Thus the latest shipment of Assiento money. But I am pleased to relate that a satchel of mail, brought to London on the same ship, escaped such a fate. For it was brought ashore by honest men who saw to it that the letters were delivered to their proper destinations-even such humble ones as the Clink.
Thus have I come into possession of a letter from Her Africk Majesty, the Queen of Bonny. It is addressed to Her Britannick Majesty. But since neither Queen Anne nor any of her Ministers is conversant with the tongue spoken by so many of her Caribbean subjects, H.A.M. has sent the letter to me, that I may have the honour of translating it to English. Which I have now done; but efforts to post it onwards to H.B.M. have failed. As many times as I send it, it comes back with a note to the effect that the recipient declined to pay. I see that the late disappearance of revenues, which hath led to such controversy at Westminster, hath been felt at St. James’s. So as a favor to H.B.M. I have decided to publish the English text of the letter from H.A.M. in the form of this Libel or Broadside, in hopes that a gust of wind may loft it into St. James’s, effecting, at no cost to H.B.M.’s Government, a delivery that otherwise were fiscally burdensome.
The letter begins thus:
Mon Cousine,
Such is the Radiance of your Enlightenment that the People of my Country, who formerly were as pale as Orphans in an Irish Work-House, have now been Tann’d quite Black…
[Translator’s note: I here elide much more in the way of such lofty Apologies, Compliments, amp;c., and move directly to the substantive part of H.A.M.’s letter.]
Word hath reached me of late, that certain monies, sent to your Majesty as due profits of the Slave Trade, have not reached your coffers, and an assiduous search hath failed to turn them up. Which news, if true, is most remarkable, for Lapses of a similar nature have been observ’d at the other two Vertices of the Triangular Trade. Viz. to the Caribbean are supposed to be deliver’d a certain number of my subjects. At diverse slave-forts along the Guinea coast, these are packed aboard ship by captains who count ’em with exacting care, and prick ’em down in strict Inventories. Yet the same ships arriving some weeks later at the slave-marts of Jamaica, Barbados, amp;c., are found to be half-empty; and the few living slaves that are discharg’d from their stinking Hulls so wretched that many must be abandoned ’pon the Strand, as no planter is willing to buy ’em. Meanwhile, a failure of a like nature is easily to be observed from where I sit, in my royal palace of Bonny. For it was given us to understand that the Triangle Trade would deliver to our shores Civilization, Christianity, Enlightenment, and other vertues. Instead of Civilization, we are receiving daily ship-loads of white Sauvages who pillage our shore like so many Vikings having their way in a Nunnery. Instead of Christianity, we are the recipients of a Pagan mentality which holds Slavery to be good, because ’twas practiced by the Romans. And instead of Enlightenment, we are Benighted by the fell effects of the sins and outrages I have mentioned.
In consideration of the fact, which I have now prov’d beyond question, that no part of the Triangular Trade works as it is supposed to-viz. Civilization not reaching Africa, Slaves not reaching America, and Assiento money not reaching Your Britannick Majesty’s coffers-I propose we denominate it a fail’d Adventure, and bring it to an End immediately.
I have the honour to be,
Your Britannick Majesty’s Humble Servant,
though not [yet anyway] her obedient Slave,
BONNY
Daniel looked up with a bright expression on his face, and was about to begin reading the libel aloud, when he was frozen by a cobra-like glare from Mr. Threader. “Tomorrow I shall supply this room with a copy of the King James Version,” Threader announced, “so that Dr. Waterhouse may follow the fine example set by his co-religionist” (flicking his eyes at Orney) “and advance from Libels, to Bibles.”
Daniel set the leaf down and gazed out the window for a time. After several minutes had gone by, his eyes were drawn to a tiny movement in the front of the Tatler-Lock. Something had changed in one of the upper windows. He rose slowly to his feet, not daring to take his eyes off of it; for so vast and various was the prospect of London, the Pool, and the Borough from these windows, that this iota was as easy to lose as a single bubble on a stormy sea. To get the perspective-glass extended, aimed, and focused took entirely too long. Nevertheless he was able to get a clear view of a window, mostly veiled behind canvas, but with a human arm, seemingly disembodied, projecting across the front of it and gathering it out of the way (he supposed) so that some light might spill into the room behind. The arm was attached, in the customary manner, to a man, who was standing in the room with his back to the curtain and had hooked his elbow round the edge of the canvas to pull it aside. Presently that man let his hand drop. His arm vanished as the curtain tumbled back to block the whole aperture of the window. At this moment, many a chap would have glanced away to say something to the others, and thereby lost track of which window he’d been gazing at; but Daniel, out of a mental discipline earned fifty years ago, remained still until he had memorized certain peculiarities of the Window in Question: the way a seam in the canvas angled across the upper right corner, and a pair of bricks in the sill that were not as dark as the rest. Only then did he begin to swing the telescope laterally, causing the image to sweep at greatly amplified speed. He counted the windows to the edge of the building-three-then reversed the movement and made sure he could find the Window in Question again. Only then did he withdraw his eye from the lens and announce to the others that he had seen something.
Partry was back half an hour later, and Saturn came in ten minutes after that. It had been their policy for Partry to go alone, and for Saturn to amble along some distance behind him to see if Partry was being followed-which was much more likely to happen on the return leg of the expedition. So Saturn had found a gin-house across the way from the Tatler-Lock and had tarried there until some minutes after Partry had quit the place. Partry, he reported, had indeed been followed up the Bridge by a pair of young culls; but it was Saturn’s professional opinion that these were not spies of Jack’s or Mr. Knockmealdown’s, but merely a couple of enterprising young file-clys who, having consummated one transaction at the Tatler-Lock, were sizing up Sean Partry as a prospective next victim. Saturn knew the lads, and was known by them, because of certain past professional entanglements on which he was not keen to elaborate before the Clubb. Approaching them as if by happenstance on the Bridge, Saturn had remarked on the fact that none other than Sean Partry, the infamous thief-taker, had just gone into the Main-Topp, wearing thus-and-such. This had sent the boys off in quest of less dangerous prey.
Partry then told the tale-which was brief, as little had happened-of his visit to the Tatler-Lock. There was a sort of lobby, where refreshments could be got, and where (he speculated) loitering visitors were spied on through holes in the paneling. After having stated his business, and having waited for some time, he had been summoned by one “Roger Rodgers,” a minion of Mr. Knockmealdown’s, who had explained that the master of the establishment was downriver at one of his other factories, but that he had left standing orders as to how situations like this one were to be handled-orders that Rodgers had been at pains to carry out. But something in the way he did so gave Partry the idea that this was the first time any house-breaker had ever come in to the Tatler-Lock claiming to have the sort of goods called for in the general summons posted, so many weeks ago, by Jack. There was mounting confusion, leading to low comedy, as Rodgers led Partry from room to room trying to find a suitable place in which to conduct the Arabian auction. Here they stumbled upon a Pharaohanic hoard of stolen watches, there upon a whore dividing her attentions among three eleven-year-old pick-pockets, all addled with gin. Partry had begun to think aloud: a room with some light would enable the buyer better to appraise the proffered swag. A place in the back-towards the river-front-would afford more privacy. Something above street level were less tempting to the depredations of running-smoblers. By offering up such reflections just at those moments when Rodgers seemed most confused, Partry had insensibly driven and steered him to an upper room above the river, and even induced Rodgers to draw back the canvas hanging in front of its window-which he’d hoped would be noticed by one of the Clubb from their blind in the Main-Topp, as it had been.