“We must conduct the bargains of the nation, you know,” replied the Duke. “In old times, the people desired no better managers of their affairs than their kings.”
“’Tis a marvel then that they troubled themselves to have Parliaments. Pray God the people may be content with what they shall receive for a conquest which they prized! Some other goodly town, I trust, is secured to us; or some profitable fishing coast; or some fastness which shall give us advantage over the enemy, and spare the blood of our soldiers.”
“It were as well to have retained Dunkirk as taken any of these in exchange,” said the King;—a proposition which Dr. Reede was far from disputing. “Our necessities required another fashion of payment.”
"In money!—and then the taxes will be somewhat lightened. This will be a welcome relief to the people, although their leave was not asked. There is at least the good of a lifting up of a little portion of their burdens."
“Not so. We cannot at present spare our subjects. This 400,000l. come from Dunkirk is all too little for the occasions of our dignity. Our house at Hampton Court is not yet suitably arranged. The tapestries are such that the world can show nothing nobler, yet the ceilings, however finely fretted, are not yet gilt. The canal is not perfected, and the Banqueting House in the Paradise is yet bare.”
“The extraordinary wild fowl in St. James’s Park did not fly over without cost,” observed the Duke.
"Some did. The melancholy water-fowl from Astracan was bestowed by the Russian Ambassador; and certain merchants who came for justice brought us the cranes and the milk-white raven. But the animals that it was needful to put in to make the place answerable to its design,—the antelopes, and the Guinea goats, and the Arabian sheep, and others,—cost nearly their weight of gold. Kings cannot make fair bargains."
“For aught but necessaries,” interposed the divine.
"Or for necessaries. Windsor is exceedingly ragged and ruinous. It will occupy the cost of Dunkirk to restore it——"
“According to the taste of the ladies of the court,” interrupted the Duke. “They will have the gallery of horns furnished with beams of the rarest elks and antelopes that there be in the world. Then the hall and stairs must be bright with furniture of arms, in festoons, trophy-like: while the chambers have curious and effeminate pictures, giving a contrast of softness to that which presented only war and horror.”