Chapter 81: Investigator Elder (Request for Subscription!)
Chapter 81 – Elder the Investigator (beg for subscription!)
Elder cupped the newspaper in his hand and leaned against the window scratching his head as he read.
“What the hell are these French people up to? One moment kingdom, one moment empire, one moment republic, have they thought about what kind of country they want to establish?
When I wasn’t born, these Frenchmen were making revolutions. Since I was born, they’ve been making revolutions. Now I’m in the Royal Navy, why isn’t the revolution over? Arthur, what year is it, 1789? The taking of the Bastille?”
Arthur chucked a lump of sugar into his teacup, “Eldad, I thought you were only bad at physics, but I didn’t realize that even your memory is failing you now, so let me run you through it.
First of all, the one you mentioned in 1789 was the French Revolution marked by the capture of the Bastille.
At that time, France was heavily indebted due to its participation in the Seven Years’ War and the American War of Independence in successive years, resulting in a total domestic debt of up to 2 billion francs. Coupled with the natural disasters at that time, a large number of crops were reduced, and the price of food in France soared.
At this time King Louis XVI decided to convene a three-tier conference in Versailles consisting of clergy, nobles, and citizens, and geniusly proposed that he was prepared to raise taxes on the citizenry.
This proposal was of course rejected during the voting process, but Louis XVI did not keep his promise and insisted on raising taxes and mobilized his army to prepare for the forced dissolution of the assembly.
The latter result, as you will remember, was that the citizens of Paris rushed into the streets chanting ‘To the Bastille’, and after Paris, revolutions broke out all over France, and in the end Louis XVI was forced to yield to the Constituent Assembly and establish a constitutional monarchical system of government.”
Elder frowned, “Didn’t Louis XVI get his head kagged? He was still alive after that?”
“He got his head handed to him later, but he had it coming. Elder, you know, it’s not easy to keep a king in peace. As long as he’s not in power, he’ll always be wondering how to get it back.
After all, as an Englishman, you should know how hard Britain worked for a constitutional monarchy.
From 1642 to 1646 we fought our first civil war, which Charles I lost, but he wasn’t convinced. Parliament paid to buy him back from Scotland and put him under house arrest, only for him to secretly contact the royalists and start a second civil war.
By 1649, the second civil war was over and Cromwell had his head cut off and a parliamentary aristocratic republic established.
But more than a decade later, his son Charles II was successfully restored with the support of the royalists, and his successor James II even started a series of retaliatory measures.
The Parliament weighed up the Whigs and the Tory Progressives, who were formerly Royalists, and finally came to an agreement.
They joined forces to expel James II from Britain and replaced him with his daughter, Mary II, who succeeded to the throne, and the Bill of Rights, which established a constitutional monarchy, was formally enacted.
The reason why Louis XVI had his head chopped off was also because he was equally unconvinced. In fact, if he had honestly been his constitutional king, there would not have been so many things behind.
But he was restless. He was thinking how to buy mercenaries to overthrow the French Constituent Assembly, and at the same time, he was ready to escape from France in disguise after his plot was foiled.
The most fucked up thing was that his queen, Marie Antoinette, also revealed France’s military secrets to his brother, Emperor Franz I of Austria, and directly led to the defeat of France by the allied forces of Austria and Prussia. When the news spread, it made the French people extremely angry.
This series of events also led to the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, which supported constitutional monarchy, and gave rise to radical groups such as the Jacobins and the No Pants Party.
So, Louis XVI had his head chopped off purely at his own peril, those moderates had tried their best to save his life, but he didn’t cherish it.”
Elder rubbed his chin and read, “So, France in 1789 was a constitutional monarchy, then it executed Louis XVI and changed to a republic, then it was the Hot Moon Coup, which overthrew the Jacobins and executed Robespierre, and finally it was the Misty Moon Coup and Napoleon’s claim to the throne?”
Arthur sips his tea and nods slightly, “Elder, isn’t that quite clear to you? You’ve always had your heart set on fighting a war with the French and dragging a few French warships back to get rich, so isn’t this just what you wanted?”
Elder pondered, “You think we will go to war with the French?”
Arthur shook his head, “I can’t say for sure, it depends on what the French actually plan to do this time. If they pull something like the French Revolution, perhaps the cabinet officials will have to start preparing for the Eighth Anti-French Alliance.
But if they just make a small fuss, then it was possible that Britain would not intervene. After all, the Duke of Wellington was on fire himself right now, and he shouldn’t be happy to meddle in the French’s affairs unless it was necessary.
After all, after the Battle of Waterloo that year, the Duke of Wellington had already made his attitude towards France clear at the Congress of Vienna.
