A Place Called Freedom (1995)

The carriage was drawn along the Strand and into the heart of the city. The mob sang and danced and shouted “Wilkes and liberty!” and “Number forty-five!” They did not stop until they reached Spitalfields. There the carriage drew up outside the church. Wilkes got out and went into the Three Tuns tavern, followed hastily by Sir John Fielding.

Some of his supporters went in after them, but they could not all get through the door. They milled about in the street for a while, and then Wilkes appeared at an upstairs window, to tumultuous applause. He began to speak. Jay was too far away to hear everything, but he caught the general drift: Wilkes was appealing for order.

During the speech Fielding’s clerk came out and spoke to Colonel Cranbrough again. Cranbrough whispered the news to his captains. A deal had been done: Wilkes would slip out of a back door and surrender himself at the King’s Bench Prison tonight.

Wilkes finished his speech, waved and bowed, and vanished. As it became clear that he was not going to reappear, the crowd began to get bored and drift away. Sir John came out of the Three Tuns and shook Cranbrough’s hand. “A splendid job, Colonel, and my thanks to your men. Bloodshed was avoided and the law was satisfied.” He was putting a brave face on it, Jay thought, but the truth was that the law had been laughed at by the mob.

As the guard marched back to Hyde Park, Jay felt depressed. He had been keyed up for a fight all day, and the letdown was hard to bear. But the government could not go on appeasing the mob forever. Sooner or later they would try to clamp down. Then there would be action.

When he had dismissed his men and checked that the horses were taken care of, Jay remembered Lennox’s proposition. Jay was reluctant to put Lennox’s plan to his father, but it would be easier than asking for a hundred and fifty pounds to pay another gambling debt. So he decided to call in at Grosvenor Square on his way home.

It was late. The family had eaten supper, the footman said, and Sir George was in the small study at the back of the house. Jay hesitated in the cold, marble-floored hall. He hated to ask his father for anything. He would either be scorned for wanting the wrong thing, or reprimanded for demanding more than his due. But he had to go through with it. He knocked on the door and went in.

Sir George was drinking wine and yawning over a list of molasses prices. Jay sat down and said: “Wilkes was refused bail.”

“So I heard.”

Perhaps his father would like to hear how Jay’s regiment had kept the peace. “The mob drew his carriage to Spitalfields, and we followed, but he promised to surrender himself tonight.”

“Good. What brings you here so late?”

Jay gave up trying to interest his father in what he had done today. “Did you know that Malachi McAsh has surfaced here in London?”

His father shook his head. “I don’t think it matters,” he said dismissively.

“He’s stirring up trouble among the coal heavers.”

“That doesn’t take much doing—they’re a quarrelsome lot.”

“I’ve been asked to approach you on behalf of the undertakers.”

Sir George raised his eyebrows. “Why you?” he said in a tone that implied no one with any sense would employ Jay as an ambassador.

Jay shrugged. “I happen to be acquainted with one particular undertaker, and he asked me to come to you.”

“Tavern keepers are a powerful voting group,” Sir George said thoughtfully. “What’s the proposition?”

“McAsh and his friends have started independent gangs who don’t work through the undertakers. The undertakers are asking ship owners to be loyal to them and turn away the new gangs. They feel that if you give a lead the other shippers will follow.”

“I’m not sure I should interfere. It’s not our battle.”

Jay was disappointed. He thought he had put the proposition well. He pretended indifference. “It’s nothing to me, but I’m surprised—you’re always saying we’ve got to take a firm line with seditious laboring men who get ideas above their station.”

At that moment there was a terrific hammering at the front door. Sir George frowned and Jay stepped into the hall to have a look. A footman hurried past and opened the door. There stood a burly workingman with clogs on his feet and a blue cockade in his greasy cap. “Light up!” he ordered the footman. “Illuminate for Wilkes!”

Sir George emerged from the study and stood with Jay, watching. Jay said: “They do this—make people put candles in all their windows in support of Wilkes.”

Sir George said: “What’s that on the door?”

They walked forward. The number 45 was chalked on the door. Outside in the square a small mob was going from house to house.

Sir George confronted the man on the doorstep. “Do you know what you’ve done?” he said. “That number is a code. It means: ‘The king is a liar.’ Your precious Wilkes has gone to jail for it, and you could too.”

“Will you light up for Wilkes?” the man said, ignoring Sir George’s speech.