The Life of a Celebrated Buccaneer Part 21

The Squire followed, and he again laid bare his numerous complaints; said he could never remember the time when he was in such low water, for he could get little or nothing out of his tenants, whilst his burdens were more than he could bear. Scarcely had he finished speaking, when his tenants appeared in a body, and declared, that owing to the foreign cheap-Jacks underselling them, they could not get enough out of the land to keep body and soul together, let alone money enough to pay their landlord rents. Some of these tenants complained too, that the clergy were too exacting, and made no abatement in their t.i.the charge; but demanded the pound of flesh that was in their bond.

This brought the clergy forward, and they declared that their claim was the first charge upon the land, which was taken subject to the burden.

The pulpit produces the speaker, if it does nothing else. "Is it not in our bond," they said, "that we shall have the tenth part of the yearly increase arising from the profits of the land, the stock upon the land, and the personal industry of those living upon the land, or a just equivalent for these?"

There was now a most learned discussion upon the origin and nature of the t.i.the charge, all of which did little less than breed confusion. The argument was taken up amongst the company. Some said that it began first as a purely voluntary offering, but that long since a crafty priesthood had fossilized it into a hard and fast legal right, which weighed heavily upon the land in such hard times. The clergy said that it was on account of the hardness of men's hearts that the offering had to be legalized into a right. "If," they said, "the charge were left to the free will of man, we should soon starve, for man would give nothing in so selfish, degenerate, and worldly an age. The custom is sanctioned by age and by Divine authority, for did not Abraham, when he spoiled the five kings, give a tenth part of the spoils to Melchisedek?" No one seemed bold enough to deny this, and the clergy finished up by saying that as they were called upon to fulfil their obligations, so they must call upon other people to fulfil theirs.

This seemed but reasonable; but just as the Buccaneer was going to deliver judgment, the poor clergy took the opportunity to come forward and present their grievance, which was to the effect that they, and their families, were in many cases in want. Upon being appealed to, the High Priest and Lords Spiritual declared that it was so, and that it reflected the greatest discredit upon the Buccaneer and all his people, for it betokened a selfish hardness of heart that was most unchristian-like.

The poorer clergy were treated to a most excellent discourse upon the beauties of poverty, which beauties, it would appear, that even the clergy love best to contemplate at a distance, which in this, as in most things else, lends enchantment to the view. It was pointed out to this section of the disaffected, by those in spiritual authority, that Christ Himself was a great advocate for poverty and condemned in no measured terms the greed after riches; that all His early disciples were poor and lowly, and that His religion was propagated by a band of holy, but shoeless beggars. The poor clergy were bid to find comfort in this, and walk in the path to which they had been called with a sanctified humility.

The old c.o.x'sn now got himself into disgrace, for he turned round and asked the preacher how he could reconcile the precept with the general practice. How, if poverty was such a fine thing, the clergy did not practise it themselves. The high ecclesiastics to whom Jack addressed himself did not condescend to answer so impertinent a remark, but all chance of Church preferment was for ever gone from the old c.o.x'sn, and it is even possible that if he then had died he would not have been allowed Christian burial.

"This difficulty," cried the Buccaneer, "can be easily overcome." Then turning to his Lords Spiritual and other high church dignitaries, he said, "While some on board of your s.h.i.+p, my lords, have too much, others have too little of this world's wealth. A little while since some amongst you preached a homily upon the beauties of poverty. All of you follow the Master who said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and when that rich man is a priest, how doubly hard must be the task.

Therefore, I say to you, as I have said before, and in the language of Him whom you profess to follow, 'sell all that you have and give it to the poor,' or at least, share your riches amongst your poorer brethren."

Now, when those in authority on board the old Church Hulk heard this they were extremely sorrowful and sorely grieved, for many of them had large incomes and other worldly possessions, while some had fas.h.i.+onable and ambitious wives, and many had large families, and, as everyone knows, it is hard enough to serve two masters, and next to impossible when the masters are increased to many.

The old c.o.x'sn, who was of a pious turn, wondered what would happen if Christ were to appear again upon earth and enter some one of the Buccaneer's many temples where the perfumed flowers of his fas.h.i.+onable society wors.h.i.+pped G.o.d, or, perhaps many G.o.ds, in all their pride and splendour. Jack, however, kept his counsel. He was an humble individual and it was not for him to meddle in such weighty matters.

