Recently, however, the Sulivans’ idyllic existence had been thrown over, for the Pbilomel had been temporarily transferred to Monte Video. Captain Beaufort’s predictions for the region had not, it seemed, come true: General Rosas, having secured much of his southern frontier, had turned his attentions to his northern neighbour. Uruguay, the new president had declared, was historically the rightful possession of Buenos Ayres, and he had announced his intention to annex it by force. He had banned all British trade from the river Plate and its upper reaches, called the Parana, and was building shore batteries and gathering troops on the southern bank. The Admiralty had decided that the mere presence of Sulivan and the Philomel would be enough to deter the dictator. British families had been evacuated from Monte Video as a precaution, but surely, went official thinking, the general would not be foolhardy enough to fire upon a British ship? Sulivan himself evidently did not think so, for he had brought his own family with him to Uruguay for the duration: apparently he could not bear to be parted from the erstwhile Miss Young ever again. FitzRoy shivered to think of his friend, all alone in his little brig, standing between Rosas’ forces and the barely defended Uruguayan capital; but if matters blew up, he reasoned, the Philomel could always put out to sea.
Astonishingly, upon arriving in Monte Video, Sulivan had run into no less a person than Midshipman Hamond, still adrift in South America, full of regret at his decision to leave the Beagle, and desperate to re-enlist. He had immediately appointed Hamond acting second lieutenant of the Philomel, and the two old shipmates were now planning the defence of Monte Video together. With a surge of pride and affection, FitzRoy recalled Hamond’s stutter and his pale, wide-eyed features, and pictured him standing shoulder to shoulder with his tall, dark, intense, devout captain. He felt sure that the pair of them would not let him down.
Such were the details of Sulivan’s life and career to date. His friend had reserved his real bombshell, however, for the end of the letter. How incredibly difficult must it have been for Sulivan to put pen to paper, to pass on such heart-rending news to his old skipper. Fuegia Basket had been found. It should have been a joyous piece of information, but the circumstances surrounding her discovery had ensured that it was anything but.
A sealer, recently returned from the western part of the straits of Magellan, told me that a native woman in her early twenties had come on board, who spoke English. She said: ‘How do? I have been to Plymouth and London.’ Without doubt it was Fuegia. She lived some days on board — I fear the term almost certainly bears a double interpretation — and was well rewarded for her troubles.
The young woman, it appeared, regarded herself as ‘civilized’, and would make her business only with the white sailors. Of York Minster, the sealer had not spoken.
FitzRoy folded the letter, replaced it in his coat pocket, and let the sadness overwhelm him utterly and completely. He surrendered outright to shame and defeat: it was a comprehensive realization of failure that-the rapacious Sheppard had managed only to glimpse at the supper-table. He had failed Fuegia Basket. He had betrayed her. Worse than that, he had allowed her innocence to be taken away as surely as if he had taken it away himself.
‘The committee will see you now, sir.’
The usher bowed and scraped as he made the announcement, demonstrating a level of deference normally reserved for the many peers of the realm who walked these corridors.
Edward Gibbon Wakefield had tipped him well enough to earn such fawning, but he prided himself that - when it came to earning the respect of the lower orders - his charisma was every bit the equal of his generosity. Wakefield simply oozed charisma. In his time he had charmed cab-drivers, serving-wenches, clergymen, society hostesses and, yes, peers of the realm. Even now, as his fortieth birthday receded into the distance and his fiftieth came ever closer, his square-jawed, handsome face and his brilliant white teeth glowed with youthful good health. His immaculately groomed silver hair and his finely tailored clothes spoke of a comfortable prosperity. His easy manner was at once likeable, reassuring and trustworthy. He bestowed an avuncular beam upon the grateful usher, stood up, straightened his coat, checked the watch in his waistcoat pocket, and strode into the committee room.
The business of Parliament was, of course, by necessity a little cramped these days: ever since the House of Commons had been razed by fire and its members had moved to temporary quarters, the committee business of both houses had been squeezed into a number of unsuitable little windowless rooms in the Lords. A thick, stifling atmosphere accosted Wakefield as he crossed the threshold, as if he had stepped fully clothed into a Turkish bath. The gaggle of clerks, witnesses, stenographers and dignitaries to his right were, for the most part, glistening, pink and uncomfortable; the committee members themselves, ranged in a semi-circle to his left, enjoyed a relative advantage in terms of space, but looked hardly any less ill-at-ease. In the middle, unoccupied, stood a solitary chair. This was his stage. He had remained cool in far stickier situations than this. Now was the time to be at his coolest.
‘Mr Edward Gibbon Wakefield, your lordships, the founder and general manager of the New Zealand Company.’
Wakefield bowed deeply and impressively, and took the chair.
