Free Empire of Unreason by J. Gregory Keyes Page B

ribbons, and scarves waved everywhere. Guards in velvet and gold patrolled the crowd with comically useless halberds.
    And the crowd! More than a thousand strong—singing, shouting, beating drums and jangling bells, sprawling out from Teach Square into New Market and the old Church Yard. Children pranced about, clad in Stuart red and white. Women wore flashy, low-cut gowns that had been out of fashion in the colonies for ten years. The guards had herded them into a sort of double line flanking Broad Street, the approach to the docks on the Cooper River.
    “This is unbelievable,” Franklin said, staring. “Don’t they remember that this is the king they exiled? Have they forgotten that little more than a decade ago they hated him for being Catholic?”

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    “Which I seem’t‘ remember y’ thought silly,” Robert reminded him.
    “I did. They put an idiot in his place who hated England and could not even speak English, all to have a Protestant on the throne. If you must have an English king, best that he be English and love his country.”
    “Then what is your objection?”
    “I wasn’t objecting,” Franklin protested. “I was only commenting on the fickleness of men, is all.”
    Voltaire placed his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Mr. Franklin was just bragging to me that your country no longer has need of kings.”
    “Nor do we,” Franklin affirmed.
    “The people seem to think otherwise.”
    “So they do,” Franklin admitted. “Some of them, anyway. But what of the Puritans, the Quakers, the Anabaptists, the French and Dutch Protestants?
    Not to mention the Negroes—”
    “If I don’t mistake m’self,” Robert said, “I see some of each in the crowd.
    Catholic or not, I reckon most people believe that any king is better than no.”
    “You mentioned Negroes,” Voltaire commented. “The town looks to be more than half of that African complexion. But they are slaves, are they not? You speak as if they have some say.”
    “Half right,” Franklin said. “When Blackbeard ruled here, he freed the slaves to undermine the rich planters and landgraves who opposed his rule—armed and formed militia of them, even. They remain free, but few have the right to vote, for few own enough property. They threatened to rebel some five years ago, however, and won the right of one representative in the Assembly.”
    “Bravo,” Voltaire said.
    “Agreed. And you note that few of them are here cheering. Under British rule, EMPIRE OF UNREASON
    they were slaves and they know many in this colony would see them so again.”
    “Here’s my uncle,” Robert interrupted, waving at an approaching figure.
    “Hello there, Governor.”
    “Good day, gentlemen,” the fellow replied. “Quite a spectacle, eh?”
    “Did you know of this, Governor Nairne?”
    “Not a bit of it,” Nairne replied, doffing his hat to wipe his brow. He was a few years beyond middle age, his hair, unpowdered, the color of iron. “I wish I had, for I might know more what to expect.”
    “But it is the Pretender?”
    “I would use caution with such terms, these days, Mr. Franklin.”
    Franklin shrugged. “A word to the wise is sufficient,” he said.
    “If that’s so, you’d best say a few more words, Uncle,” Robert quipped.
    The governor, grinning, turned to regard Voltaire. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, sir.”
    “Voltaire, at your service.”
    “An old friend of mine,” Franklin clarified. “He came across with the Pre—with the Stuart.” „
    “Oh, ho. Then perhaps you can enlighten us?”
    “I don’t know much about it,” Voltaire admitted. “I was on a Dutch ship that sailed to Ireland and there mysteriously turned English. ”Tis there we took on our noble passenger. But there was much worry of spies aboard, and I felt that questions might have me swimming for reasons of health, so I curtailed my curiosity.“
    “Were there other ships or just the one?”

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    “That’s