"If we withhold from the French the goods they require for trading with these tribes they will seek them from the manufacturers of the Low Countries and Germany. Thus our merchants at home will be deprived of a profitable trade, and we provincials will not be bettered. Also, the supply of furs for the London market, much of which comes from the French posts, will be reduced. It seems to me, your lordships, that this prohibitory legislation will only have crippling effects upon trade and hinder the good relations between France and England and their colonies."
He said much more in the same vein, whilst Juggins twisted uneasily in his seat and the attending merchants and even their sleepy lordships hung upon his words. For he was a ready speaker. When he sat down there was hearty applause and Pelham nodded his head as if to say—
"Well done."
But our opponents were not through with us. The merchant who acted as master of ceremonies caused a start of surprize, in which I joined, by bringing forward a handsomely dressed gentleman, whose laced coat and gold-hilted sword showed conspicuously in such drab surroundings.
'Twas Raoul de Veulle; yes, Raoul de Veulle, whose mad exploits and escapades, love-affairs and gambling-debts, had kept all Paris gossiping these past three years and had just driven him into an exile, the facts concerning which had been mysteriously secret. I had known de Veulle well—as a dim star of restricted orbit may know a bright planetary light whose radiance reaches beyond his immediate universe. Once, in fact, we had come together, clashed over a question of honor in which—But I will tell of that in its place.
Now de Veulle stood before us, his handsome face smiling, bowing low before their interested lordships. In charming, broken English he repeated his brief message. He had been requested by his Excellency the French ambassador to appear in this matter in answer to a plea offered by the petitioners to the ambassador for corroborative testimony to the justice of their assertions from a responsible French source.
He himself—he shrugged apologetically—as it happened was Canadian-born; he was just starting upon his way to take up an appointment in the Canadian Government. He ventured to say he knew whereof he spoke. He agreed unhesitatingly with what Monsieur Murray had stated. On behalf of the French Government and of the Canadian authorities he begged to say that such legislation as New York wished to have perpetuated would have most unhealthy effects upon the trade and politics of their two countries. He thanked their lordships for their forbearance, made a second courtly bow and withdrew.
Master Juggins sprang to his feet, his honest face aflush.
"Many of the assertions of Master Murray and——"
Pelham waved him to his seat.