Lord Mountwalsh now gently intervened.
“Granted what my father has just said, is it not also true that you have been prepared to take actions, harmful to Britain, to make your point?” he enquired. “How do you justify this?”
“We refused to buy British goods, and won concessions on some unjust taxes thereby,” Franklin answered. “Now we are importing British goods again. Was that justifiable? I think so.”
“As a matter of fact,” Fortunatus remarked, “that’s exactly what Dean Swift told the Irish to do fifty years ago.” He noticed as he said it that his grandson was frowning. “So, Hercules,” he called out, “have you a question to ask Mr. Franklin?”
Though it was clear that Hercules would sooner not have been asked, Fortunatus was glad that his grandson responded in a manly way.
“The government in London would deny that the American colonies are not represented,” he said. “The king himself, and the men of the British Parliament, who have America’s interest always in their hearts, are your representatives. How would you answer that?”
“The phrase they use is that, if we lack elected representatives in London, we have, through their kindness, a virtual representation,” Franklin replied with a nod. “And a very pretty notion it is. But if we allow this, then let me make you a proposal.” His old eyes twinkled. “If we accept this virtual representation, then instead of paying taxes ourselves, we will also allow the English to pay the taxes for us; and this we shall call virtual taxation.”
This raised a general laugh, although not from Hercules.
“We have heard of the loyal intentions of the colony,” he pursued, “yet at the same time, you hint that if your demands are not met, other troubles may follow. Do you mean rebellion?”
“God forbid,” said Franklin firmly. But it did not seem from the young man’s face that Hercules entirely believed him, and so, to avoid unpleasantness, Franklin went on smoothly: “I also have hopes that our position will be well understood in Ireland because of the extraordinarily close links between our peoples. You will all know of the huge communities of Ulster Presbyterians in America now. Yet for every five Presbyterians, I estimate that there are at least two Irish Catholics also—since they are free to practice their religion without disability in America.” Here he glanced with a quick smile towards Terence Walsh and his family. “Taking these two together, it is an undoubted fact that one out of every two people in our entire American colony has come from this island. We look to you as our family, therefore.” And he smiled at them all.
This remarkable information was greeted with some surprised murmurs.
“So if there’s a rebellion there, it’ll be an Irish one,” Hercules muttered, but luckily no one except his mother heard him.
After this, the party broke into groups and people came up to Franklin, who chatted to them very amicably. Georgiana waited a little, then joined the great man while he was talking to Doyle.
“What surprised me most, I confess,” the old American was saying, was the noble scale of your capital. Your Parliament building is finer than the London Parliament.” The building that now housed the Parliament, designed early in the century by a young architect named Pearce, was indeed of a magnificence to rival the Roman Empire. “When I was in that great domed hall of your Commons, I might have supposed myself in the Pantheon, or Saint Peter’s Rome. As for your broad streets . . .” Franklin was lost for words.
“We have a body called the Wide Streets Commission,” Doyle informed him proudly, “whose aim is to make our thoroughfares and squares the most spacious in Europe. Have you seen our Rotunda Hospital? That’s another fine building, and the first lying-in hospital, exclusively for women giving birth, in all the world, so they say.” The merchant was always glad to point out the splendours of his native city; and Franklin was not the first visitor to be impressed by the growing magnificence of Georgian Dublin.
“But there is one other discovery I have made in this fair city,” the Philadelphia man went on, “that has given me particular delight. And that is a most excellent beverage. It is brewed by a man named Guinness.”
“Ah now,” Doyle declared, “as to that, I can give you some particular information. For my late mother Barbara Doyle, a remarkable woman, was a friend of Guinness when he first began his business. And it was she who gave him the name for his brew.”
“Indeed?”
“Well, so she claimed. And it would have been a brave man who contradicted her, I can tell you. Guinness came to her one day—this would be a dozen years ago, when he first began—and he says to her, ‘I’ve a fine dark beer I want to sell, but the devil if I can think of a name for it.’ And she says to him, ‘Well, if you want to sell to the city fathers, you’d better make sure the name will please them. So I’ll tell you what to call it.’ And he did.”
“Guinness Black Protestant Porter,” said Georgiana with a laugh.
“Guinness Black Protestant Porter, the very same,” echoed Doyle with satisfaction. “Though there’s plenty that drink it without being Protestant, I may say.”
The contemplation of the excellent brew brought the conversation to a momentary pause, and Georgiana used it to put her question.
“I wonder, Mr. Franklin, whether in Philadelphia you ever heard of some of my family. My uncle there was a man named Samuel Law.”
She was almost ashamed of it, but in the nearly thirty years she’d been married, she had quite lost contact with her father’s family. After the rift between her father and his brother John, the Ulster and Dublin branches of the family had never had any contact with each other. Her father had kept up a written correspondence with Samuel, and then his widow in Philadelphia, but she had never known much about this, and been too busy with her own family to pay much attention. So the truth was that she knew nothing about her cousins there, assuming that they still existed. “If I wanted to send a letter, I wouldn’t even know who to write to,” she confessed.