Close upon the heels of the Church came the Buccaneer's lawyers, and true chips were these of the ancient block. The members of the Devil's own, as they were called, complained that an interfering fellow on board of the old s.h.i.+p of State had called them brigands and other offensive names. This they did not so much mind, but what they did object to was, that busy bodies, instead of paying attention to their own business, wanted to meddle with theirs, and by so doing, to curtail their perquisites and cut down their fees. Of all the Buccaneer's trades and professions, in no one was the principle of the parable before alluded to more conspicuous than in his legal profession, the members of which not only fleeced their sheep, but flayed them, whenever they had the smallest opportunity. The estimation they were held in, even amongst the Buccaneer's people, was shown by the fact that in all his works of fiction, either on the stage or in novels, almost all the rogues were provided by the legal profession.

But the spirit of robbery to which allusion has been so frequently made, was to be found even where it ought not to have existed. Many of the Buccaneer's schools were presided over by members of his State Church and many of his teachers were drawn from the same source. Now some of these, in an underhand way, robbed the parents of the boys intrusted to their charge, for they were paid extremely well, if not exorbitantly, to educate their pupils, but in too many cases they taught them little or nothing, and sent them home, into the bargain, to live a good portion of the time at their parents' expense. Then at the end of what was by courtesy called their academical career, the young birds were sent out into the world veritable fledgelings as regards their knowledge, with not feathers sufficient to cover the nakedness of their ignorance or to fly in search of food. This is at the top of that scale at the bottom of which lies the vulgar thief who breaks through and steals.

After the lawyers came the doctors, who complained that people apparently had little or no inclination to get ill. They declared there seemed to be a selfish desire on the part of every one to keep the time-honoured and much-trusted family doctor out in the cold, and if it were not for the love which still kept a strong hold upon the people, to over-eat and over-drink themselves, their profession would be but a poor one, though in young children they still found some little support.

Whether the doctors robbed the people or not, could not very easily be told as they rendered no details with their accounts.

The next lot to appear, showed by their double chests and double chins that they were no strangers to good living, and no doubt beneath their capacious waistcoats lay the tail end of many a bottle of their master's wine. These men complained that their masters had become so n.i.g.g.ardly and looked after things so closely themselves, that perquisites (by some called plunder) were quite things of the glorious past, so that the modest independence with the public house, the lodging house, or the green-grocer's shop, was put so far away into the future as to come too late, if it ever came at all.

These much ill-used individuals had the same sad story to tell about foreign compet.i.tion. They declared people came over in crowds from their neighbours and took the bread out of their mouths. Now came the women servants, resplendent in their cheap finery, and with airs and graces aped from their betters. Some of these quarrelled with some thing, some with another, and one and all seemed considerably above their position, being much too proud to work.

Before dealing with these the Buccaneer ordered on the masters and mistresses so that by hearing their side of the story he might be the better able to judge. It was a sign of the times that the servants came on first, and many believed that this merely was the finger post which pointed to a state of things, when all would be changed and the cla.s.ses would be the humble and obedient slaves of the ma.s.ses, when King Mob would wield the sceptre over the Buccaneer's people. It, therefore, behoved those interested to see that their future masters were properly educated.

The employers now declared that it was almost impossible to get good servants. Not one would bear correction. They demanded high pay for doing very little work, and grumbled at all times both at the quality and the quant.i.ty of their food. They declared that the lower orders were now so educated that all the girls preferred either to go into shops, or into the school-room, and then the suffering upper cla.s.ses were called upon to support inst.i.tutions to keep these spoilt children off the streets. There was a general complaint too, that the stomachs of the serving cla.s.ses had become so dainty, that they turned up their noses at what their betters were very well contented with, and there was a general concurrence of opinion that, rather than put up with the insolence, ignorance, and idleness of the Buccaneer's own people, masters and mistresses would either do without servants altogether, or employ foreigners, who were more industrious, very much more sober, and quite as honest as the Buccaneer's people, while they did not go to their local clubs or pot houses, and talk over their master's affairs, and disclose to the vigilant burglar the whereabouts of their master's silver. Nor were they in league with the local tradesmen to rob their masters.

"Away with you all," cried the Buccaneer, addressing the servants. He was always ready to condemn peculation on such a scale as this. "Away with you," he cried, "for you are all robbers in disguise. Speak to them, Jack, and trounce them well with thy tongue."

