Читать книгу Arnold's Tempter - Benjamin F. Comfort - Страница 7

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“Your Majesty, I am informed that the French monarch has decided to recognize the independence of the Americans and put all the resources of France against Great Britain.”

“Whence comes your information, Mr. Prince?” asked George III, as he sat in his private study of St. James’s, October, 1777.

“Your Majesty, the secret service of the Bank of England has kept Roderick Barclugh in the French Court. He is on terms of intimacy with Louis XVI. He associates with Benjamin Franklin and the Colonial party; he keeps us informed as to every phase of their affairs.”

George III rubbed his hands in each other and looked impatient but gracious, yet his eyes had an anxious gleam as he nervously asked:

“Is the recognition of the independence of the Colonies possible and has it come at last? What shall we do about it then, Mr. Prince?”

“There is but one way to reconcile the Americans, since Burgoyne’s surrender, your Majesty,” replied the Bank Governor. “We must convince the leaders of the army and the men of substance in the Colonies, that a long-drawn-out war will ruin the country—that the return of peace will establish commerce and prosperity; and that allegiance to your Majesty’s person and crown will give the protection that a young commonwealth needs.”

“Very well, very well, sir, but what means are you going to use to convince these rebels?” queried the monarch, impatiently, as he began to comprehend the undertaking that began to develop.

“Not by warlike means, your Majesty, which has cost your exchequer twenty thousand pounds sterling for each and every rebel so far killed, but by the most subtle subjection—that of diplomacy and finance,” replied Mr. Prince (who knew that the King had used this policy to carry his desires through Parliament).

“Ah, that is good,” exclaimed the King. “But whom can we trust with such a delicate mission? I have learned to depend upon the wisdom of your money, but not upon persons. Can you lay a plan that will accomplish the result? I have so few men of the genius that you display, Mr. Prince.”

Mr. Prince now had the ear of the monarch, and as George III showed his abject helplessness, the holder of England’s purse-strings took advantage of the situation to carry out the plot planned in the “Old Cock” Tavern:

“Your Majesty, we must send a Commission to treat with the Colonists on the spot, when we have turned the men of substance to a desire for peace. We must send a skilled diplomat among the Colonists, who will keep us informed as to what the Colonists will do for peace if we were to grant all their demands except independence. This undertaking will be dangerous and delicate. Our agent must gain the confidence of the leaders within the rebel lines. He must be one who can go without the least suspicion. If he succeeds we must reward him by making him Viceroy (an echo of the conspirators in the ‘Old Cock’ Tavern) and by granting him a peerage and a landed estate befitting his dignity of office.”

“Agreed, Mr. Prince, but whom can you recommend for such delicate commissions?” asked the King, as he grew enthusiastic over the plot, for George III loved intrigue.

“Ah!” exclaimed “the arbiter of the power of the purse” (the one great security of the rights of Englishmen), as he bowed very low to the monarch:

“May it please your Majesty to entrust your humble servant with so much privilege as to name the one who is to save your Colonies. There is no one that will respect your royal will with as much diligence as your faithful diplomat, Roderick Barclugh. Then for the commissioner to conclude your terms of peace, I would humbly beg that you entrust such matters of importance to your Lord Carlisle.”

“Excellent! Excellent! Sir,” exclaimed the King, “but where are these gentlemen? Command them into my presence. My plans shall be carried out at once. All that was needed was to have a suggestion, for these have always been my ideas, I now stand firmly on this idea since you have seconded me; I have always stood for it; England shall not lose her Colonies. I am not to be outdone by the French. Where are these gentlemen, sir?” asked the subtle monarch of the President of the Bank of England.

Mr. Prince bowed and left the King, for he knew his character so well that there was nothing more for him to do. He had carried his plans, although His Majesty had finally claimed them as his own.

However, when the King asked for Roderick Barclugh and Lord Carlisle, these worthy gentlemen were close at hand (not by accident) but by means of the finesse of the worthy George Selwyn, who was a courtier of no mean order. He had his pawns ready for the next move on the checker-board.

The King had now grown more self-conceited, and when these worthy gentlemen came into his private audience and both approached and knelt in obeisance to his commands (for Mr. Prince had given the cue of what was to happen when he passed out), the King arose and said:

“Lord Carlisle, arise. Mr. Barclugh, arise. It is at your Sovereign’s commands that you shall proceed to the shores of his rebellious Colonists and use your persuasion to insure their allegiance to the British Realm. Gentlemen, no means must be spared to preserve the integrity of the British Empire. May the blessings of God pursue your endeavors. Follow the plans that hath pleased the Almighty to have your Sovereign prepare.”

At the conclusion of this inspired speech, His Majesty stepped toward Lord Carlisle and Mr. Barclugh, and shook each by the hand and spoke of the great pleasure that his duty gave, whereupon these two representatives of royalty retired in due form and respect from his royal presence.