“But I remember Samuel Law the merchant very well,” Franklin told her brightly. “And I know that he had brothers in Belfast and Dublin, for he told me so himself. They are an excellent family.”
And he proceeded to give her a most encouraging account of the family—lawyers, doctors, worthy merchants, with good houses and some excellent farms in the region. “Judge Edward Law would be considered the head of the family at present, I should say.”
“How I wish I could see them,” she exclaimed. “How I should like Hercules to meet them also.”
At this last idea, Franklin looked a little doubtful. But he gladly made a suggestion.
“I shall be sending a packet of letters to Philadelphia in a day or two, Lady Mountwalsh. If you care to write a letter to the judge, and give it to me, I can promise that it will be delivered to him in person.”
It was an offer she accepted at once.
And when the party ended later that evening, and the guest of honour was escorted out, she agreed with all the rest of the family that it had been a great success.
The meeting of the Aldermen of Skinners Alley was well attended. More than forty cheerful fellows gathered in the upstairs meeting room of the city inn. As usual, the company was mixed. There was a wig-maker, two apothecaries, sundry other craftsmen and merchants, half a dozen lawyers, the operator of the Dublin-to-Belfast stagecoach, some clerks from the castle, a couple of army officers, numerous gentlemen, and a sprinkling of aristocrats, including young Hercules.
It was a convivial gathering. The Aldermen had been meeting like this each month for over eighty years, ever since the Battle of the Boyne. The business was light. A few new members were proposed and seconded, the sole qualification being that the applicant was a good fellow—and a Protestant, of course. News was exchanged. Hercules soon made the acquaintance of John MacGowan, who turned out to be a pleasant enough man, tallish, about thirty, with a receding hairline and a humorous caste of mind. Within an hour the business, which included collecting the sixpenny subscripti
on that would pay for tonight’s supper, was completed and the real object of the evening could begin.
The feast: everything was done to form. In the centre of the long table stood the hallowed bust of King William, the Protestant liberator. Down the middle of the table were numerous jugs: blue jugs for rum punch, white jugs for whisky punch, pewter jugs for porter— Guinness Black Protestant Porter, of course. As the members sat down and began to eat, a great platter of sheeps trotters was brought in, a reminder of how Catholic King James ran away from Dublin as King Billie approached. The talk was jolly. Only when the main meal was done could the profound business of the evening begin.
That deep business began with the entire company singing “God Save the King.” After which the master of ceremonies, duly elected and given the office of Lord Mayor, solemnly rose and announced: “Gentlemen, I give you the Orange Toast.” And then, to as near as you can get to a hush when forty jolly fellows have already eaten and drunk a good deal together, he intoned the following awe-inspiring invocation:
“The glorious, pious, and immortal memory of the great and good King William not forgetting Oliver Cromwell, who assisted in redeeming us from popery, slavery, arbitrary power, brass-money, and wooden shoes. May we never lack a Williamite to kick the arse of a Jacobite! And a fig for the Bishop of Cork! And he that won’t drink this, whether he be priest, bishop, deacon, bellows-blower, gravedigger, or any other of the fraternity of the clergy, may a north wind blow him to the south, and a west wind blow him to the east! May he have a dark night, a lee shore, a rank storm, and a leaky vessel to carry him over the River Styx! May the dog Cerberus make a meal of his rump, and Pluto a snuff box of his skull; and may the devil jump down his throat with a red-hot harrow, with every pin tear out a gut, and blow him with a clean carcass to hell! Amen!”
The language of the toast said it all. Part Shakespearean English, part seventeenth-century sermon: it was Protestant, antipapist, half-pagan, triumphalist. It was serious, yet not to be taken too seriously—so long as the freedom-loving Protestants were comfortably in control, of course. It was Ascendancy Dublin.
“Amen!” they all cried. “Nine times nine!”
And now, for those with the head for it, the serious drinking of the evening could begin.
It was some way into this latter process that John MacGowan committed his indiscretion.
Hercules had his own way of dealing with long evenings of drinking. Firstly, he was blessed with a head like a rock. If he had to, he could outlast most men in a drinking session. Secondly, it was easy for him to keep a cool head, because he was secretly bored—as he always was when no useful business was being conducted. But thirdly, he had become practised at drinking less than he appeared to. In convivial company with his friends, therefore, he was less of a companion and more a cold observer than they usually realised.
During the meal, he had been sitting across the table and a few places down from John MacGowan, and had the opportunity to observe the grocer from time to time. At first, MacGowan had spent most of his time listening and smiling, perhaps a little uncertain of himself as a newcomer to the company. Hercules had noticed a few beads of sweat on the balding front of his head, and wondered whether they came from the heat or from nervousness. Gradually, however, he appeared to gain confidence. He started to chat, even to tell a joke or two, and these being well received by his neighbours, he perceptibly relaxed. He drank more; his face began to glow. From time to time, when not engaged in conversation, he looked down at the table and laughed to himself—though whether because he was a little drunk or enjoying some private joke concerning the proceedings, it was impossible to tell. When the elderly man on MacGowan’s left, having drunk his fill, quietly departed, Hercules walked round the table and took his place beside the grocer.
