—Jack Cade.
Had Alderman Van Beverout been a party in the preceding dialogue, he could not have uttered words more apposite, than the exclamation with which he first saluted the ears of those in the pavilion.
“Gales and climates!” exclaimed the merchant, entering with an open letter in his hand. “Here are advices received, by way of Curaçoa, and the coast of Africa, that the good ship Musk-Rat met with foul winds off the Azores, which lengthened her passage home to seventeen weeks—this is too much precious time wasted between markets, Captain Cornelius Ludlow, and ’twill do discredit to the good character of the ship, which has hitherto always maintained a sound reputation, never needing more than the regular seven months to make the voyage home and out again. If our vessels fall into this lazy train, we shall never get a skin to Bristol, till it is past use. What have we here, niece? Merchandise! and of a suspicious fabric!—who has the invoice of these goods, and in what vessel were they shipped?”
“These are questions that may be better answered by their owner;” returned la Belle, pointing gravely, and not without tremor in her voice, towards the dealer in contraband, who, at the approach of the Alderman, had shrunk back as far as possible from view.
Myndert cast an uneasy glance at the unmoved countenance of the commander of the royal cruiser, after having bestowed a brief but understanding look at the contents of the bale. “Captain Ludlow, the chaser is chased!” he said. “After sailing about the Atlantic, for a week or more, like a Jew broker’s clerk running up and down the Boom Key at Rotterdam, to get off a consignment of damaged tea, we are fairly caught ourselves! To what fall in prices, or change in the sentiments of the Board of Trade, am I indebted for the honor of this visit, Master a—a—a—gay dealer in green ladies and bright tissues?”
The confident and gallant manner of the free-trader had vanished. In its place, there appeared a hesitating and embarrassed air, that the individual was not wont to exhibit, blended with some apparent indecision, on the subject of his reply.
“It is the business of those who hazard much, in order to minister to the wants of life,” he said, after a pause that was sufficiently expressive of the entire change in his demeanor, “to seek customers where there is a reputation for liberality. I hope my boldness will be overlooked, on account of its motive, and that you will aid the lady in judging of the value of my articles, and of their reasonableness as to price, with your own superior experience.”
Myndert was quite as much astonished, by this language, and the subdued manner of the smuggler, as Ludlow himself. When he expected the heaviest demand on his address, in order to check the usual forward and reckless familiarity of Seadrift, in order that his connexion with the ‘Skimmer of the Seas’ might be as much as possible involved in ambiguity, to his own amazement, he found his purpose more than aided by the sudden and extraordinary respect with which he was treated. Emboldened, and perhaps a little elevated in his own esteem, by this unexpected deference, which the worthy Alderman, shrewd as he was in common, did not fail, like other men, to impute to some inherent quality of his own, he answered with a greater depth of voice, and a more protecting air, than he might otherwise have deemed it prudent to assume to one who had so frequently given him proofs of his own fearless manner of viewing things.
“This is being more eager as a trader, than prudent as one who should know the value of credit;” he said, making, at the same time, a lofty gesture to betoken indulgence for so venial an error. “We must overlook the mistake, Captain Ludlow; since, as the young man truly observes in his defence, gain acquired in honest traffic is a commendable and wholesome pursuit. One who appears as if he might not be ignorant of the laws, should know that our virtuous Queen and her wise counsellors have decided that Mother England can produce most that a colonist can consume! Aye! and that she can consume, too, most that the colonist can produce!”
“I pretend not to this ignorance, sir; but, in pursuing my humble barter, I merely follow a principle of nature, by endeavoring to provide for my own interests. We of the contraband do but play at hazard with the authorities. When we pass the gauntlet unharmed, we gain; and when we lose, the servants of the crown find their profit. The stakes are equal, and the game should not be stigmatized as unfair. Would the rulers of the world once remove the unnecessary shackles they impose on commerce, our calling would disappear, and the name of free-trader would then belong to the richest and most esteemed houses.”