The covenant - James A. Michener [251]
Most helpful were the speeches and writings of Reverend Simon Keer, who assured Englishmen that those lucky enough to be included in the roster of immigrantswhose boat fare would be paid by the government and whose land would be given free, a hundred rolling acres to each family would be entering a paradise to which America and Australia were niggardly in comparison. To residents of crowded England, where a family could live well on twenty acres, the vision of a hundred, rent-free, tax-free, was compelling.
Ninety thousand citizens, well mixed as to occupation, education and ability, volunteered to emigrate, a superior lot, really, to those who had emigrated earlier to Canada and America, and had they all been moved to Cape Town, the history of Africa would have been sharply modified, for at this time there were only some twenty-five thousand Boers in the entire colony, and the infusion of so many Englishmen would have made South Africa much like any other British colony. But enthusiastic members of Parliament, such as Peter Saltwood, promised much more than they could deliver, and when the time came to fill the ships, only enough money to transport four thousand settlers was provided, so that the eighty-six thousand who might have restructured a nation had to be left behind.
Among those lucky enough to be included was a young man of twenty-five named Thomas Carleton, a carriage builder by trade, whose enthusiasm matched the rhetoric of speakers like Peter Saltwood and Simon Keer. From the first moment he heard of the emigration plan, he wanted to go, and with letters of approval from his minister and sheriff, he was among the first interviewed: 'My business is solid, but it's not really thriving. I want to go where distances are great and men must have wagons.'
'Have you any money saved?'
'Not a penny, but I have strong arms, a willing back and a complete set of tools fully paid.'
The examiners doubted if they would find many men so qualified and unanimously recommended that he be accepted, so he was given a slip of paper guaranteeing his passage and the allocation of one hundred acres. He was to report three months hence to Southampton, where the ship Alice Grace would be loading. 'That'll give you time to find yourself a wife,' the examiners explained.
'Not me!' Thomas said. 'I haven't a penny to feed a wife.'
When the news of this grand scheme reached Salisbury, the Lambtons listened with more than casual attention, and the more they heard, the more convinced they became that this was the kind of adventure to which an unmarried girl of good breeding might subscribe. Of course, Vera would not be sailing as an ordinary charity case, her way paid by the government; as the intended bride of a clergyman who might one day be dean of the finest cathedral in England, and the sister-in-law-to-be of an important member of Parliament, she would have preferment.
But the grand decision hung in the balance until Salisbury was visited by the one man in England who spoke as if he knew most about the new colony, Dr. Simon Keer, as he now called himself, a power in the LMS. He announced a public meeting in the cathedral cloisters, where chairs lined the hallowed square and where against a background of gray stone he explained everything. He was now middle-aged, a short, plump little man with red hair, a Lancashire accent and a powerful voice that boomed as it echoed from the noble walls; his oratory rolled like thunder as he spoke of challenges and flashed like lightning when he outlined the potentialities:
'If we grapple courageously with the problem of slavery