The House of Lords Select Committee on New Zealand had first convened in 1838, after promptings from FitzRoy and others that something needed to be done to address the lawlessness of that benighted nation. Thirteen New Zealand chiefs had even clubbed together and written to the British monarch, begging for protection against the depredations of her own subjects. But more importantly - far more importantly - the American flag had been raised at the Bay of Islands, while a French Catholic mission had suddenly appeared to the north of Kororareka. French naval squadrons had already invaded Tahiti, bombarding Papiete and forcing Queen Pomare to flee her kingdom, and now Paris was looking greedily to the west. Captain William Hobson had been dispatched hastily to the South Pacific to sign the treaty of Waitangi with the thirteen chiefs, incorporating their nation into New South Wales, and to build a new capital city, to be named Auckland. The natives of New Zealand were to be given all the rights and privileges of British subjects. No white settlers could hold legal title to land unless the Crown had first purchased it from its native owners at a fair price. Only this month, the British government had gone even further, and had announced that New Zealand was to become an independent and protected colony of Great Britain. When he had heard that announcement, Edward Gibbon Wakefield had realized that, at last, his time had come.
‘My lords,’ he began, ‘for too long, New Zealand has most selfishly and sordidly been used as a dumping-ground for the very worst of our people. The very dregs of our society. But are we a selfish and sordid people? I think not.’
An elderly peer in a bag-wig harrumphed his routine assent. Wakefield smiled a like-minded smile.
‘Rather, this fine new nation should purposely be peopled with our very best men and women. Those gentlefolk who have found themselves thrown upon hardship and distress through no fault of their own, and who deserve to be granted a new beginning. My lords, our own island is become dangerously overcrowded. As you know, there is a want of corn to feed all our people. But were New Zealand to be cleared of her forests, were new cities to be constructed there, farms laid out and crops sown, harbours built and fishing fleets assembled, and, of course’ - an expression of the deepest and most sincere piety moved across Wakefield’s face - ‘were great churches to be erected to the glory of God there, then in due course all Great Britain’s problems might be solved. You might think all this an impossible dream, my lords, or at least a state of affairs that could not yet obtain for many a year. Then you must prepare to be amazed, my lords, when I tell you that these great cities already exist.’
There was a murmur of astonishment in the committee room.
‘The New Zealand Company, my lords, is a philanthropic concern run by the Wakefield family with a view to encouraging the colonization of New Zealand by dece
nt God-fearing folk. The first shiploads of settlers left these shores eighteen months ago, in vessels commanded by my brothers Arthur and William Wakefield, and my son Jerningham Wakefield. I have heard news — wonderful news, my lords — that this first party has founded no fewer than three new cities upon the Cook Strait, which divides the North and South Islands of New Zealand: the model and patriotically named cities of Wellington, Nelson and New Plymouth.’
‘This is extraordinary, Mr Wakefield,’ said the perspiring peer in the bag-wig. ‘But what of the savages who formerly held title to those lands?’
‘The New Zealanders are not savages, properly speaking,’ said Wakefield, his tone one of gentle admonishment, ‘but a people capable of civilization. A main object of the New Zealand Company will be to do all that can be done for inducing them to embrace the language, customs, religion and social ties of the superior race. Indeed, it is precisely this great work that I have come here today to address: for with your lordships’ wisdom and assistance, I believe that the New Zealanders can be helped to realize their full potential, as partners in the building of a new and Christian nation. My son informs me that there is but one small stumbling-block: the regulation requiring all land sales to be carried out through the officers of the Crown. The governor’s staff are but few in number, and are confined to Auckland, many hundreds of miles to the north. Inevitably, there have been considerable delays and confusions. Few land sales have taken place, and much fine arable farmland remains idle. What is needed, my lords, is not an administrative bottleneck through which all such land transfers must pass - a measure that could well see the progress of nation-building impeded for many a decade - but a general formula for land use, one that is fair and acceptable to all parties. I propose that the New Zealand Company settlers - those good Christians who will, after all, provide the labour, the expertise and the funding required to build this new country - should be given a ninety per cent interest in all newly cultivated land; and that the New Zealanders themselves, who do not after all use their land, leaving it almost exclusively to Mother Nature’s mercies, should retain a ten per cent stake. If, that is to say, the inferior race of New Zealanders can be preserved at all, in long-term contact with civilized man.’
There was a long pause while the committee digested Wakefield’s remarks. Murmured conversations began to break out among their lordships, one sporing another like mushrooms. Wakefield could sense that his ideas were taking hold. He could almost taste the eagerness that his vision of a glimmering new nation had engendered. His manner, he knew, had been as engagingly plausible as his words. He had their lordships now. He had them right in the palm of his hand.
The chairman fanned his perspiring face with his papers, no doubt dreaming of gentle sea breezes rustling the cornfields of all those pretty, white-painted New Zealand farmsteads.
‘Are there any questions for Mr Wakefield?’
None of the committee spoke. So far so good.
‘If your lordship will permit me, I have two questions I should like to ask Mr Wakefield.’
The voice came from the back of the room. Wakefield swivelled round in his chair. There, amid the flustered pink clerks, was a grimly confident, dapper man in his mid-thirties. Wakefield immediately sensed that here was an adversary.
The usher identified the speaker. ‘My lords, it is Captain FitzRoy, the prospective Conservative candidate for Durham City. If your lordships recall, Captain FitzRoy interrupted his campaigning in that constituency to travel down and give evidence to the committee yesterday morning.’
