New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [131]
During the meal, the young men enjoyed a general chat. They had ordered roast beef, and the innkeeper had brought them his best red wine. They all drank freely, though James noticed that the young law clerk only drank one glass to his two. He learned that Hughes had no hand in politics, but that his father was a radical. Hughes, for his part, asked James questions about his family and childhood in New York, and professed the hope that he might go there one day.
“And do you intend to return to America yourself?” he asked.
“Yes. In due course,” James answered.
“May I ask what side will you take in the present dispute when you do?”
“My family is loyal,” James said.
“Very loyal,” Grey Albion added with a grin.
Hughes nodded thoughtfully. His narrow face, with its thin, hooked nose and bead-like eyes, reminded James of a small bird.
“My family would certainly be on the other side,” he remarked. “As you know, many of London’s artisans and radicals think that the colonists’ complaints are just. And it isn’t just humble folk like my family. Some of the great Whigs, even solid country gentlemen, say that the colonists are only demanding the same thing that their own ancestors did before they cut off King Charles’s head. No tax without representation. It’s the birthright of every Englishman.”
“No cause to rebel, though,” said Grey Albion.
“We rebelled in England, last century.”
Grey turned to James with a laugh. “I told you my friend had a mind of his own.”
“But do you not fear disorder?” said James.
“So did the royalists when we complained of the tyranny of the king. All governments fear disorder.”
“But the empire …”
“Ah.” Hughes stared at James. There was a little light of danger in his eye. “You think that, like the Roman Empire, the British Empire must be governed from the center. London is to be the new Rome.”
“I suppose I do,” said James.
“Nearly everyone does,” Hughes agreed. “And that is why, in the case of America, we run into a difficulty. More than a difficulty. A plain contradiction.”
“How so?”
“Because the colonists believe they are Englishmen. Does your father believe he’s an Englishman?”
“Certainly. A loyal one.”
“But because he lives in America, your father cannot have the very rights that make him English, and therefore loyal. The system of empire doesn’t permit it. Your father is not a freeborn Englishman. He is a colonist. He may be grateful to be ruled by freeborn Englishmen in Lon-don—and that, I grant, is better than being ruled by a tyrant—but that is all he can have. If your father is loyal to the king and to the empire because he thinks he is an Englishman, then he deceives himself. And all because no one can think of how else to run an empire. Therefore, I say, there must sooner or later be conflict. If your loyal father has any sense, he will rebel.” This bleak paradox seemed to give Hughes a certain satisfaction. He looked at them both triumphantly.
James laughed.
“I don’t think I shall tell my father what you say of him. But tell me this: how else could the empire be governed? How could the American colonists be represented?”
“There are two alternatives. There could be American representatives in the London Parliament. An unwieldy arrangement perhaps, with America being an ocean away from London, but it might do the trick.”
“And have colonists voting on English concerns?” said Grey Albion. “I can’t see any government standing for that.”
“You see,” said Hughes, with a sly smile to James, “what you colonists are up against. In fact,” he turned to Albion, “if governments were wise, they would think even larger thoughts. Were the American colonies to have representation in London, then as they grew, so might the number of their