John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"Matters reached such a pass that though I feared to leave the Province to my enemies for e'en a minute, I had no recourse but to sail for London in 1684 to fight Penn's intrigues. Now for some time I had been falsely accused of allowing smugglers to defraud the King's port-revenues and of failing to assist the royal tax collectors, and had even paid a fine for't. No sooner do I weigh anchor for London than my kinsman George Talbot in St. Mary's allows a rascally beast of a tax collector to anger him and stabs the knave dead. 'Twas a fool's act, and my enemies seized on't at once. Against all justice they refuse to try him in the Province, but instead deliver him to Effingham, then governor of Virginia — who, by the way, later plotted with the Privy Council to have the whole of Maryland granted to himself! — and 'twas all I could manage to save his neck. Shortly afterwards another customs officer is murthered, and though 'twas a private quarrel, my enemies put the two together to color me a traitor to the Crown. Penn, meanwhile, commenced a quo warranto suit against my entire charter, and with his friend on the throne I doubt not what would have been the result: as't happened, the folk of England just then pressed their own quo warranto, so to speak, against King James, and Penn's game was spoilt, for the nonce, by the revolution."

"I cannot tell how relieved I am to hear it!" Ebenezer declared.

" 'Twas my loss either way," sighed Charles. "When James was on the throne my enemies called me disloyal to him; when he went in exile, and William landed in England, all they cared to remember was that both James and I were Catholics. 'Twas then, at the worst possible time, my fool of a deputy governor sees fit to declare to the Assembly his belief in the divine right of kings and, folly of follies, makes Maryland proclaim officially the birth of James's Catholic son!"

"I tremble for you," Ebenezer said.

"Naturally, the instant William took the throne I sent word to the Maryland Council to proclaim him. But whether from natural causes or, as I suspect, from the malice of my enemies, the messenger died on shipboard and was buried at sea, and his commission with him, so that Maryland remained silent even after Virginia and New England had proclaimed. I sent a second messenger at once, but the harm was done, and those who were not crying 'Papist!' were crying 'Jacobite!' On the heels of this misfortune, in 1689 my enemies in England caused me to be outlawed in Ireland on charges of committing treason there against William in James's behalf — though in sooth I'd never in my life set foot on Irish soil and was at the very moment in England expressly to fight the efforts of James and Penn to snatch Maryland from me! To top all, in March of the same year they spread a rumor over Maryland that a great conspiracy of nine thousand Catholics and Indians have invaded the Province to murther every Protestant in the land: the men sent to Mattapany, at the mouth of the Potomac, are told of massacres at the river's head and, rushing there to save the day, find the settlers arming against such massacres as they've heard of in Mattapany! For all my friends declare 'tis naught but a sleeveless fear and imagination, the whole Province is up in arms against the Catholics."

"Blind! Blind!"

" 'Twas no worse than the anti-Papism here in London," said Charles. "My only pleasure in this dark hour was to see that lying Quaker Penn himself arrested and jailed as a Jesuit!"

"I'faith, it cheers me, too!"

"Naught now remained but for the conspirators to administer the coupe de gr âce. This they did in July, led by the false priest Coode. He marches on St. Mary's with an armed force, promotes himself to the rank of general, and for all he'd used to be a Catholic himself, shouts Papist and Jesuit until the whole city surrenders. The President and Council flee to Mattapany, where Coode besieges 'em in the fort till they give up the government to him. Then, calling themselves the Protestant Associators, they beg King William to snatch the government for himself!"

"Surely King William hanged him!" Ebenezer said. Charles, who had been talking as rapidly and distractedly as though telling a painful rosary, now seemed really to notice his visitor for the first time since commencing the history.

"My dear Poet. ." He smiled thinly. "William is at war with King Louis: in the first place, for aught anyone knows the war might spread to America, and he is most eager to gain control of all the colonies against this possibility. In the second place, war is expensive, and my revenues could help to pay his soldiers. In the third place, he holds the crown by virtue of an anti-Papist revolution, and I am a Papist. In the fourth place, the government of Maryland was imploring him to rescue the Province from the oppression of Catholics and Indians — "

"Enough!" cried Ebenezer. "I fear me he snatched it! But by what legal right — "

"Ah, 'twas wondrous legal," said Charles. "William instructed the Attorney General to proceed against my charter by way of scire facias, but reflecting afterwards on the time such litigation would require, and the treasury's dire need for food, and the possibility of the Court's finding in my favor, he asks Chief Justice Holt to find him a way to snatch my Maryland with less bother. Holt ponders awhile till he recalls that jus est id quod principi placet, and then declares, in all solemnity, that though 'twould be better the charter were forfeited in a proper inquisition, yet since no inquisition hath been held, and since by the King's own word the matter is urgent, he thinks the King might snatch him the government on the instant and do his investigating later."

"Why," said Ebenezer, " 'tis like hanging a man today and trying his crime tomorrow!"

Charles nodded. "In August of 1691 milord Sir Lionel Copley became the first royal governor of the crown colony of Maryland," he concluded. "My rank fell from that of count palatine, with power of life and death over my subjects, to that of common landlord, entitled only to my quit-rents, my port duty of fourteen pence per ton on foreign vessels, and my tobacco duty of one shilling per hogshead. The Commissioners of the Privy Seal, be't said to their credit, disputed Holt's decision, and in fact when the quo warranto was instigated the allegations against me fell to pieces for lack of evidence, and no judgment was found. But of course 'twas precisely because he foresaw this that William had leaped ere he looked: you may depend on't he held fast to Maryland, and clasps her yet like a lover his mistress; for Possession is nine points of the law in any case, and with a king 'tis parliament, statute book, and courtroom all together! 'Tis said in sooth, A king's favor is no inheritance; and A king promiseth all, and observeth what he will."

"And," added Ebenezer, "He who eats the King's goose shall choke on the feathers."

"How?" Charles demanded angrily. "D'you twit me, fellow? Think thee Maryland was e'er King William's goose?"

"Nay, nay!" Ebenezer protested. "You misread the saying! 'Tis meant to signify merely, that A great dowry is a bed full of brambles, don't you know: A great man and a great river are ill neighbors, or A king's bounty is a mixed blessing."

"Enough, I grasp it. So, then, there is your Maryland, fellow. Think you 'tis fit for a Marylandiad?"

"I'faith," replied Ebenezer, " 'twere fitter for a Jeremiad! Ne'er have I encountered such a string of plots, cabals, murthers, and machinations in life or literature as this history you relate me!"

Charles smiled. "And doth it haply inspire your pen?"

"Ah God, what a dolt and boor must Your Lordship think me, to burst upon you with grand notions of couplet and eulogy! I swear to you I am sorry for't: I shall leave at once."