"Aye, aye, yer honour. 'Bout s.h.i.+p, my lads and la.s.ses, before shame and misfortune throw their grappling irons on board of you. You're heading for the jail and the work-house, and before you lie poverty and misery.

'Bout s.h.i.+p, I say, before you find that hunger is the best sauce for a proud stomach."

This batch went away more dissatisfied than ever, and they declared that the old c.o.xswain's language was brutal in the extreme, and they swore they would have nothing to do with such a fellow as that. They determined to get some one of the s.h.i.+p's crew, who wanted some opportunity to bring himself before the public, to take their case up, and by putting a heavy tax upon foreign labour, give them greater opportunities to be independent, more idle, and insolent.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

The Buccaneer thought that for a contented and prosperous people he had his fair share of disaffection; but Liberty now ushered in a pale-faced and solemn looking batch, who declared that drink was sending the Buccaneer's people to the dogs and the devil. They carried in front of them a banner on which was depicted a drunkard beating his wife, and ill-using his starved children. On the reverse, there was the besotted mother and the sober but miserable husband. This cheerless-looking lot, upon whose features laughter-loving mirth never seemed to dwell, were the total abstainers, who declared that nothing would save the Buccaneer and his people, except they were all made sober by law.

"Why, Jack!" cried the Buccaneer, turning to his friend, "one lot wants to feed me on peacods, while another wants to drench me with water."

But now a portly lot of red-faced, pimply-nosed publicans, whose stomachs were as round as one of their own beer barrels, pushed their way to the front, and swore that water was being the ruin of them. They told the Buccaneer in plain and unmistakable language, that if his people continued to walk in the paths of sobriety at the same rate at which they were at present going, the source from which he derived no little of his revenue would be completely dried up, and he would lose millions of his yearly income, when his upper cla.s.ses would have to bear the burden of increased taxation.

The Buccaneer always taxed his upper cla.s.ses as much as ever he could.

Perhaps this was right. Besides, what was called the people, that mighty, but barely defined force, did not like taxation, and therefore they were exempted; but they had no prejudice otherwise against the principle.

The Buccaneer was touched, and after a moment's consideration he said, "Why can't my subjects drink in moderation, and not make beasts of themselves?"

"Why not, indeed, sir?" answered the publicans. "A man in moderation can take a good quant.i.ty of liquor and not hurt himself, and yet benefit the trade and his country. We set our face against your habitual drunkard.

He is our enemy, because he gives in too soon. It is the steady drinker; the man who is always at it, and yet who never gets himself into difficulties, that is our friend."

To lose millions a year. This was indeed a serious affair, and the Buccaneer feared that those muddling water drinkers would do him considerable harm. But there was a bright spot looming in the distance, for had not his trusty Captain Dogvane told him that there was a heathen nation with an immense population to be civilised? Of course it was against his religious principles that he should place drunkenness within easy reach of this people; but then, if at the same time he gave them his Book, and rescued them from the devil, that would be a fair exchange, and in all things human, there must be shortcomings; things that one would willingly prevent if one could, but we cannot expect perfection in this world, and we must therefore have recourse to that most useful and necessary custom of winking at things we cannot help. It is much to be regretted, that the heathen with civilisation will take to strong liquors, as naturally apparently as a duck takes to water. But he does, so there is an end of it. The Buccaneer now eased his conscience by being extremely severe upon his publicans whom he read a sharp lecture. He treated them in a most haughty manner, said they were a demoralizing agency; a blot, a blemish, and a disgrace; but still he took their money. He told them they had better take care of themselves.

The publicans said that was the very thing of all others they would try to do; but they added that the officers of the Buccaneer's Revenue were so precious sharp, and were so much against them, and were down upon them with such heavy penalties if they attempted to help their friends the teetotallers, by watering their ales, and other strong drinks, that virtue had no chance to be over-virtuous. They declared that the licentious Revenue officers hovered over them like a lot of hungry vultures; and with their meddlesome ways were doing an infinity of mischief.

The publicans were a mighty power in the Buccaneer's kingdom, and it is to his credit that he rebuked them even as he did. He read them a lecture, and having in his mind's eye the banner of the teetotallers he pointed out to the delinquents the frightful consequences of drink. The publicans were quite equal to the occasion, they said that there were two sides to every question, and that the devil himself was not half as black as he was painted. To this the Lords Spiritual took exception, and they rose in a body and entered their protest against such a blasphemous a.s.sertion. Of course this weighty matter could not be argued out at such a time, or in such a place; but it was taken up on board the old Church Hulk, and received there all the attention it deserved, and no doubt it was the means of adding still more to the Buccaneer's numerous sects.

