“I daresay we do know,” answered Mr. Thurmond of the wool interest, “as you have noted that point several times. And while our Hebrew friends are certainly in the minority on this island, I hardly think them so rare that they must be remarked on in such a way.”
“Oh, but it is a remarkable thing for us. My wife does not think it proper to have Jews at the dinner table. Is that not right, my dear?”
I attempted to say something distracting, something that would change the subject away from this awkward business. Mr. Thurmond, however, decided that it was he who would rescue me. “Tell me,” he said, too loudly, so that his voice would crush the discomfort of Ellershaw’s comments, “Where is that charming daughter of yours, Mr. Ellershaw?”
Mrs. Ellershaw took on a high color, and Mr. Ellershaw coughed awkwardly into his fist. “Well, yes. As for that, she isn’t my daughter. Bridget came with my marriage to Mrs. Ellershaw. A rather fair bargain, I think. But the girl’s not about these days.”
There was clearly more information regarding the daughter, and none was forthcoming. Thurmond could not have appeared more mortified to have stumbled upon so delicate a topic. He had attempted to distract from an awkward moment but had only succeeded in making the moment worse. His wife, fortunately, launched into an encomium of the pheasant on our plates, and in the end that did the business well enough.
After the meal had been completed and the ladies retired to the next room, the true business of the evening was at hand. Now that we were men only, the conversation turned at once to the East India trade and the legislation against it.
“I must ask of you, Mr. Thurmond,” Ellershaw began, “that when Mr. Summers, a true patriot, introduces an act to repeal the 1721 legislation, as I believe he will do in the near future, you might consider lending your support to the effort.”
Thurmond let out a laugh. His old eyes sparkled. “Why, that piece of legislation was an enormous victory. Why should I ever countenance its repeal?”
“Because it is the right thing to do, sir.”
“Freedom of trade,” chimed in Mr. Forester.
“That’s just it,” Ellershaw said. “Freedom of trade is the thing. Perhaps you have read the numerous works penned by Mr. Davenant and Mr. Child on the theory of free trade and how it benefits all nations.”
“Both Davenant and Child were directly interested in the East India trade,” Thurmond pointed out, “and can hardly be considered impartial advocates.”
“Oh, come. Let’s not be petty. You shall see for yourself if this wretched legislation is allowed to stand. The trade in calicoes here may cost some small number their employment, but its absence will diminish the available livelihoods as well. I believe that the East India trade offers far more opportunity than it takes away. What of the dyers and patternmakers and tailors who will be out of work?”
“That is not the case, sir. These people will earn their living through dyeing and making patterns for and constructing suits made of silks and cottons and the like.”
“It is hardly the same thing,” Ellershaw said. “There can never be the same enthusiasm for those clothes. It is not necessity that drives the market, sir, but fashion. It has ever been our way at the Company to introduce new fashions every season. We bring in new patterns or cuts or colors, and we put them upon the backs of the fashionable, and we watch while the rest of the nation lines up to get the newest thing. Our stock, not the desire of the people, must drive commerce.”
“I assure you, fashions can and do exist in materials other than imported Indian textiles,” Thurmond said, with great satisfaction, “and I believe the very notion of fashion will survive your ability to manipulate it. Allow me to show you something I brought along, suspecting as I did that the conversation might take such a turn as this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a square of cloth about a foot in diameter. It was of a bluish base with yellow and red floral patterns upon it-remarkably handsome.
Forester took it from the old gentleman and looked it over, holding it in his hand. “An Indian calico. What of it?”
“It is no such thing!” Ellershaw barked. He snatched it out of Forester’s hands and held it for less than two seconds before his face twisted into a grimace. “Ha, you clever dog! Indian calico, you say, Mr. Forester? This is spun of American cotton, I’ll wager, by the coarseness of it, and printed here in London. I know every Indian print there ever was, and this is a London pattern if I’ve ever seen one. Mr. Forester is new to the India trade, for only an innocent could make such a silly mistake. Indian calico, indeed! What is your point, sir?” He returned the fabric to Thurmond.
The older gentleman appeared at least partially gratified. “Mr. Forester’s mistake is an understandable one, for the cloth is very like an Indian one.”
“That cotton is crude enough to rub the crust off a chimney sweep,” Ellershaw called out. “Forester is an ignorant pup, I say. He knows nothing of textiles, just business. No harm meant, Forester. I have the greatest respect, and so on and so forth, but even the most remarkable intellect may be a dunce when it comes to textiles.”
Forester had by now turned bright red with mortification, but he said nothing.
“As Mr. Forester has observed,” Thurmond said, “American cotton can be spun with increasing skill to resemble Indian imports. This example may not deceive an aficionado such as yourself, but it may well fool the average lady in search of a gown. Even if it should not, new inventions are made all the time, and soon enough it will be impossible to tell the Indian from the American. Our native linens are being made with lighter threads, more like Indian fabrics, and wool and linen can be combined with great skill. Mr. Forester’s mistake is an easy one to understand. The days of Indian imports are near over anyhow.”
“I defy your argument. Mr. Forester may not be able to tell American cotton from his own shite, but there’s not a lady of fashion or a clothes-loving beau on the island that would have been so fooled.”
“As I say, perhaps not yet but soon.”
“And what is to motivate these inventions?” Ellershaw demanded. “If people cannot have their India cloth, then the textile workers have no reason to improve their goods, for they own the market. It is the competition, you know, that will drive them.”
“But they can’t compete with these Indian workers, men and women who live as slaves, earning pennies per day at most. Even if we could produce textiles here in every way indistinguishable from the Indian, they would cost far more because we must pay our laborers more.”
“The laborers must learn to do with less,” Forester suggested.
“Fie, Mr. Forester, fie. Men must eat and sleep and dress themselves. We cannot ask them to make do with less because the Moguls of the Indies can demand that of their people. It is for that reason that we need the legislation. Is it not the government’s role to step in and solve such problems?”
“It ought not to be,” Ellershaw said. “I have spent my life in the trade, and if there is anything I have learned it is that government is not the solution to our problems. Rather, sir, government is the problem. A freely trading society in which the man of business is not taxed or burdened or hindered is the only truly free society imaginable.”
“What freedom is this?” Thurmond demanded. “Sir, I know of your freedoms. I know that the East India Company controls more than one workhouse, and you conspire to have silk weavers arrested and put to work there, spinning without wages. And you, through your influence, have encouraged the growth of silk laborer colonies outside the metropolis, where wages are lower.”
“What of it?” Ellershaw demanded.
“Do you think the world blind to your schemes? Why, I have even heard that there are agents of the Company among the silk workers. The men poor laborers often trust to look out for their advantage look out instead for the advantage of their oppressors. You contrive to lower the wages of silk workers so that silk working is no longer viable. You plan for the future, I see, to make silk so hard to come by at home that people will clamor once more for Indian imports.”