray seemed to have utterly disordered him. His men knew not how to respond, but many believed that if Greenbill’s boys were rioting, surely there was profit to be had in riot and Littleton ought to be able to secure their share of the spoils.

“It’s all in chaos,” he said to me, swallowing down his beer as though he had been deprived of drink all day. There was a bruise on his face, just under his left ear, and I wondered if he had been brawling- with his men, perhaps?

“What do you know of it? What does it mean?”

“What does it mean?” he repeated. “What do you think it means? Dogmill’s got them paid off to riot against Melbury. What could be more plain?”

“But why would Greenbill accept Dogmill’s money for such a thing? Does he not wish to see Hertcomb out of office and Dogmill taken down a notch?”

“You’re thinking like a politician. That’s your problem. You ought to be thinking like a porter. They’ve been offered money, which is enough, but they’ve been offered money to make mischief, which is even more. As to matters of right and wrong, they hardly signify, but that’s all took care of just the same. Greenbill went out there and told his men that if Melbury gets elected it will ruin Dogmill, and if Dogmill is ruined, they can forget any work this spring. It’s as simple as that. They must wish well to their master, for the only thing worse than being under his boot is to have no master at all.”

“Can Greenbill believe this? Can he believe that if Dogmill no longer brings in tobacco, no one will bring in tobacco?”

“I only know he believes in the silver that Dogmill surely gave him to tell this tale. And, when you think about it, it is but one more talk. It is like unloading a ship- work for which Dogmill pays Greenbill and Greenbill pays his boys. Nothing’s changed but that there’s a little more winter work.”

“How long will they riot?”

“I think only a few more days. Hertcomb and Dogmill can’t hold off the soldiers much more than that. In the meantime, I have contacted Mr. Melbury and let him know that he don’t have to take this lying down.”

“You would send your boys out to fight Greenbill’s?”

“It’s been a long time coming this way. I don’t see no harm in letting it play out as it might.”

I was in beyond my capacity. I knew it to be so. Did I wish for more rioting or less rioting? Did I wish to see Melbury, a man I once despised as a rival, triumphant? Surely he would put things right. Surely I could count on him to restore my name if he was elected. But there was a twinge of pleasure in seeing his electors cower in their homes, afraid to step up to the polls. He had been too ambitious. He had taken on what did not belong to him, and now he would know the taste of failure.

My vengeful thoughts were shattered, however, by the arrival of my landlady, Mrs. Sears, who informed me in a most disapproving tone that a young lady wished to call upon me. I could not have been more delighted to see Miss Dogmill walk into my chambers.

I rose in greeting. “As ever, I am delighted to see you, Miss Dogmill.”

She closed the door behind her, nearly upon Mrs. Sears’s face. “I believe myself worthy of this enthusiasm, for you have no better friend, sir.” She sat without waiting for my invitation- an act that, when performed by me, seems invariably hostile and defiant but only made this lady appear breezy and at ease. “I’ve brought you something you may wish to see.” She then set a series of letters down upon the table.

I picked up one and examined it. It was unsealed and addressed to a gentleman in York. “What is this to me?”

“These are letters, Mr. Weaver, four letters that my brother has sent to gentlemen of whom he is aware- though he knows none of them personally- who have lived for some years in Jamaica. He has written to all of them to inquire if they are familiar with Matthew Evans, grower of tobacco and charmer of sisters.”

“And you have rescued them for me,” I said.

“I thought they would be better off in your hands.”

“I think you are right, but when they go unanswered, will not your brother grow frustrated and try again?”

“I suppose that depends upon how long they go unanswered. Surely you have no intention of remaining Matthew Evans forever.”

“I find that there are advantages,” I said.

“Hmm. I believe I do as well. In any event, if you do plan to continue your pretense longer, you might consider answering these letters yourself. I do not think Denny knows any of these men well enough to recognize their handwriting; I don’t believe he’s even met any of them in person. You could very easily provide him with precisely the information he does not wish to hear- that Matthew Evans is a well-respected gentleman planter who has lately left for England.”

