The Confusion

MY LADY,

You who are accustom’d to that incomparable Palace of Versailles would find little in London worthy of casting your eye over, and least of all my habitation near Red Lyon Square, which is yet but a pile of loose stones and timbers. Its sole Glory, at this time, is its Architect, Dr. Daniel Waterhouse, Secretary of the Royal Society, who being a diligent man is oft to be seen in its Precincts surveying, measuring, drawing, amp;c. Today I chanc’d to meet Dr. Waterhouse about the Property and, upon supplying him with certain Libations, learnt from him that his letter-box had been graced by a missive from the incomparable Duchess of Arcachon and of Qwghlm, who is the subject of some debate among Persons of Quality in this Country; for while some would have it that her Wit is exceeded only by her Beauty, others would have it the other way round. I confess myself incompetent to have an opinion on the matter, for while your letter to Dr. Waterhouse leaves me confounded and dazzled by your Wit, I cannot but suppose that were I to have the honour of encountering you in Person I should be as a-maz’d by your Beauty. Setting aside, then, this Question, which I cannot answer for lack of sufficient Data (though not, I assure you, for want of Curiosity), I shall apply myself to the Question that you put to Dr. Waterhouse in your recent Missive, viz.: who is in charge of the Mint at the Tower of London, and is it reasonable to assume that he is a good Tory?

The answers, respectively, are Sir Thomas Neale, and yes, it were reasonable to make such an assumption-but WRONG. Reasonable, because, as you have obviously heard, our Government has fallen under the Sway of the Tories since the election of ’90. Wrong because this is England, and Offices and Privileges of the Realm are not managed according to REASON but BECAUSE WE HAVE ALWAYS DONE IT THUS. Accordingly, Sir Thomas Neale, Master of the Mint, has his post, not because he is a Tory (for to the extent he holds fixed views on anything, they are Whiggish views, and to the extent he has friends, they are Whigs), but rather because James II gave him the position immediately upon his succession to the throne in February of 1685. Prior to that date, Sir Thomas had served as Groom-Porter of the Court of Charles II. The duties of the Groom-Porter are ill-defined and not susceptible of accurate translation into the language and the customs of La France. Nominally the Groom-Porter is in charge of the Sovereign’s furniture. Since this, however, rarely changes, it does not occupy very much of his time; consequently he devotes a larger moiety of his energies to furnishings smaller, more mutable and perishable: viz. dice and cards. Whatever other personal shortcomings Sir Thomas might possess, even his most obstreperous detractors would readily agree that never were man and job so perfectly match’d as Sir Thomas Neale, and Dice-Keeper Royal.

Master of the Mint would seem to be a different sort of job entirely and so those of a Skeptickal turn of mind might argue, that it would seem to call for a different sort of chap. But no one seems to have offered up any such argument before James II; or if they did, perhaps his majesty did not understand it. Indeed, his appointment of Sir Thomas to run the Mint was construed by some as more evidence (as if more were wanted) tending to shew, that a certain Malady had got the better of the King’s Brain. Those of us of a more charitable habit of mind, might perceive a certain kind of Sense in the appointment. For Sir Thomas had become link’d, in the riddled mind of James, with dice and cards, which were associated with Money; hence Sir Thomas was the best chap in the land to coin Money, Q.E.D.

I know Sir Thomas well, for he has been extraordinarily keen to maintain friendly relations with me, ever since he got it in his head that I am a possible Supplier of Capital. You too, my lady, may so arrange it that you shall hear from him frequently, and even discover him loitering in front of your House several times a Week, merely by giving him some cause to phant’sy that you are in control of some bored Capital that wants an Adventure. For where some hommes d’affaires come into the world of Commerce from Shipping, and others from the ’Varsity, Sir Thomas came at it by way of Gambling, and not just of the penny-ante sort, but on the Royal plane. And so where another commercant might employ a Ship-Voyage as his over-arching Metaphor for what a business-venture is, Sir Thomas sees all such Projects as Rolls of Dice. And where a Venturer of Ship frame of mind would have a care to raise profits, and reduce risk, by caulking his Ship well, hiring good seamen, keeping an eye on the weather-glass, amp;c., Sir Thomas’s notion of a well-structured Enterprise is one in which the dice are loaded, the cards marked, and the deck stacked, to the utmost extent possible. Indeed, this is why I have not ejected him from my Circle of Friends; for while I’d never risk any of my Capital on one of his Ventures, I very much enjoy having them explained to me, much as I might derive pleasurable diversion from reading a vivid roman about some Picaroons.

I might add in passing that James II’s equation of Gambling with the Making of Money is not the syphilitic madness that it first seemed. For during the period of forced Idleness that has succeeded the disastrous Election of ’90, I have had leisure to consider diverse Schemes to raise money for the Government, which feels a want of Specie chargeable to the War. We contemplate a great national Lottery. To explain the scheme at any more length than that would be tedious, to point out Sir Thomas’s aptness for such a Project were to insult your intelligence. We meet from time to time with Mathematickal Savants of the Royal Society to explore its statistical penetralia.

In conclusion, I say to you that if you desire to have silver minted here as part of some Adventure (whose details I do not need or wish to know); and if the Adventure enures to the advantage of the Tories (which I hope it does not; but this is none of my business); and if you have phant’sied that our Tory government has some power over the Mint, so that the Mint’s interests, and yours, are naturally aligned; then you are mistaken. For the Mint is, I am happy to report, firmly in the grip of a Whig. This need not, however, militate against your Project. For if I read correctly between the lines of your letter, all you really need is a cooperative, not to say compliant, friend in the Mint; and you may make Thomas Neale just that, by meditating upon the Character I have given him in this Missive, and devising your approach to the man accordingly.

I pray that the question you sent to Dr. Waterhouse has been addressed, to your satisfaction, by the foregoing. If I have failed to satisfy, or (may God forbid it) given offense, I beg you to write back telling me as much, so that I may bend every effort to make it good. For it is my very great honour and pleasure to be your humble and obedient servant,