Free The System of the World by Neal Stephenson Page A

concessions from him. One of which was the entire right of shipping slaves from Africa to the New World. Mr. Harley, our Lord Treasurer, made arrangements for this Asiento to become an asset, as it were, of the South Sea Company.”
    “How splendid.”
    “As the commerce of America grows, so the demand for slaves from Africa will grow apace with it, and so there can be no sounder investment than the Asiento, no surer foundation for a bank, for a fortune—”
    “Or for a political party,” Daniel said.
    Mr. Threader raised his eyebrows. Then they passed by another vault-wagon, forcing them to keep their mouths, and even their eyes, closed for a few moments.
    Mr. Threader recovered quicker, and said: “ Steam, on the other hand, sir, I would hold in very low esteem, if you’ll indulge me in a spot of word-play.”
    “It is lamentably late in this journey, and this conversation, sir, for you to be divulging this to me.”
    “Divulging what, Dr. Waterhouse?”
    “That you think the Earl of Lostwithiel is launching a mad enterprise, and that you believe your clients should put their money, rather, into the Asiento.”
    “I shall put their money where they have directed me to put it. But I cannot help observing, that the nearly limitless coast of Africa is crowded with slaves, driven out from the interior by their more ferocious cousins, and virtually free for the picking. If I wish to pump water from a Cornish tin-mine, Dr. Waterhouse, I need not pay Mr. Newcomen to erect a frightful Engine; now that we have the Asiento, I need only send a ship southwards, and in a few weeks’ time I shall have all the slaves I need, to pump the water out by stepping on tread-mills, or, if I prefer, to suck it out through hollow straws and spit it into the sea.”
    “Englishmen are not used to seeing their mines and pastures crowded with Blackamoors toiling under the lash,” Daniel remarked.
    “Whereas, steam-engines are a familiar sight !?” asked Mr. Threader triumphantly.
    Daniel was overcome with tiredness and hunger, and leaned his head back with a sough, feeling that only a miracle could get him out of this conversation whole. At the same moment, they arrived at the Fleet Bridge. They turned right and began back-tracking westwards, since the driver had over-shot their destination. Daniel, who, as always, had a view out the rear window of the vehicle, was confronted suddenly by the astonishing sight of a colossal stone egg rising up out of the street less than half a mile away, reigning over the low buildings of London like a Khan over a million serfs. This was by a wide margin the largest building Daniel had ever seen, and something about it replenished his energies.
    “Nothing about the English landscape is forever fixed. Just as you have probably grown used to the presence of that Dome,” Daniel said, nodding down Fleet to St. Paul’s, and obliging Mr. Threader to turn around and rediscover it, “we might grow accustomed to multitudes of black slaves, or steam-engines, or both. I speculate that the character of England is more constant. And I flatter us by asserting, furthermore, that ingenuity is a more essential element of that character than cruelty . Steam-engines, being a product of the former virtue, are easier to reconcile with the English scene than slavery, which is a product of the latter vice. Accordingly, if I had money to bet, I’d bet it on steam-engines.”
    “But slaves work and steam-engines don’t !”
    “But slaves can stop working. Steam-engines, once Mr. Newcomen has got them going, can never stop, because unlike slaves, they do not have free will.”
    “But how is an ordinary investor to match your level of confidence, Dr. Waterhouse?”
    “By looking at that, ” Daniel answered, nodding at St. Paul’s, “and noting that it does not fall down. Go and examine its arches, Mr. Threader, and you will see that they are in the shape of parabolas. Sir Christopher Wren made them thus, on the advice