I thought her solution a good one, though another approach I liked better occurred to me. But more of that anon. For now I rose and put the letters upon my writing table. “I thank you for these,” I said. “They may well have saved my life.”

“Then I believe you owe me something in return,” she said, rising to greet me. “You must kiss me.”

“This penalty I shall pay gladly,” I told her.

I walked to embrace her, but she held me back for a moment. “We are alone here and have all the privacy we could desire. There is nothing to inhibit us but our own inclinations.”

“I have thought the same thing.”

“Then there is something I must say to you. I know you to be a man of honor, so I wish that we might not misunderstand each other. You and I may share a fondness. We may, for all I know, share what is commonly called love. But you are not to ask me to marry you. Not out of affection or out of what you might imagine to be an obligation. I do not wish to marry- not you or anyone else.”

“What?” I asked. “Never?”

“I will not be so foolish as to talk of never, but I will talk of now. I only wished that you not misunderstand me or act out of what you might think an obligation that should make both of us uneasy.”

“It would hardly be proper for a woman of your family to marry a man of mine,” I said, with a bitterness I did not feel.

“That is surely true,” she said good-naturedly, “though you must know that such rules would not lead me to act against my own heart. If I were to marry, I can think of nothing more delicious than the scandal of marrying a Jew thieftaker. But I think I will, for the foreseeable future, avoid matrimony entirely.”

“Then I shall not force you to act against your inclination,” I said.

She smiled at me. “Besides, I do not believe I should like to marry a man in love with Griffin Melbury’s wife. Do not look at me thus, sir. I know who she is, and I saw what you looked like when you danced with her.”

I pulled away from her. “My feelings for her are not pertinent, as her heart is not free.”

“No, it is not, and that is a very distressing thing. But my heart is free, and you are welcome to make what use of it you will.”

And here I shall draw a curtain against the rites of Cupid, which are too delicate to write of and must be left to the reader’s imagination.

The hours I passed with Miss Dogmill were delightful and too quickly used. After she departed from my rooms and faced the gantlet of Mrs. Sears’s scowls, I found myself alone and the time passed most miserably. I ought, I suppose, to have been full of good cheer. I had found that this beautiful woman was more than happy to be an agreeable friend of the most amiable sort. I no longer had to pretend to be something I was not with her, and she wanted nothing more of me than my time and companionship. Certainly she was not the first young lady whose company I had enjoyed since losing Miriam to Melbury, but she was surely the most agreeable, and I did not like that emotions should be divided. Perhaps I felt false to my hopeless love by feeling such fondness for Miss Dogmill, or perhaps I only regretted the waning of the pain itself. It had been for so long all that I had left of Miriam. I hated to see it dissipate.

These reflections were shattered when Mrs. Sears informed me that there was a lad at the door with a message for me, and he would not depart until I had read it. I impatiently tore it open.

Evans,

I am in a bad way and need your help at once. Follow this boy, and lose no time in meeting me or all will be in ruins. The election- nay, the kingdom- may stand or fall on your actions. I am, &c, G. Melbury

I felt some remorse in having delighted in Melbury’s difficulties when this same man so clearly thought of me as his friend. Nevertheless, I had to remind myself that the friend he thought of was not me but a fiction called Matthew Evans. He had no idea who I was, and if he had he would almost certainly not have come to me with his problems. It might yet develop, I thought, that Melbury could resent the freedoms I’d taken with him, and he might never help me when he learned of the falsehoods I had perpetuated.

I followed the boy to an old house near Moor Fields Street in Shoreditch, and in this place I was greeted at the door by none other than the bill collector, Titus Miller. “Ah, Mr. Evans,” he said. “Mr. Melbury mentioned that you were a man upon whom he might depend, and it would seem you have shown yourself to be dependable. I have no doubt that Mr. Melbury will relish your company.”

“What is this?” I demanded.

