Babel : Or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution (9780063021440)

‘No, that’s very good for us,’ Anthony said smoothly. ‘Gives us some freedom of movement. Now you start writing to your father, Letty, and the rest of you get to your assignments.’

One by one they filtered out of the Reading Room to carry out their designated tasks. Ilse set off to Babel to retrieve further news on developments in London. Cathy and Vimal went to the workshop to tinker with match-pairs using polemikós. Ramy and Victoire were put to work writing letters to prominent Radical leaders by impersonating white, middle-aged Radical supporters. Robin sat with Anthony in the Reading Room, pulling the most damning evidence of collusion from Professor Lovell’s letters as quotations for short, inflammatory pamphlets. Their hope was that such evidence might prove scandalous enough to get picked up by the London papers.

‘Be careful with your language,’ Anthony told him. ‘You’ll want to avoid rhetoric about anticolonialism and respecting national sovereignty. Use terms like scandal, collusion, corruption, lack of transparency, and whatnot. Cast things in terms that the average Londoner will get worked up about, and don’t make it an issue of race.’

‘You want me to translate things for white people,’ said Robin.

‘Precisely.’

They worked in comfortable silence for about an hour, until Robin’s hand grew too sore to continue. He sat back, cradling a mug of tea in silence, until it seemed as if Anthony had reached the end of a paragraph. ‘Anthony, can I ask you something?’

Anthony put down his pen. ‘What’s on your mind?’

‘Do you honestly think this will work?’ Robin nodded to the stack of draft pamphlets. ‘Winning in the realm of public opinion, I mean.’

Anthony leaned back and flexed his fingers. ‘I see your brother’s got to you.’

‘Griffin spent last night teaching me how to use a gun,’ said Robin. ‘He thinks revolution’s impossible without violent insurrection. And he’s quite persuasive.’

Anthony thought for a while, nodding, tapping his pen against the inkwell. ‘Your brother likes to call me naive.’

‘That’s not what I—’

‘I know, I know. I only mean to say that I’m not as soft as Griffin thinks. Let me remind you that I came to this country before they’d decided I could no longer be legally called a slave. I’ve lived most of my life in a country that is deeply confused on whether I fully count as human. Trust me, I am no jolly optimist on the ethical qualms of white Britain.’

‘But I suppose they did come around on abolition,’ said Robin. ‘Eventually.’

Anthony laughed gently. ‘Do you think abolition was a matter of ethics? No, abolition gained popularity because the British, after losing America, decided that India was going to be their new golden goose. But cotton, indigo, and sugar from India weren’t going to dominate the market unless France could be edged out, and France would not be edged out, you see, as long as the British slave trade was making the West Indies so very profitable for them.’

‘But—’

‘But nothing. The abolitionist movement you know is a load of pomp. Rhetoric only. Pitt first raised the motion because he saw the need to cut off the slave trade to France. And Parliament got on board with the abolitionists because they were so very afraid of Black insurrection in the West Indies.’

‘So you think it’s purely risk and economics.’

‘Well, not necessarily. You brother likes to argue that the Jamaican slave revolt, failed though it was, is what impelled the British to legislate abolition. He’s right, but only half right. See, the revolt won British sympathy because the leaders were part of the Baptist church, and when it failed, proslavery whites in Jamaica started destroying chapels and threatening missionaries. Those Baptists went back to England and drummed up support on the grounds of religion, not natural rights. My point being, abolition happened because white people found reasons to care – whether those be economic or religious. You just have to make them think they came up with the idea themselves. You can’t appeal to their inner goodness. I have never met an Englishman I trusted to do the right thing out of sympathy.’

‘Well,’ said Robin, ‘there’s Letty.’

‘Yes,’ said Anthony after a pause. ‘I suppose there’s Letty. But she’s a rare case, isn’t she?’

‘Then what’s our path forward?’ asked Robin. ‘Then what’s the point of any of this?’