The Launching of Roger Brook by Dennis Wheatley Read Free Book Online Page B

by no less erudite and thoughtful men than Dr. Samuel Johnson and Mr. John Wesley.’
    ‘Yet, Lord Chatham, Mr. Burke, Mr. Fox and Mr. Walpole were all against you, Sir,’ said Sam Oviatt, ‘and the City of London so opposed to this taking up of arms against our kin that they refused to vote funds for the war.’
    ‘As for Mr. Wesley, Sir,’ said the Vicar truculently, ‘you can scarce expect those of us who are loyal to the ChurchEstablished to attach much weight to the opinions of such a firebrand.’
    ‘On the contrary, Sir,’ hit back Mr. Gibbon acidly. ‘You and your brethren would do well to adapt yourselves to many of the precepts of that great preacher’s teaching unless you wish to lose what little credit is still left to you. In the past forty years his Methodism has gained such a legion of converts that unless you bestir yourselves the movement bids fair to deprive you all of your congregations.’
    Seeing that tempers were rising Captain Brook intervened. ‘There is much to be said on both sides. The real tragedy lay in our Government’s failure to compose the quarrel in its early stages, as could so easily have been done.’
    ‘Aye,’ agreed Harry Darby, ‘and the blame for that lies with the King, whose wish to rule us as an autocratic monarch caused him to ignore all sager counsels and entrust the Government to a weakling like my Lord North, solely because he knew that he could make a catspaw of him.’
    ‘True enough!’ chimed in Captain Burrard. ‘The King’s crazy pig-headedness has been the root of all our troubles.’
    Mr. Gibbon frowned. ‘Crazy pig-headedness, Sir, is a strange term to apply to one who has the courage of his convictions, when those convictions have the support of law, the undeniable rights of sovereignty and also form the opinion of the great majority of a people. The Colonists’ defiance of Parliament shocked the nation and by the election of ‘seventy-four it clearly confirmed the King in his policy.’
    ‘The King has a long purse and there are always a plenitude of pocket Boroughs for sale,’ laughed Captain Burrard.
    ‘Say what you will, Sir,’ retorted Mr. Gibbon. ‘Unlike the first two Georges, the King is by birth, education and inclination, an Englishman. Affairs of state are no longer subject to the corrupt and venal influence exercised by German harlots and from the inception of his reign King George III has ever placed what he considers to be the true interests of England before all else.’
    ‘Aye, the King’s well enough,’ nodded Captain Brook, ‘and ‘twas Lord North’s mismanagement that so embittered the Colonists. They would have been content with their early successes and glad enough to patch up the quarrel hadhe not offered the negro slaves their freedom if they enlisted with us, and despatched Hessian troops to fight against our own flesh and blood.’
    Sir Harry Burrard banged the table with his fist. ‘You’ve hit upon it, Chris! That was the crowning blunder of them all, and well do I remember the Great Commoner’s attack upon the Government at the time, when he thundered “You have ransacked every corner of Lower Saxony, but forty thousand German boors never can conquer ten times that number of British freemen.” And he was right.’
    ‘Yet, ‘twas Lord Chatham himself who two years later opposed the Duke of Richmond’s motion to withdraw all forces by sea and land from the revolted provinces,’ countered Mr. Gibbon.
    ‘I grant you that, Sir, and I well remember that occasion, too, since ‘twas my Lord Chatham’s dying speech and he collapsed but a half hour later. I was again in the Lords gallery at the time, and although it is all of five years ago I recall his words as well as if he’d spoke them yesterday. “Shall we,” he asked, “tarnish the lustre of this nation by an ignominious surrender of its rights and fairest possessions? Shall a people that fifteen years ago was the terror of the world now stoop so