“What it seems to be,” he said. “Most things are, you know. Most things are not deceptions but just what they seem. Mr. Melbury has been ill-natured enough to overlook some of his debts that I have bought up, so I have insisted he tarry here awhile and consider what consequences his reluctance might have on his bid for a seat in the House. Tomorrow, if he does not become more good-natured, I may have no choice but to forward his care to that of the King’s Bench- a prison where many men who have refused to meet their obligations are wont to congregate.”

So that was the nature of Melbury’s distress. He had been taken to this sponging house, and here he would remain for twenty-four hours unless he could convince someone to meet his debts. Clearly, he imagined that someone to be a wealthy Jamaican planter.

I have never loved sponging houses, and I say that while fully admitting that I have, on one or two unfortunate occasions, had the opportunity to examine their interior operations very closely. It is something of a shame to our British method of justice that a man may be taken off the street and held against his will for a full day before being turned over to the courts. During that day he must eat and drink and sleep, and for all of these accommodations he must pay the proprietor of the house far more than the market would bear if the customer had the freedom to try his luck with a competitor. A dinner that might cost him a few pence at the chophouse across the street would cost him a shilling or two in a sponging house. And thus have many men gone into debt and, finally being caught, found themselves in more debt than ever before.

I insisted that Miller take me to Melbury at once, so he led me through a house cluttered with old furniture, rugs rolled up and stacked in corners, crates and trunks unopened. Here were the goods men had bartered for their freedom.

Miller led me up a flight of stairs, down a hall, and up another flight of stairs. He then removed from a hook upon his coat a rather large key ring and, after a brief search, identified the necessary object.

The door creaked like a dungeon gate, but the accommodations were tolerably respectable. The room was of a manageable size and contained several chairs, a writing desk (there is no more important occupation for the man in a sponging house than that of writing letters to friends with money), and a rather comfortable-looking bed.

It was on that item that I found Melbury, stretched out and looking mightily relaxed. “Ah, Evans. Good of you to come.” He leaped up with the grace of a rope dancer and took my hand warmly. “Miller here would have had me writing letters all the day, but I sent only one, for if a man does not know whom to turn to in a crisis, he is a poor man indeed.”

I should have thought to say that a man who cannot keep out of a sponging house is a more fitting definition of a poor man, but I held my tongue. I likewise restrained myself on commenting on the honor of being the only man summoned to meet his needs. “I came as soon as I received your note,” I said.

“I do admire a man who is punctual,” Miller volunteered.

“Oh, leave us alone, would you?” Melbury snapped at him.

“There is no cause to be uncivil,” Miller said, seemingly injured. “We are all of us gentlemen here.”

“I have no interest in hearing your notion of who is a gentleman and who is not. Now get out.”

“You have been ill-natured, sir,” Miller told him. “Very ill-natured indeed.” He then backed out, closing the door behind him.

“I should like to have that fellow horsewhipped,” Melbury told me. “Now, come sit, Evans, and have a glass of this wretched port he sent up. For what he charges, he should blush to ask me to drink this filth, but it is better than nothing, I suppose.”

I ought to have hesitated to drink a wine that came with so weak a recommendation, but I joined him all the same. We sat near the fireplace and Melbury smiled, as though we were visiting in a club or in his own home.

“Well,” he began, after a painfully long pause, “you can see that I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a fix here, and I need someone to get me out. As you have mentioned to me on more than one occasion a desire to be useful to the Tories in this election, I naturally set upon you as the very man for me. I have no doubt the Whig papers will make much of this incident. I have every reason to believe that it is Dogmill who has encouraged Miller to act so ungenerously. Not that a wretch like Miller needs any encouraging, but I smell a collaboration here- one that shall be answered with strength, I assure you. But our more immediate concern is that we can ill afford to feed the Whig papers something so scandalous as debtor’s prison. I trust you are in agreement.”

“In the most general sense, certainly,” I said, with a weak smile. “But I wonder precisely how much this erasure of scandal will cost.”