Some were inclined to subject the devil to the fas.h.i.+onable process known as white-was.h.i.+ng. As every eminent blackguard in ancient, and up to a certain time even in modern history, has undergone this treatment, there is no reason why his satanic majesty should be left out in the cold. It seems hard that the blackguard Judas should not have been favoured, but perhaps some champion will yet arise to take up his cause. Does not the Christian world owe him something? Would it have been saved from the torments of h.e.l.l, if Judas had not played the betrayer's part? The publicans said there was a good deal of prejudice about drink. That party feeling here, as elsewhere, ran extremely high, engendering very much animosity, and thus a good deal of obloquy and unjust reproach was heaped upon the head of the poor drunkard. They begged that the subject might be approached in no mean or narrow spirit. They maintained that the drunkard, if only a steady going drunkard, and a man of regular habits, was a public benefactor. One who did his best through the means of indirect taxation to swell the revenues of the State, and as a vast number of the Buccaneer's people paid no direct taxes, the only way they helped to keep up the dignity, the honour, the welfare, and the safety of the empire was by getting as drunk as they could, as often as they could. Indeed, looking at it from their point of view, the greater the drunkard, the greater the benefactor he was to the community; he being a man who sacrificed himself, and frequently his family, for the sake of his country, as every good citizen should. If he broke down occasionally under the burden of indirect taxation, he was an object more of pity than of contempt. And if he beat his wife, and starved his children, what then? The individual must at all times be sacrificed for the sake of the general public. So eloquent were the publicans, and there was so much force in what they said, that the Buccaneer began to waver. The publicans seeing the good impression they had made, continued on in the same direction, and pointed out that if the teetotallers set up the pump and pulled down the pot-house, that not only would the great Buccaneer lose his revenue, but that his people would a.s.suredly become gourmands, for that there never was a total abstainer who was not a large if not a coa.r.s.e feeder, and of the two, a drunkard, they declared, bad as he was, was infinitely to be preferred to a glutton.

The case was undoubtedly a serious one. Not one amongst the grand company--not even Dogvane himself--would dare to give an opinion directly against the publicans, such was their power in the island. The Buccaneer was obliged to admit that the drunkard was a despicable rascal, and the cause of very great misery; but then the public-houses brought in such a very large revenue.

There appeared to be only one way out of the difficulty and that was to have recourse to a Royal Commission. This inst.i.tution which has before been mentioned, requires to be explained, for it was extremely useful to the Buccaneer and got him out of many difficulties. It was a wonderful inst.i.tution and had many and various virtues. It was supposed to contain a cure for every evil under the sun and to possess wonderful powers of finding out ills and their several remedies; and it was supposed to have a microscopic eye, and a bright intelligence, that shed a light into the darkest holes and corners. At least, it was supposed to do all this. It was a mysterious inst.i.tution, having, indeed, some of the attributes of the Inquisition. There was one thing about it that was evident to all.

It was extremely slow in its working, and perhaps in this lay no little of its virtue, for anything that it took under its consideration faded away from public view long before any conclusion was arrived at, and thus it may be said that it squeezed all the life out of whatever it sat upon, and then buried its victim in some official pigeon-hole, or other tomb belonging to oblivion.

What the publicans had said brought forward the butchers; but Billy Cheeks had nothing to do with these. They declared they were doing scarcely any business. They said that however true it might be, as a general rule, about water-drinkers being large eaters, they saw no signs of total abstinence in this respect amongst the people. They added that what with foreign compet.i.tion and the growing carefulness of housekeepers, who kept far too sharp an eye upon their allies the cooks, their profits were falling off every day. Then they pointed out that their trade was being threatened by the vegetarians, who could stuff themselves to repletion for about sixpence, or even less. Now a farmer, who having heard what the butchers had said, declared butchers ought to be making large fortunes, for that they charged the people quite double, and sometimes more, than what they gave for the meat. This was quite true, but then the butchers only acted upon that principle of robbery which was to be detected in the breast of most of the trading Buccaneers, and was all due, no doubt, to an old Sea King, or pirate, having taken to business in his latter years, and the principle on which he traded, namely, of turning his five talents into ten.

