A Place Called Freedom - Ken Follett [156]
Mack cracked the reins and said: “Hup! Walk on!”
The horses took the strain, the wagon jerked and they moved off.
At the road Mack turned the horses in the direction of Fredericksburg. Lizzie looked back. The field hands were standing in complete silence, waving.
A moment later they were gone from sight.
Lizzie looked ahead. In the distance, dawn was breaking.
36
MATTHEW MURCHMAN WAS OUT OF TOWN WHEN JAY and Lennox reached Williamsburg. He might be back tomorrow, his servant said. Jay scribbled a note saying he needed to borrow more money and would like to see the lawyer at his earliest convenience. He left the office in a bad temper. His affairs were in a complete mess and he was impatient to do something about it.
Next day, forced to kill time, he went along to the red-and-gray-brick Capitol building. Dissolved by the governor last year, the assembly had reconvened after an election. The Hall of Burgesses was a modest, dark room with rows of benches on either side and a kind of sentry box for the speaker in the middle. Jay and a handful of other observers stood at the back, behind a rail.
He swiftly realized that the colony’s politics were in turmoil. Virginia, the oldest English settlement on the continent, seemed ready to defy its rightful king.
The burgesses were discussing the latest threat from Westminster: the British Parliament was claiming that anyone accused of treason could be forced to return to London to stand trial, under a statute that dated back to Henry VIII.
Feelings ran high in the room. Jay watched in disgust as one respectable landowner after another stood up and attacked the king. In the end they passed a resolution saying that the treason statute went contrary to the British subject’s right to trial by a jury of his peers.
They went on to the usual gripes about paying taxes while having no voice in the Westminster Parliament. “No taxation without representation” was their parrot cry. This time, however, they went farther than usual, and affirmed their right to cooperate with other colonial assemblies in opposition to royal demands.
Jay felt sure the governor could not let that pass, and he was right. Just before dinnertime, when the burgesses were discussing a lesser local topic, the sergeant-at-arms interrupted the proceedings to call out: “Mr. Speaker, a message from the governor.”
He handed a sheet of paper to the clerk, who read it and said: “Mr. Speaker, the governor commands the im mediate attendance of your House in the council chamber.”
Now they’re in trouble, Jay thought with relish.
He followed the burgesses as they trooped up the stairs and through the passage. The spectators stood in the hall outside the council chamber and looked through the open doors. Governor Botetourt, the living embodiment of the iron fist in the velvet glove, sat at the head of an oval table. He spoke very briefly. “I have heard of your resolves,” he said. “You have made it my duty to dissolve you. You are dissolved accordingly.”
There was a stunned silence.
“That will be all,” he said impatiently.
Jay concealed his glee as the burgesses slowly filed out of the chamber. They collected their papers downstairs and drifted into the courtyard.
Jay made his way to the Raleigh Tavern and sat in the bar. He ordered his midday meal and flirted with a barmaid who was falling in love with him. As he waited he was surprised to see many of the burgesses go past, heading for one of the larger rooms in the rear. He wondered if they were plotting further treason.
When he had eaten he went to investigate.
As he had guessed, the burgesses were holding a debate. They made no attempt to hide their sedition. They were blindly convinced of the lightness of their cause, and that gave them a kind of mad self-confidence. Don’t they understand, Jay asked himself, that they’re inviting the wrath of one of the world’s great monarchies? Do they suppose they can get away