The Confusion

“But you didn’t, really, my lord. Coffee was brought forth and you incurred a debt, pricked down on Mrs. Bligh’s ledger.”

“Are you questioning my solvency, Daniel?”

“I am questioning the whole country’s solvency! Empty out your coin-purse. Right there on the table. Let’s have a look.”

“Don’t be vulgar, Daniel.”

“Oh, now ’tis I who am vulgar.”

“Ever since you had the stone cut out, you have seemingly regressed in age.”

“I will bet you the whole contents of my purse that yours contains not a single piece of metal that could be exchanged for a bucket of cods’ heads at Billingsgate.”

“If your purse’s contents were worth so much, you’d be Massachusetts-bound. Everyone knows that.”

“You see? You are afraid to accept the wager.”

“Why do you belabor me about the fact that England has no money?”

“Because you are a momentous fellow now, rumors career about you like gulls round a herring-boat, and I want you to do something about it, so that I can go to America…right. Very well, my lord, I shall give you a few minutes to bring your mirth under control. If you can hear what I am saying, wave at me-oh, very good. Roger Comstock, I say ’tis well enough for you that you have credit, and can buy cups of coffee, or houses, by simply asking for them. Many other men of power enjoy the same privilege-including our King, who appears to be financing his war through some kind of alchemy. But some of us are required actually to pay for what we buy, and we have nothing to pay with at the moment. They say that America is awash in Pieces of Eight, and that is a sight I would fain see-alas, ships’ captains do not dispense credit, at least, not to Natural Philosophers… Oh yes, my lord, do be entertained. I am here in Mrs. Bligh’s coffee-house, in pied rags, solely as a Court Jester to Creditable Men, and request only that you throw a silver coin at me for every giggle and a gold one for each guffaw. Fresh out? What, no coins in the bank? Does your purse hang as flaccid as a gelding’s scrotum? ’Tis a common condition, Roger, and this brings me round to another subject ’pon which I will briefly discourse while you blow your nose, and wipe the tears from your eyes, and that is: What if all debts, public and private, were to be called in? What if Mrs. Bligh were to march over to this cozy corner with her accompt-book resting open on her bosom like a Bible on a Lectern and say, Roger Comstock, you owe me your own weight in rubies, pay up straightaway!”

“But, Daniel, that never happens. Mrs. Bligh, if she wants coffee-beans, can go down to the docks and shew her book-or her Lectern, in a pinch-to a merchant and say, ‘Behold, every powerful man in London is in debt to me, I have collateral, lend me a ton of Mocha and you’ll never be sorry!’ ”

“Roger, what is Mrs. Bligh’s bloody book-by your leave, Mrs. Bligh!-but squiggles of ink? I have ink, Roger, a firkin of it, and can molest a goose to obtain quills, and make ink-squiggles all night and all day. But they are just forms on a page. What does it say of us that our commerce is built ’pon forms and figments while that of Spain is built ’pon silver?”

“Some would say it speaks to our advancement.”

“I am not one of those hard cases who believes credit is Satan’s work, do not put me in that poke, Roger. I say only that ink, once dried on the page, is a brittle commodity, and an ?conomy made of ink is likewise brittle, and may for all we know be craz’d and in a state to crumble at a touch. Whereas silver and gold are ductile, malleable, capable of fluid movement-”

“Some say it is because their atoms, their particules are bathed in a lubricating medium of quicksilver-”

“Stop it.”

“You asked me to wax metaphysical, just a minute ago.”

“You are baiting me, Roger. Oh, it is all right. By all means, amuse yourself.”

“Daniel. Do you really want to go to Massachusetts, and leave all this behind?”

“All this is more amusing, not to mention profitable, to you than ’tis to me. I want to put distractions behind, go to the wilderness, and work.”

“What, in a wigwam? Or do you have a cave picked out?”

“There are plenty of trees remaining.”

“You’re going to live in a tree?”

“No! Cut them down, make a house.”

“I fear you are unused to such labor, Daniel.”

“Oh but I am educable.”

“One really would do better to have an institution on which to rely. You could be a vicar of some Puritan church.”

“Puritan churches tend not to have vicars.”

“Oh, that’s right…then perhaps Harvard College would have you.”

“Then again, perhaps not.”

“Here, Daniel, is my metaphysical reading of your circumstance:”

“I am braced.”

“England is not finished with you yet!”

“Merciful God! What more can England possibly ask of me?”

“I shall come to that momentarily, Daniel. First, I propose a transaction.”

“Is this transaction to conclude with silver changing hands? Or ink-squiggles?”

“It is to conclude with a sinecure for Daniel Waterhouse. In Massachusetts Bay Colony.”

“Damn me, and here am I, on the wrong side of the ocean!”