Forester had by now turned bright red with mortification, but he said nothing.
“As Mr. Forester has observed,” Thurmond said, “American cotton can be spun with increasing skill to resemble Indian imports. This example may not deceive an aficionado such as yourself, but it may well fool the average lady in search of a gown. Even if it should not, new inventions are made all the time, and soon enough it will be impossible to tell the Indian from the American. Our native linens are being made with lighter threads, more like Indian fabrics, and wool and linen can be combined with great skill. Mr. Forester’s mistake is an easy one to understand. The days of Indian imports are near over anyhow.”
“I defy your argument. Mr. Forester may not be able to tell American cotton from his own shite, but there’s not a lady of fashion or a clothes-loving beau on the island that would have been so fooled.”
“As I say, perhaps not yet but soon.”
“And what is to motivate these inventions?” Ellershaw demanded. “If people cannot have their India cloth, then the textile workers have no reason to improve their goods, for they own the market. It is the competition, you know, that will drive them.”
“But they can’t compete with these Indian workers, men and women who live as slaves, earning pennies per day at most. Even if we could produce textiles here in every way indistinguishable from the Indian, they would cost far more because we must pay our laborers more.”
“The laborers must learn to do with less,” Forester suggested.
“Fie, Mr. Forester, fie. Men must eat and sleep and dress themselves. We cannot ask them to make do with less because the Moguls of the Indies can demand that of their people. It is for that reason that we need the legislation. Is it not the government’s role to step in and solve such problems?”
“It ought not to be,” Ellershaw said. “I have spent my life in the trade, and if there is anything I have learned it is that government is not the solution to our problems. Rather, sir, government is the problem. A freely trading society in which the man of business is not taxed or burdened or hindered is the only truly free society imaginable.”
“What freedom is this?” Thurmond demanded. “Sir, I know of your freedoms. I know that the East India Company controls more than one workhouse, and you conspire to have silk weavers arrested and put to work there, spinning without wages. And you, through your influence, have encouraged the growth of silk laborer colonies outside the metropolis, where wages are lower.”
“What of it?” Ellershaw demanded.
“Do you think the world blind to your schemes? Why, I have even heard that there are agents of the Company among the silk workers. The men poor laborers often trust to look out for their advantage look out instead for the advantage of their oppressors. You contrive to lower the wages of silk workers so that silk working is no longer viable. You plan for the future, I see, to make silk so hard to come by at home that people will clamor once more for Indian imports.”
I thought of Devout Hale’s man, taken by the constable and thrown in the workhouse. Now it appeared he had been caught in a trap set by the East India Company with the goal of crushing the competition. And what chance did Hale and his men have? They were but people who had to live and eat and support their families. The Company had stood for a hundred years and would surely be standing a hundred years hence. It seemed to me that mortals did battle with gods.
Thurmond-who had, perhaps, made too free with his wine-continued to berate Ellershaw. “You do what you like, you harm whom you like, and yet you call yourselves the Honorable Company? Better to call yourselves the Devil’s Company, if you are to put a true face on it. You imprison and break spirits and seek to contain all trade for yourself, and yet you speak of freedom. What freedom is this?”
“The only freedom imaginable, sir. A republic of commerce that spans the globe, in which we may buy and sell without regard to tariffs or duties. That is the natural evolution of things, and I shall fight to bring it about.”
Thurmond gurgled doubtfully into his goblet. “A world controlled by those who care only for acquisition and profit must be a world of terrors indeed. Companies concern themselves only with how much money they can make. Governments at least look after the well-being of all-the poor, the unfortunate, and even the laborers, whose work must be cultivated, not exploited.”
“You are a mighty fine man to speak of the laborers,” Forester chimed in. “You own, sir, a vast estate in which the raising of sheep is your principal source of revenue. Is it not for your own benefit, your own investment in the wool trade, rather than the good of the laborers, that you seek to curtail the business of importation?”
“It is true that I earn my income from wool, but I do not see why I should be condemned for doing so. My lands bring in wealth, yes, but they also bring employment and substance to those who live on my lands, those who work the wool we produce, those who sell the products. There is a great chain of benefit that rises from natively produced goods. Imports, while they may benefit the few and indulge the tastes of the fashionable, do not contribute to the greater good.”
“The wealth of the nation is the greater good, sir, the only greater good. And when the merchants and industrious men of the nation are wealthy, then those blessings will disseminate to all who live in the land. That is but truth, sir, and a simple one at that.”
“I fear we will go round and round for an age and yet never convince our friend. Far better we understand that he has his position as we have ours,” Forester proposed, “and we must live with one another accordingly.”
“Yes, yes, very diplomatic, Mr. Forester, but diplomacy will get us nowhere, and it is, in my opinion, a sign of weakness. Still, I know your efforts are well intended. Spirit of friendship and all that.”
“Indeed, and now if you gentlemen will excuse me, I am afraid I must depart rather early tonight.” Forester rose from his chair.
“Somewhere more important to be, sir?” Ellershaw demanded, his voice not as unkind as his words. Still, there was no mistaking that he spoke with all the malice of a crouching predator.
“No, no, nothing of the kind. My wife mentioned to me that she was feeling unwell earlier, and I perceived she wished to depart early.”
“Feeling unwell? Are you speaking against the food I’ve served?”
“Not at all. We have been delighted by your hospitality, but she has suffered from a bit of a chest cold of late, and I believe it may be returning.”
“Hardly surprising, woman of her age. Marry younger, not older. That would have been my advice to you, Forester; had you asked, it could have done you some good. Yes, yes, I know your father made you marry that crone for her money, but you might have made a greater impression upon him had you refused to listen to his foul advice.”
Seeing that Forester was too stunned to speak, Thurmond volunteered himself to throw some water on the fire of Ellershaw’s discourse. “I see not what difference age makes to that happy estate, so long as it is a compatible match.”
Forester said nothing, but the expression on his face evidenced that the match was by no means compatible.
Ellershaw chose to ignore this intervention. “Sit, Forester. There is still much to discuss.”
“I should prefer not to,” he said.
“And I tell you to sit.” He turned to Thurmond. “The boy thinks to take my place at Craven House, you know. He must learn when it becomes a man to stay and when it becomes him to leave.”
Thurmond could not much like the growing thickness of the air. He rose himself. “I believe I shall take leave as well.”
“What is this, a mutiny? All hands on deck!” his host cried.