“Oh”- he waved a hand in the air-“it is nothing. Nothing. The amount is so small, I hesitate even to mention it to you. I am sure a gentleman like you must spend twice as much in a year on nothing so important as hunting. I trust you like to shoot, by the way. This year, after the season, you must join me at my house in Devonshire. There is excellent shooting there, and I flatter myself that many a man of consequence in our party will be there to enjoy the sport.”

“I thank you for your offer,” I said, “but I must beg to know the amount you require of me.”

“Look how grave you have become. One might think I was to ask you to mortgage your estate. I promise you, it is nothing so severe as that. It is a trifle, a mere trifle.”

“Mr. Melbury, be so kind as to name the amount.”

“Of course, of course. The bill is for two hundred and fifty pounds, no more than that- excepting, of course, a few odd pounds for my stay here. There have been a few bottles of port, you know, and some meals. The paper and pen are a bit expensive too, which I find outrageous. But I should think two hundred and sixty pounds will more than answer our needs.”

I could hardly believe that he would speak of these sums so freely. Two hundred and sixty pounds surely signified, even to a man such as Matthew Evans. Why, it would be more than a quarter of his fictitious income. For Benjamin Weaver, however, it would mean the loss of the bulk of the money I had taken from the house of Judge Rowley. I did not know how I could afford to pay out such an amount, though I knew excusing myself should prove a mighty setback.

“If I may be so bold, Mr. Melbury, I have been made to understand that your wife is possessed of a large fortune.”

“Do you mean that she is a Jewess, sir?” he asked me pointedly. “Is that your meaning? That I have married a Jewess, so I must not want for money?”

“I do not mean that at all. I say only that I have been told she came to your union possessed of a large fortune.”

“All the world thinks that because she is a Jewess she must have money. My life, I should have you know, is not a production of The Jew of Venice upon the stage; all my wife must do is rob her father of his moneybags, and all will be well. I am sorry to tell you, sir, that there is a great rift between the truth and the stage.”

“I have said nothing of rich fathers or moneybags.”

“Very good,” he said, taking my hand. “I am sorry I grew warm with you. I know you meant nothing. You are a good man, Evans, a monstrous good man. And I have no doubt that you understand that a man cannot run to his wife’s petticoats every time he faces a danger. What sort of life is that?”

Was I to conclude then that I must surrender nearly every penny I had in the world so this man might not trouble himself to ask for money from his own wife? The very idea enraged me. Of course, I could also find no pleasure in the idea that he would squander Miriam’s small fortune on his debts while he gambled without remorse.

“I should think the bonds of matrimony would reduce a man’s squeamishness.”

“Spoken like a bachelor.” He laughed. “Someday you will take the vows yourself, and you will see that it is a bit more complicated than you now flatter yourself. But as for now, what say you, Evans? Are you able to help defeat the Whigs here or no?”

What could I say? “Certainly.”

“Splendid. Now let’s find Miller and kick him through this world.”

As we had been locked inside the chamber, we found Miller by pounding upon the door. Melbury then gleefully told him that I would sign for the money, and that once the election was over he would return to make Miller answer for his rudeness.

“As to what you call rudeness, I can say nothing,” Miller told him. “It is not a rudeness to demand what is yours. I think it ill-natured to refuse to give what you owe, but I will say no more of that. As to the signing of notes, I fear that it is a ticklish matter. You see that the note that led Mr. Melbury here today was signed freely, and yet there was to be no money behind it. I should like something more than airy notes for my trouble, Mr. Evans. As this kingdom has learned from the South Sea Company, it is one thing to put your promises to paper but quite another to honor those promises.”

“The South Sea men are a pack of Whigs who know nothing about honoring promises,” Melbury mumbled, clearly out of sorts at having been likened to the Company directors.

“Whigs and Tories are all one to me,” Miller said. “If a man is not good-natured enough to keep his word, I care nothing for his party. And for the moment, I care only for knowing how I shall receive my money from Mr. Evans.”