MacGowan greeted him with a nod, though Hercules wasn’t sure if the grocer remembered who he was. After a moment or two, he said to him casually:
“You’re in the grocery trade, I think you said. Family business?”
“Indeed it is. Several generations now.”
“You won’t mind my saying, I hope, but MacGowan being a Catholic name, I should think the family might have been a little put out, with you being a Protestant, I mean.”
MacGowan gave him a cautious glance, but Hercules smiled and returned a look of great sincerity.
“In fact,” the grocer replied with a slow nod, “it must be said that it was a Protestant who saved my family. A remarkable woman, old Mrs. Doyle: but for her, my grandfather would have been ruined, instead of which he died a very prosperous man. The business is split between us now, but it’s thanks to her that we have it.” And he fell silent for a few moments. Hercules noticed that, as he cogitated, MacGowan half closed his left eye, while his right opened very large as he stared at the table.
Hercules took a blue jug and poured punch for them both.
“Let’s drink to her,” he said.
MacGowan grew quite friendly after this. He cracked a few jokes, at which Hercules laughed companionably, and poured him more punch. The grocer’s face was growing quite red and there was a slight slur in his speech, but he kept going very gamely, with Hercules encouraging him in a friendly manner at his side.
“I wonder,” Hercules ventured at last, “whether you ever came to know a Doctor Terence Walsh.”
“Doctor Walsh?” The grocer’s face lit up with pleasure. “Indeed I do. That’s a very fine old man.”
“I quite agree. I have the honour to be a kinsman of his myself.”
“Ah, indeed?” From the slight look of confusion on MacGowan’s flushed face, it was clear to Hercules that the grocer had rather forgotten who he was.
“You’ll know his son, my cousin Patrick, then?”
“I do. I do.” MacGowan was looking a little fuddled, but delighted.
“He told me all about your being here tonight.” Hercules gave him a grin and a wink.
“He did?”
“He’s my cousin. A very good fellow.”
MacGowan gave him a confidential look.
“He told you about the bet?”
Hercules nodded.
“I wasn’t clear if the bet was made with himself, though,” he said.
“No, it wasn’t. That was with two other fellows. But he came to hear of it. You don’t think he’ll tell anyone else, do you?”
“Never.”
“He’s a capital fellow.”
“He is indeed.” He dropped his voice. “For a Catholic to get in here like this . . . into the Orange Aldermen themselves. What a thing to do. How much will you get?”
“Two guineas for getting in at all. Two more if I’m undetected. Then another two if I can do it next month as well.” He grinned. “So I’ve two guineas already.”
Hercules laughed. Then he got up, walked round the table to the lord mayor, and told him that they had been infiltrated.
The next few minutes were interesting. There was no precedent for such a thing, and so while they held him on the bench, and delivered a few kicks and blows to his body to pass the time, the company had to come to a decision—which, as the lord mayor pointed out, might set a precedent—as to what to do with the Catholic grocer who had dared to violate the sanctity of the proceedings and witness their secret counsels in this manner. Some of those present were very angry indeed and argued that, since there was, unfortunately, no law which could sent him to the gallows where he clearly belonged, they should at least, as decent citizens, beat him within an inch of his life. Others, their judgement perhaps clouded by drink, argued that since it was done for a bet, the punishment for the fellow’s crime, heinous though it was, might be somewhat mitigated. Hercules himself, having performed his proper service by exposing the crime, took no part in these discussions. In the end, the moderate council of the lord mayor prevailed, and they only dragged him over to the window and threw him out.
The drop onto the cobbled street was hardly more than a dozen feet, but MacGowan did
not fall as well as he should have, and the landlord informed them later that he had broken a leg. But not badly: the surgeon had set it well enough. So that was the end of the matter.
At least, for the rest of the Aldermen. But not for Hercules. There was one other matter to be attended to.
The next day he went to see his cousin Patrick and asked to speak with him privately. The conversation did not take long.
“You knew about John MacGowan cheating his way into the Aldermen. But you didn’t tell me.”
“It was difficult. I’d given my word. The thing was only a foolish wager.”
“You lied to me.”
“Not exactly. I said nothing, really. I hear the poor fellow was hurt.”
“You can make all the Catholic equivocations you please, but you lied.”
“I resent that.”
“Resent it all you like, you damned papist.”
Patrick shrugged contemptuously.
“If we have to meet at family gatherings,” Hercules continued coldly, “I shall be polite. I shall not offend Grandfather. But stay away from me. I never wish to see your face again.”
And so it was, unknown to Fortunatus, that the friendship between the two branches of the Walsh family, planned by his father and cherished for eighty years, came to an end.
For Georgiana, the years that followed Ben Franklin’s visit were busy ones.
She was delighted some months after writing to Philadelphia to receive a courteous letter back from Judge Edward Law. From the tone of his letter, she had the impression that the judge was rather tickled to have a relation with such a fine-sounding title. Not only did he give her news of her American cousins, but kindly included a family tree. He also gave her an interesting account of the mood in the American colonies, which indicated that, in his opinion, the disputes between the colonists and the English government would not easily be resolved.