The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family

by William Makepeace Thackeray

Clive was a proprietor of East India Stock, and had a vote in electing the directors of that Company; and who so fit to be a director of his affairs as Thomas Newcome, Esq., Companion of the Bath, and so long a distinguished officer in its army? To hold this position of director, used, up to very late days, to be the natural ambition of many East Indian gentlemen. Colonel Newcome had often thought of offering himself as a candidate, and now openly placed himself on the lists, and publicly announced his intention. His interest was rather powerful through the Indian bank, of which he was a director, and many of the shareholders of which were proprietors of the East India Company. To have a director of the B. B. C. also a member of the parliament in Leadenhall Street, would naturally be beneficial to the former institution. Thomas Newcome’s prospectuses were issued accordingly, and his canvass received with tolerable favour.

Within a very short time another candidate appeared in the field—a retired Bombay lawyer, of considerable repute and large means—and at the head of this gentleman’s committee appeared the names of Hobson Brothers and Newcome, very formidable personages at the East India House, with which the bank of Hobson Brothers have had dealings for half a century past, and where the old lady, who founded or consolidated that family, had had three stars before her own venerable name, which had descended upon her son Sir Brian, and her grandson, Sir Barnes.

War was thus openly declared between Thomas Newcome and his nephew. The canvass on both sides was very hot and eager. The number of promises was pretty equal. The election was not to come off yet for a while; for aspirants to the honourable office of director used to announce their wishes years before they could be fulfilled, and returned again and again to the contest before they finally won it. Howbeit, the Colonel’s prospects were very fair, and a prodigious indigo crop came in to favour the B. B. C., with the most brilliant report from the board at Calcutta. The shares, still somewhat sluggish, rose again, the Colonel’s hopes with them, and the courage of gentlemen at home who had invested their money in the transaction.

We were sitting one day round the Colonel’s dinner-table; it was not one of the cocoa-nut-tree days; that emblem was locked up in the butler’s pantry, and only beheld the lamps on occasions of state. It was a snug family party in the early part of the year, when scarcely anybody was in town; only George Warrington, and F. B., and Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis; and the ladies having retired, we were having such a talk as we used to enjoy in quiet old days, before marriages and cares and divisions had separated us.

F. B. led the conversation. The Colonel received his remarks with great gravity, and thought him an instructive personage. Others considered him rather as amusing than instructive, and so his eloquence was generally welcome. The canvass for the directorship was talked over. The improved affairs of a certain great Banking Company, which shall be nameless, but one which F. B. would take the liberty to state, would, in his opinion, for ever unite the mother country to our great Indian possessions;—the prosperity of this great Company was enthusiastically drunk by Mr. Bayham in some of the very best claret. The conduct of the enemies of that Company was characterised in terms of bitter, but not undeserved, satire. F. B. rather liked to air his oratory, and neglected few opportunities for making speeches after dinners.

The Colonel admired his voice and sentiments not the less, perhaps, because the latter were highly laudatory of the good man. And not from interest, at least, as far as he himself knew—not from any mean or selfish motives, did F. B. speak. He called Colonel Newcome his friend, his benefactor: kissed the hem of his garment: he wished fervently that he could have been the Colonel’s son: he expressed, repeatedly, a desire that some one would speak ill of the Colonel, so that he, F. B., might have the opportunity of polishing that individual off in about two seconds. He covered the Colonel with all his heart; nor is any gentleman proof altogether against this constant regard and devotion from another.

The Colonel used to wag his head wisely, and say Mr. Bayham’s suggestions were often exceedingly valuable, as indeed the fact was, though his conduct was no more of a piece with his opinions than those of some other folks occasionally are.

“What the Colonel ought to do, sir, to help him in the direction,” says F. B., “is to get into Parliament. The House of Commons would aid him into the Court of Directors, and the Court of Directors would help him in the House of Commons.”

“Most wisely said,” says Warrington.

The Colonel declined. “I have long had the House of Commons in my eye,” he said; “but not for me. I wanted my boy to go there. It would be a proud day for me if I could see him there.”