I confess I could not blame the fellow for his concern, for I had no desire to hand over a note to this rascal. As I was not, in any honest manner of speaking, such a person as Matthew Evans, my signing a note in his name would constitute a forgery- a crime with which I might be asked to pay with my life. I had every hope of being able to vindicate myself in the matter of Yate’s death; as to the injury done to Mr. Rowley, surely the world would forgive it as the hasty action of a man more sinned against than sinning. But if I were to begin generating money with false notes, that was another problem altogether, and it was a risk I was unwilling to take in the service of the man who had married the woman I love.

I cleared my throat and addressed Miller. “You can hardly expect me to have so large a sum on my person.”

“I might hope that you would. I might ardently wish for it. But as to expectations, you are surely right. It is the unusual man who carries with him so much ready cash for no particular reason. I hope, therefore, that you will allow me to call upon you at your home- let us say in five days’ time- and there I will ask you for the sum we have here mentioned.”

“Splendid idea,” said Melbury.

I nodded my agreement. I had grown to depend so much on Melbury’s success in this election that I would risk almost anything on his behalf.

“I hope it is a splendid idea,” said Miller. “I hope so most fervently, for if Mr. Evans fails to be able to make his payment as promised, I shall be forced to begin with you anew, Mr. Melbury. Under the circumstances, you may not hide in your home or leave town. You must be in the metropolis, visible and, so, vulnerable. I hope you will not play any ill-natured games with my patience.”

“I should like to play a game with your head, Miller. I should like to play a game with your head and a large stick, but as to your patience, you may be certain I shall leave it be.”

“That is all I ask of you. That and to refrain from being quite so ill-natured.”

Conducting himself in the fashion of a man leaping with vigor from a favorite bagnio, rather than one released from a sponging house by someone little more than an acquaintance, Melbury called for a hackney and ushered me inside.

“I trust you have no pressing plans. You have some time just now?”

“I suppose I do,” I said, thinking only of the impending visit by Titus Miller and what that might mean for my finances.

“Very good,” he said, “for there is a place I’ve a mind to visit.”

The place, it turned out, was a tavern called the Fig Tree far to the west in Marylebone. I had now had my ear to the political ground for some weeks, but even if I had not, I still would have recognized the place as a notorious gathering spot for Whigs of the most ardent nature.

“What should lead us to such a place?”

“Dennis Dogmill,” he said.

“Do you think it wise to confront the man in the heart of his own stronghold?”

“I am beginning to care less and less for wise and with greater fervor for bold. Is it mere coincidence that a pack of thugs descend on the polling place, meant to terrify every liberty-loving elector away- at the precise moment that blockhead Miller descends on me with a new vengeance? I tell you, Dogmill and Hertcomb have smelled the scent of their own defeat, and it is not pleasing to their nostrils. Now they wish to throw our fat upon the fire to appease their Whiggish gods, but I shall not tolerate it, and I mean to tell them myself- in public and before as many of their supporters as choose to listen.”

“That is all very good,” I said, “but I must ask again if you think it wise.”

“How can it not be wise when I have my most stalwart friend by my side? The Whigs have learned once, and in the most painful fashion, that it does not pay to apply violence to Matthew Evans. I think they may learn the same lesson tonight.”

It would seem, then, that in Melbury’s mind I had become both his banker and his henchman, and like a hired Swiss I was to put myself in the way of whatever danger he chose for no other reason but that he chose it. I hardly relished my new role, but neither did I bid him to stop the coach or attempt to persuade him to alter his course of action.

We drew up outside the tavern in question, where a large crowd was now congregated. The men were not of the rough sort who had begun to plague the polls- these were respectable men of the middling order: shopkeepers and clerks and lawyers of unremarkable success- and they were hardly the kind to erupt into violence, so I let out a sigh of relief. I let out another when I saw that this throng awaited entry into the tavern. Melbury, I presumed, would be too impatient in his wrath to wait for a period of time- which might stretch to hours- in order to speak a few cross words to men who would pay him no mind. I soon discovered, however, that I had underestimated his resolve. He approached the crowd and announced in a booming voice that we would pass through, and the authority in his tone did the business. The men- bemused and irritated- stepped aside. They grumbled as we passed, but we passed all the same.