There was a brief flurry of conferring between the members, before the chairman reached a conclusion: ‘Captain FitzRoy, the committee is prepared to entertain your questions. Pray proceed.’
‘Your lordships oblige me greatly with your kindness. In the first instance, I should like to ask Mr Wakefield: is it not the case that each of the prospective settlers taken by your company to New Zealand was made to pay a large sum of money for the purchase of land there - land that, when you accepted these sums of money, you had yet to acquire yourself, either legally or illegally?’
Wakefield smiled indulgently, like a priest accused by a small boy of hiding the fact that there is no God. ‘Quite clearly, the gallant captain is labouring under a misapprehension. Each of our passengers was required to deposit a bond - no more - with the officials of the company, as a mark of the commitment they were prepared to make towards our enterprise. Our passengers, my lords, are the investors in this great enterprise, and what use is an enterprise without investors?’
There were murmurs of assent among the committee members.
FitzRoy returned to the attack: ‘My second question is a rather simpler one. Is it not the case that both you and your brother Edward Wakefield served three years in prison for kidnapping a fifteen-year-old heiress and forcing her into marriage against her will, in a failed attempt to secure control of her family’s inheritance?’
For perhaps the first time in his glib, confident career, Edward Gibbon Wakefield was stopped completely and utterly in his tracks. He sat there, silent, fuming, having not the slightest idea what to say, and knowing that whatever he decided, it would make not one whit of difference. All his patient hard work had been thrown away in an instant. He was left with just one simple fact at his disposal: the knowledge that someday, somewhere, somehow, he would finish this Captain FitzRoy for good. That much was certain.
‘Thank you, Mr Wakefield. That will be all,’ said the committee chairman.
The night before the election, FitzRoy walked the deserted gas-lit lanes alone, up Saddler Street and into the Bailey, following the ramparts that girded Durham’s rocky peninsula. Above him, caught beneath a white moon, soared the medieval cathedral, ‘Half church of God, half castle ‘gainst the Scot’. Before him, the classical Georgian façades of the Bailey lined the city walls like lacy skirts. The houses were not much older than he was - he had been entertained and feted in a good many of them over the preceding weeks - but here in the hissing, deserted half-light of the lamps, their spindly verticals and sagging horizontals seemed as lost in time as the unforgiving bastions above. Without the periwigs and bustles that had attended its birth, the Bailey wore a sad, ineffectual air, like a deserted ballroom after the guests have departed. Below the city walls, gardens and plantations reached down to the banks of the rushing Wear. Out in the black distance, amid the undulating hillsides and the torn-down forests, the nineteenth century was closing in on the old citadel with the pitiless inexorability of a modern-day Burnham Wood. Cast-metal foundries, iron-works, potteries, glass-houses, salt-works, brick- and lime-kilns, firestone and limestone quarries, all were marching slowly but implacably forward across the landscape. The vanguard of this irresistible host, the New Durham Gasworks, had already established a salient on the riverbank near Framwellgate Bridge. It was surely only a matter of time before the waters themselves were breached.
FitzRoy climbed up a side-lane to Palace Green, that lofty plateau where the election was to be held on the morrow, and gazed up at the crumbling battlements of the Norman keep: a tracery of wooden scaffolding already assailed its walls, where workmen prepared the castle for its new role as a university. The broken crenellations grimaced back helplessly, the last toothless frown of England’s feudal power.
Election morning saw Palace Green dressed to the nines and giddy with high spirits, her jaunty mood and attire quite unrecognizable from the solemn seclusion of the night before. Blue flags and red flags rippled from their poles, blue banners and red banners swirled, blue bunting and red bunting fluttered, but wherever one looked the Tory red outweighed the Liberal blue, for Sheppard’s squadron of agents had been conscientious in their work. There were ‘Vote for Sheppard’ placards by the score, a brass band with ‘Vote for Sheppard’ inscribed on the big drum, even horse-drawn carts with ‘Vote for Sheppard’ painted on their sides. The hustings, in the form of a two-storey wooden shed with a speaking platform protruding creakily above t
he heads of the crowd, had been erected before the Shire-Hall, wherein the Courts of Assize and Session had been closed for the day. Eleven hundred men were entitled to vote out of Durham’s population of thirteen thousand, being the city’s resident freemen and ten-shilling householders, and even now a team of harassed constables with staves was trying to ensure that they remained within the roped-off area, while the many hundred hangers-on who had come to jeer and laugh and join in the fun were kept outside. There were hot-pie men and puppet shows, youths selling muffins, men taking illegal bets, panicked horses both inside and outside the voting enclosure, rival musicians braying back and forth at each other in noisy competition, enterprising publicans carrying trays of drinks up from their beer-shops in the lower town, barracking party members, swearing drunks and catcalling small boys. Everyone, it seemed, wore a red or a blue favour. The candidates and their agents, arrayed upon the hustings, wore red or blue cockades upon their hats. Finally, the crier rang a bell and the mayor called for silence.