He has always believed that there is a need for France to exist in Europe, and the Tory diplomatic line has always been committed to maintaining continental parity, and Britain needs a stable and somewhat powerful France to hold back the Austrian Empire and the Russian Empire, which has continued to advance eastward in recent years.”
Elder nodded his head in a seemingly unintelligible manner and said, “That sounds quite complicated. But well, the French revolution was pretty good, at least they got to change that stupid flag. After the fall of Napoleon, Louis XVIII went up and actually used the white flag as the national flag, I don’t know if he was out of his mind.
When I first boarded the ship, I saw the opposite side of the ship with a white flag, I still wondered, obviously we have not shot it, how come the opposite side surrendered? Later, I asked around and realized that it was a French ship coming from the other side.
Fortunately, this is not a time of war, otherwise I almost fell into the evil trap of these Frenchmen, these people are really too cunning, actually fraudulent surrender!”
Hearing this, Darwin, who was teaching knowledge on the side, also leaned over worriedly.
He asked, “What do you say, will this French revolution affect our voyage? The mission of global scientific research should not be postponed backward because of this incident, right?”
“Postpone?” Elder picked up the apple on the table and took a hard bite, “If it can really be postponed, then the French have really done a rare good thing.”
Hearing this, Arthur turned to ask, “Let’s not talk about this for now. Elder, the merchant ships out of London that I asked you to inquire about for me before, did you figure it out or not?”
Elder bristled, “Arthur, it’s not that I’m talking about you, do you know just how broad that scope you explained to me is? The current tonnage of merchant ships registered in the UK is about four million tons, our merchant ship capacity can account for forty percent of the world’s total, so many ships, how do you want me to check for you?”
Arthur waved his hand and said, “I didn’t ask you to check all the outbound merchant ships, only the merchant ships that start from London and go to America. Elder, haven’t you always claimed to be an expert on the Royal Navy? This is something that has to be done for me.”
Elder slapped the table and cursed, “Arthur, I’m a Royal Navy expert, not a shipping expert. Even if you ask me to steal the Royal Navy’s sailing intelligence, it’s more reliable than checking the merchant ships that leave London for America.
Although those barbarians in North America talk about distancing themselves from their English father, they are physically honest when it comes to doing business.
After all, when they engaged in that “Embargo Act” on Britain, more than did not have too much impact on us, but instead their own economy collapsed.
So, since then, the trade between the two sides has been growing steadily, with seventy to eighty percent of America’s cotton having to be sold to Britain, while we export textiles, tea, ceramics, spices, and other consumer goods to them.”
When Arthur heard this, he suddenly raised an eyebrow, he seemed to have realized something.
“Wait a moment, tea and spices are usually done as transshipment trade, right? None of these things are grown locally, they should all come from overseas colonies, right?”
Elder nodded as he chewed on his apple, “That’s right, tea and spices are mainly transshipment. The exports produced in the country are mainly textiles and ceramics, which are loaded onto ships in the country. It’s mostly high-grade clothing, woven materials, teapots, teacups, and the like in there.”
Hearing this, Arthur nodded slightly and said, “Good! Elder, then you focus on keeping an eye on the textiles and ceramics merchant ships for me.”
When Elder heard this, he was still a bit dissatisfied, “Arthur, that’s quite a lot.”
Arthur didn’t say anything, just pulled out a ticket from his pocket and waved it in front of his eyes: “Don’t worry, brother won’t lose you. This may involve a big case, as long as you can get to the bottom of things, this year’s Greenwich police district investigation funds can still have a few hundred pounds of surplus it.”
Elder took a deep breath when he heard this, he pulled the banknote from Arthur’s fingers and put it into his jacket pocket.
Elder hemmed and hawed, “It seems that I can’t even say that I won’t take this investigation application instead. Arthur, don’t worry, in the next few months, as long as I don’t go out to sea, then I’ll squat in the dock’s shipping companies every day to investigate one by one for you.”
Arthur revealed a small smile as he leaned back and spoke, “That’s really hard on you.”
Elder had a righteous face as he patted Arthur’s shoulder, “What’s the point of being polite? All brothers.”
Speaking here, Arthur suddenly changed his words, “However, you just said that Britain actually sells tea sets to North America, which did surprise me a bit. I thought they didn’t use such things there.”
“What’s there to be properly surprised about?” Elder picked up the bread and nibbled on it, “If they don’t use tea sets, then how do they drink tea?”
Arthur laughed as he pointed to the Thames River next to the cafe and spoke, “I’ve heard that Americans don’t like to use a tea set to drink tea, and if they want to drink tea, they usually choose to pour the tea leaves into the Boston Bay.”
(End of chapter)