Inside, the scene was nothing short of riotous. A great sheep roasted on a spit over an open fire, and with each turn a new piece was cut off and placed on a plate, a prize for which a hundred hands rose up in greedy anticipation. The air smelled of charred meat and strong tobacco and of the spilled wine that formed sticky puddles on the floor. In the center of the tavern, tables had been cleared away to make a great space, and those men who did not clamor for mutton like starving prisoners had gathered in a circle here, some cheering, some moaning and clutching at their heads in horror.

Melbury nudged me. “That’s where we’ll find him,” he said, pointing to the circle. He led us around to a spot he reckoned would be the most propitious for our point of entry and began to make a path through the crowd, easily five or six men deep. We had burrowed about halfway into the depth when I saw the spectacle that so entranced the onlookers. A pair of mighty cocks- one black with white streaks, the other white with bits of red and brown- circled each other with unmistakable menace. The black one moved slowly, and I could see that its feathers were heavy and wet, but because of his color and the poorness of the light, it took a moment for me to recognize that it was his own blood that dampened him.

The black bird reared up and leaped at the white, but it was obvious that its strength had been tapped. The stronger bird, unencumbered with injury, easily dodged the attack and, with the wounded aggressor off balance, spun around and leaped in turn upon the poor creature. It was only then that I saw that their claws had been affixed with small blades, which augmented the damage of their natural weapons most terribly. The white bird gave his opponent what was surely a finishing blow, and the black cock turned upon his side and fought no more.

A mighty noise rose up from the crowd, and money at once began to change hands. After half a moment, enough quiet had descended that someone began to speak. Because it was hard to hear, it took a moment for me to recognize that it was Dennis Dogmill’s voice I now heard.

“We shall present another match for your entertainment in an hour’s time,” he announced. “For now, those of you who find yourselves having chosen the wrong bird in this contest may take some comfort in knowing that the losing beast was a member of the Tory party, and it is said in the vicinity of the henhouse that he was of a Jacobitical bent. And there are other reasons to rejoice. We dominate our opposition at the polls, and we may soon rejoice in the victory of Whig liberties over Tory absolutism.”

The crowd answered this proclamation with far more laughter than it deserved, but then the men began to dissipate, some toward the mutton, which continued to rotate agreeably and yield meat, others to the barrels of wine that sprung cheap drink lavishly and freely. There could be no mystery, however, as to where Griffin Melbury received his sustenance. He strode boldly up to Dennis Dogmill and Albert Hertcomb.

“Has your blood sport sufficiently satisfied your portion of the electorate, or will you continue to depend upon roughs to make a mockery of British liberties?”

“It can hardly be a mockery to permit the unenfranchised to express their opinions as best they can,” Hertcomb proposed. “I suppose some men are inclined to the French way of doing things- using soldiers to beat down any man who might say something not to his liking.”

“I’ll not listen to these lies,” Melbury said. “You must know that if your roughs do not disappear, the election must be contested by the House.”

“Perhaps so,” Dogmill agreed, “but as all signs indicate that the Whig majority will be as strong, if not stronger, than ever, I need hardly doubt what conclusion that august body will reach.”

The calmness of the words, the ease with which they were spoken, the confidence of victory to which they testified- despite the Tory candidate’s still possessing the lead- only served to inflame Melbury further. “Damn you for a rascal, Dogmill! Do you think Westminster is a pocket borough to be assigned to whomever you please because you spread your money around? I think you will soon learn that British liberty is a beast not easily managed, once uncaged.”

“I beg your pardon,” Dogmill said, “but I will not have you or any man address me in such terms.”

“I am available for redress if you think yourself wronged.”

“Mr. Dogmill does not believe in defending his honor during the election season,” I volunteered. “Something to do, I think, with the Whig electorate not respecting a man who values his name or reputation. I have found that if you press Mr. Dogmill hard enough, he will loose his temper and lash out, but he will never behave as befits a man of honor.”

