The merchant princes who had privateers scouring the seas for booty had reason for the war to continue and give them license to prey on commerce, but when order should be re-established, wished an aristocratic government for the enjoyment of their gains.
Roderick Barclugh was soon a high favorite among the merchants. Robert FitzMaurice was the Financier General of Congress, and his commercial house of Milling & FitzMaurice was being enriched in every possible channel. The credit that this public position gave him, advanced his gains in trade and privateering. His credit allowed him to build ships. Nearly every week a privateer of his commission was bringing in a richly-laden merchantman as a prize to his wharves in the Delaware. These cargoes enriched Milling & FitzMaurice to the amount of 800,000 pounds sterling while the war lasted. Is it any wonder that this firm should make loans to the Continental Congress since they were merely putting capital into their stock in trade?
One man at this time standing in the light of public opinion as the antithesis of Thomas Paine in his philosophy of Common Sense, was James Wilson, a leading lawyer of Philadelphia, and a writer of no mean abilities. He was the intimate friend of Robert FitzMaurice, and an adviser in the aristocratic plans of the financier. Whatever were the plans of the men of substance for monarchial forms in government, this clever lawyer was ever ready to advocate these principles by means of pamphlets and after-dinner speeches. He was making a fortune in the practice of law when the country was in the very throes of despair, but this Scotchman knew wherein his fat fees lay.
But Roderick Barclugh did not confine his attention to the merchants and lawyers alone in pursuing his plans. One of the channels through which he pursued the objects of his mission was a fishmonger of the town,—Sven Svenson.
In a raging snowstorm of the winter of 1772, a small Norwegian bark was making its course to the Swedish settlements of the Delaware, with a company of Swedish emigrants. The ship met an undeserved fate on the sands of the Jersey Coast. The whole ship’s company perished in the frigid blasts of a northeast gale in January, save one,—Sven Svenson, a young and vigorous Swede, eighteen years of age. He was found numb, and almost exhausted, by a party of Jersey fishermen. They cared for him and took him to their homes.
These fishermen plied in the oyster trade of Philadelphia with the oysters at that time found in the estuaries of the mouth of the Delaware River. Two trips a week with a sloop were made from Philadelphia to the oyster beds and back. In this trade, Sven at once turned his hand. He was a handy sailor-man,—industrious and saving.
At the time when Roderick Barclugh arrived in Philadelphia, one of the best known and happiest men in the town was Sven Svenson. He had taken hold of the responsible end of the oyster trade himself. Any day, in oyster season, one could find this flaxen-haired Swede pushing a wheel-barrow up and down Market Street and through Front Street,—opening a dozen here and a dozen there for passers-by. Everybody ate them on the half-shell, tempered with a squirt of pepper-“sass” from a three-cornered bottle having a goosequill through the cork. Every one liked Sven; not alone for the happy smile with which he opened you an oyster; but he gave it with a sly wink and an extra squirt of “sass,” that pleased.
The mistresses of the best households held Sven as a prime favorite, since, whenever they gave an order for a feast, they could depend upon having their orders filled. He also supplied their tastes with the best in the market.
There were no family secrets but Sven heard them through the servants, or else he happened upon those little wordy duels which occur in the best of families. Moreover, as many Swedish girls were in domestic service it was an easy matter for Sven to hear all the choice gossip of the town.
After settling himself into his bachelor quarters, one of the first things that Roderick Barclugh undertook was to take early morning walks all over the town for knowledge of the people. On several of these observation journeys, he had passed this pumpkin-faced Swede, who, on general principles, saluted every person of note with a most gracious courtesy and removal of his hat.