When our commissioner and our secret agent emerged from the august presence of George III, they made straightway to the chariot of Lord Carlisle and were driven post-haste to Brooks’ Club. Carlisle alighted, but Barclugh went to the house of his chief, Mr. Prince, for he was in London incognito.

Fox at the head of the faro table was banker, and Selwyn sat opposite, in the great green room at Brooks’. The play was highly interesting when Carlisle entered the room. The Bank was two thousand pounds sterling to the good and the night was but begun. Lord Carlisle went to the side of Fox and spoke to him, who turned the deal over to Gilly Williams. Selwyn arose at a sign from Fox, and the three conspirators left for a private room to discuss the new phase of American politics.

Fox, who was easily the leader of the Whig coterie that centered in Brooks’ Club, opened the discussion by remarking:

“Has the ‘lunatic’ (George III) carried out the plan?”

“He has,” replied Carlisle, who had just left his Majesty.

“But who is this Barclugh? Can we depend upon him? His task is almost superhuman,” commented Fox to his cronies.

“Barclugh is the grandson of Sir George Barclugh of the plot to murder William of Orange,” remarked Carlisle.

“He will do, then,” assented Fox. “For the followers of the Stuarts were the most remarkable zealots of any age.”

“Yes, and Barclugh has been the secret agent of Mr. Prince, the President of the Bank of England, at the court of Louis for five years past. His reports have been reliable and I can vouch for anything that he undertakes,” contended Selwyn, who was the balance-wheel and the diplomat of these choice spirits of Brooks’ high play.

“Very well, very well,” exclaimed Charles, “you and Carlisle fix up the details; I must be back, Gilly will ruin me. You and Carlisle fix up these matters—whatever you do will suit me. You know I must not leave the game,” contended Fox, as he nervously spoke and returned to the green room and hurried to his seat at the head of the table where the banker sat turning the cards for the coterie of gamesters.

Selwyn now had an opportunity to go calmly over the points at issue with Carlisle.

“This war must be ended, my Lord,” said Selwyn. “Give Barclugh every opportunity to win the leaders. Keep the army, under that drawing-room general, Sir Henry, at a respectful distance from the wily Washington; let Barclugh ply his arts among the substantial Colonists, and you will return as the savior of the Colonies and a Parliamentary grant will await you.”

“But suppose the plans fail, George, what then?” anxiously queried Carlisle.

“Nothing fails that Britons put their hands and hearts to,” expostulated Selwyn. “Start to-morrow; be on the scene—Barclugh will follow. Nothing daunts the ambitious Briton; we must succeed, or ruin stares us in the face. The continuous drain upon our resources at the gaming-table has sapped our substance,—we must have funds from government or give up our life at the Club. Carlisle, the game depends upon you.”

Thus reasoned Selwyn, for he knew that the select few who practised high play at Brooks’ had exhausted the resources of their set, and the only legitimate prey at hand was the funds of government to be won at the game of Colonial politics.

Carlisle left on the first ship for New York, and Barclugh was to leave as soon as Lord Germaine could fix up the funds and credentials for him to carry to the scene of war in America.

Roderick Barclugh was fitted by environment and education to become a diplomat of no mean order. Born in 1749, his parentage a Scotch father and a French mother—the rare combination of shrewdness and finesse—whose traditions on one side led back to the cause of the Stuarts, and a line of court favorites of the French monarch on the other—distinguished him for a life of bold intrigue.

His grandfather, Sir George Barclugh, quit his native land with the Pretender, James II. His father was reared in Paris, and married the French Queen’s lady-in-waiting, Marie La Fitte. The union was happy and two sons were the issue. The older was named George Barclugh and the younger Roderick. The boys grew up surrounded by all the elegant manners of the French Court at this period.

At twenty-two years of age Roderick Barclugh could speak English, French and Spanish. He was tall and vigorous in constitution; endowed with shrewd, steely-blue eyes and a prominent aquiline nose. Firmness and fortitude were in every expression of his eyes and mouth. His hair was reddish-brown in color—partaking of the auburn locks of his Scotch grandfather, and the black of his mother’s race.

He was faultless in his easy manner when in society of ladies, and when among men inclined to be brusque and haughty. His eyes had a merry assurance of good will; yet therein could be found firmness, determination and passion. His voice was trained for the dulcet tones of persuasion, and, at will, he could command the robust tones of his father’s race.

Without effort Roderick Barclugh could control his feelings and be nonchalant to sentiment, and on necessary occasions be frivolous and gay. His composition had all the artful diplomacy of a French courtier and the canny ways of an ingenious and bold Scotsman—altogether, a brilliant and dangerous being.