The dispute between the burly farmer and the burly butcher seemed likely to end in blows; but the vegetarians stepped in and acted as a buffer. They declared that animal food was not at all necessary, and that if men would only feed upon vegetables there would be no wars and they would live longer and more intellectual lives.

"If that comes to pa.s.s," said old Jack, "farewell to the lowing herds and the bleating flocks, for man isn't going to keep these things to look at, and a pretty flabby weak-kneed lot we shall be. Give me my chop and toothsome steak, say I."

Jack was told that he was very much behind the time and that science was dead against him. This discussion was put an end to by the appearance of the milkmen who complained that they had suffered considerably since they had been stopped manufacturing their own cream, adulterating their milk with water, and mixing fat with their b.u.t.ter. In fact, all the tradesmen had the same story to tell, and cried out against the stringent laws which ground them down to a rigid line of honesty.

Perquisites and peculation, they declared, were almost things of the past, and they added that all this was strictly against the interests of trade, and was not according to precedent. They wanted to know where the Buccaneer would have been if, in his fine old Buccaneering days, he had been so hampered. In conclusion they declared that a too rigid honesty was not compatible with prosperity, and that though "honesty is the best policy" is a capital text to put over your door, it is a bad principle to practise behind the counter. They added that "_caveat emptor_" ought to be the motive power between man and man in all his mercantile transactions, and that idiots should be left to take care of themselves.

This unprincipled language horrified the Buccaneer, who having long since become wealthy, could now afford to be honest, virtuous, and respectable. So he condemned, in no measured terms, these nefarious adulterators, and would-be peculators. It is true that these tradesmen were but chips of the ancient block; but that block had now been laid aside, and was only produced on very great and state occasions, when the magnitude of it quite overshadowed all the small chips that had been cut from it, and the block was so highly polished that it looked altogether beautiful and quite virtuous.

But who are these men, who look like whitened sepulchres, that are treading so closely upon the heels of the milkmen?

These are the Buccaneer's bakers, who declared that nearly all the Buccaneer's bread was made by foreign hands, who were literally taking the very bread out of the mouths of the Buccaneer's own sons.

The Buccaneer knew there was very great truth in this. But how was he to remedy the evil? His was a free land and people ever had been allowed to come and to go at their own pleasure; and to buy and sell, and to make their money as best they could. Then the bakers had the same complaint about the severity of the law, which kept so strict an eye upon them all to the detriment of trade, that it was not safe to use any of the substances so useful in adulterating bread, such as bean meal, rice flour, potatoes and peas, indian corn, salt, and alum. Of course they admitted that too much alum was not good for the human stomach, but that was no business of theirs, and the human stomach could adapt itself to all things, so wonderfully and marvellously was it made.

The brewers next had their say, and declared that their ales and stouts stood a chance of being washed out of the market by the light beverages from the other side of the water, and that these and wishy-washy wines were ruining their trade, and undermining the const.i.tution of the people. These malcontents declared that this was but the thin end of the wedge which was eventually to cleave the Buccaneer's prosperity asunder.

It was by good strong brewed ales and beef that he had made himself what he was, and unless John Barleycorn was reinstated they fully believed that the Buccaneer would dwindle down to the mere shadow of his former self.

This oration met with general approval; for there were many who thought that beer and beef produced good muscle, sound bodies, and healthy and courageous minds; but a sickly smile played upon the features of the teetotallers and vegetarians, who pitied all those whose minds were so much clouded by ignorance.

Now a general cry rose up from amongst the traders against the buyers, who, it was said, were ruining trade by their co-operation, which, it was declared, had taken all the gilt off their gingerbread. The strange part of the thing was, that while the shop-keepers claimed the privilege of combining together to fleece their customers they denied the latter the right of combining together for their own protection. "How," they asked, "were poor people to maintain their families, make a modest competence, and support their public burdens, if the consumers patronized co-operative stores?" They all declared that in days, unhappily long since past, people lived quite as long as they did now, if not longer. This they considered a conclusive proof that adulteration, if conducted upon the principles of moderation, was not detrimental to the coatings of the human stomach, which, they said, was being ruined by the extreme care that was being taken of it, until indeed there was a good chance of that pampered and petted member ruling the whole body in a most tyrannical manner. The stomach had been made to do certain work; then why relieve it of its responsibility?