“Don’t think I have forgotten about you, Evans,” he said to me. “You may be sure that when the polls close you will learn the difference between a man you can abuse and a man of resolve.”

“You misunderstand me,” I said, “if you think I doubt your resolve. Any man who can convince the very fellows he beats into poverty to rise up against the man who would make their lot easier is a fellow of great resolve, I should say.”

“What, those porters?” He laughed. “I thank you for your compliment, but you must not think I had anything to do with their behavior. Rather, you misunderstand the nature of life on our island, Evans, being so new to it. Those low fellows will love the man they serve, so long as he continues to pay them, and the less he pays them, the more he will be loved. We may speak of British liberty, but the truth is these roughs love to feel the lash upon their backs and the boot to their arses. I gave them no encouragement to stand up for me. They did as they, in their limited way, understood to be what was right.”

“Those fellows are good Whigs,” Hertcomb said, “and no amount of agitation will turn them Tory.”

“They are neither Whig nor content to be trod upon,” I said. “You play a dangerous game with their liberty.”

Dogmill took a step toward me. “You are a fine man to speak of liberty,” he said. “Tell us, if you will, about the liberty of the Africans enslaved on your lands in Jamaica. What freedoms do they have to speak their minds? Tell us, Mr. Evans, how much you raised up the downtrodden laborer on your own plantation.”

I fear I had no words at my disposal, for I had never taken the time to think of that aspect of my disguise before, and though I knew that arguments for the justness of slavery were to be found in print, I was familiar with none that I could utter without feeling foolish. I suppose, if I had rehearsed them, I might have been able to offer some clever rejoinder in defense of a practice that, truth be told, no honorable man can endorse. Yet I should rather have defended all the wrongs in the world than stand there, as I did, looking bashful and confused, leading Dogmill to believe that he had scored a mighty blow against me.

To my shame, Melbury came to my rescue. “A man invested in the trade of human flesh can hardly criticize another for being a customer in that trade. Your sense of the truth is as crooked as your sense of honorable electioneering. I come here, in the midst of your revels, to give you both notice that I will not stand by and see this election corrupted. I do not fear you and I do not credit your reputations. You may call me out or not, according to your own sense of honor. But what you will not do is defeat me, not by trickery. You may run this race fairly or you may simply run. What you will not do is buy a seat in the House of Commons. Not here. Not in Westminster. I have placed myself as guard on the bridge of liberty, sirs, and corruption may not pass.”

With that he turned on his heel and led us from the heart of the beast, not affording either man the opportunity to respond.

Once in the hackney, Melbury congratulated himself on the prettiness of his speech. “I told him a thing or two. Not that he will much care, of course. My words will mean nothing to him.”

“Then why trouble yourself to speak them?”

“Why, because I made certain that a few men of the Tory papers were in that crowd, and they will be certain to print my words for the world to see- just as the world will see that I was man enough to speak them in the very den of the enemy. Dogmill and Hertcomb are now probably laughing to themselves about what a fool I am to come trouble them with my sanctimonious speeches, but I believe they will make quite a stir. Any man who is undecided in this election will rejoice in my determination to fight the corruption of hired ruffians disturbing Tories at the polls.”

“And how do you propose to fight them? Do you plan to hire your own ruffians?”

He cast me a look I might have anticipated had I asked if he intended to kiss Hertcomb on the lips. I sensed I greatly disappointed him. “I leave those sorts of tactics to Dogmill and the Whigs. No, I shall defeat their violence with virtue. Their men cannot riot forever. The king will have to send in soldiers sooner or later, and when the polls are once more quiet, the electors of Westminster will be more eager than ever to cast their votes for me.”

I begrudgingly admired his resolution, but the next day, when I visited Covent Garden, I saw that men had taken to arms in the Tory cause. I might have excused Melbury and believed that these rioters acted on their own volition, but it seemed to me all too obvious they had been hired to do their work. The men who fought back in the cause of Griffin Melbury were Littleton’s porters.