Chapter 43
These weekly Levees are almost intolerable. I have no idea how my father held court two or even three times a week. My brother may have had the right idea in cancelling them as the last minute time and again.
Still, it is necessary for the people to see their King. I've even taken to riding through the countryside and greeting the common man. Father used to do that, I think.
Lord Grey seems a pleasant enough fellow. He has given an outline of his legislation and I have given my consent. He seemed relieved. The people are hardly disposed towards Catholics at the moment and the First Lord's legislation to loosen additional restrictions will not likely be popular but I agree that it is the right thing to do. Perhaps if my father and brother had done so, Ireland would not have a Stuart Queen and a French King.
King Augustus I of Great Britain
My husband seems a good fellow. My father and uncle were virtually apoplectic when I married Eugene but, as they were under arrest at the time, they could hardly refuse.
It is rumored that my younger sisters may be married off to the Emperor's nephews. Well, none would inherit Piedmont anyway so these may be good matches. I loathe the Corsican but one must deal with the world as it is, not as one wishes it to be.
As it is, I find the Irish people something of a shock. I have been received warmly (by the Catholics anyway) though and cannot complain of my lot. Neither Eugene nor I have sought a large amount of funds for a proper home, the old Lord Lieutenant's quarters are adequate for now. Instead, I have set myself to improving the lot of the poor.
Eugene, whom has a head for such things, has taken over policy. He has attempted to distribute many of the confiscated lands to the tenants and ordered that no food is exported until the people are fed. Indeed, he seems even popular among the Presbyterians and other "dissenting Christians" as the Anglicans called them. I thought all Protestants were "dissenting" to the Church of Rome.
Still, I have found Eugene a godsend, so different from the Corsican Ogre. Even the French Generals have proven courteous enough.
Unfortunately, the British have refused to allow the industrial product of Ireland to be sold in their Empire. Oddly, most of these products - linens and ships and things - were produced by Anglican Protestants in Ulster. I see the misery in Ulster and hold that it ends soon, for all people, even the Anglicans.
These poor, dirty, ignorant people deserve a shred of prosperity, long denied.
Queen Mary III of Ireland
I fear that the Irish may be discontented with the future. Despite wide assumptions that the key of prosperity is the eviction of the English, Ireland's problems are deeper. In the end, the land, while fertile, has far too many workers, more than it needs for efficient farming. Indeed, like the evicted English landowners, the new gentry would be happy to kick off all the tenants in order to simply graze sheep. Filled with subsistence farmers always on the edge of starvation, it is impossible to think that any productive use for these people is imminent. My ministers (OUR Ministers) point out that developing industry would be a good way to move these people to the cities but what industry we have seems to be dying.
Still, rural workers are flocking to the cities, especially Ulster where the Anglicans are departing in droves. I don't see this as a long-term solution. Many Irish, even Catholics, are departing for the new world, either America or Brazil or Rio Plata. I never would have imagined that I would see a boatload of Irish Catholics departing their homeland in order to settle these new British colonies in South America but I was proven wrong yesterday.
Though a fertile land, Ireland remains the home of a poor people.
I wish I knew how to change that.
King Eugene I of Ireland
June, 1814
Washington DC
President Aaron Burr nodded in satisfaction as he read the details of the new Bank of the United States. Unlike many of his Party, Burr knew that the nation needed a strong central bank, though with perhaps more inhibitions than what the Federalists preferred. Alexander Hamilton, the true leader of the fading Federalists, made the deal with the President that both could tolerate.
In truth, the two were not that different. Both preferred the limitation of slavery and a strong(er) Army and Navy. Fortunately, the idiot pseudo-anarchist Jeffersonian wing of the Democratic-Republicans was slowly dying off. Burr found himself strongly in the center of politics and could normally find a majority on most legislation. His first term could be going worse.
Oh, both France and Britain could be a pain in the ass. Britain continued to refuse America direct access to the valuable West Indies trade. Why Burr could not fathom as British could not supply the foodstuffs, timber products and other goods most desired by the sugar islands.
The price of sugar had gone down after the war but it remained a valuable commodity. However, with the trans-Atlantic slave trade dead by mutual agreement of all major nations, the only way to replenish the supply of slaves in the harsh West Indies was sale from local sources, namely America. Burr conceded the right to export American slaves from the southern states, whom were reeling from the economic recession cause by war and the failure of the cotton crops. By most estimates, over 20,000 slaves a year were being exported to the British West Indies alone. The hypocrisy was palpable but politically necessary. Some southern congressmen are deriding the cotton pest and curbs on the expansion of slavery as a "conspiracy" to kill off the southern way of life. Some southern politicians are advocating banning the export of slaves from their individual states. I hope that I don't have to expend political capital defending the rights of the individual southern farmer to sell his property.
That being said, I would not object to the slow strangulation of slavery, even by ridding America of the slaves.
Otherwise, the nation continues to heal. Trade has picked up again, meaning the government is flush with revenue from tariffs (another sore spot for the southern man).
I've approved the settlement of some more pioneers into the Colorado Territory north of Spanish Tejas. I fear some of these settlers intend to take their slaves with them. The territorial governor has instructions to put a stop to this without any delay. If the farmers refuse to withdraw their slaves, then they are to be liberated. I can't even imagine how well that will go down in Charleston.
I think I may organize some of the other Louisiana Conquest Territories. Migration is already occurring into the Missouri, Arkansas, etc territories. With luck this will continue.
On a separate matter, there seems to be a number of Catholic, mainly Irish, migrants arriving in eastern cities this past year. This isn't going down well in some quarters either. Still, America grows and prospers.
One cannot complain.
I wonder how our new settlements in Terra Australis are faring?
Another expedition was just sent to the Zealand Islands and Van Diemen's land. Soon America will have quite the Empire.
