Page 57 of The Armor of Light
Another bell-ringer, Jeremiah Hiscock, a printer with a shop in Main Street, spoke up. ‘I know about the London Corresponding Society,’ he said. ‘My brother in London prints some of their material for them. He likes them. He says they decide everything by majority vote. No difference between master and men in their meetings.’
‘Shows it can be done!’ said Jarge.
‘I don’t know,’ said Sime anxiously. ‘We’ll get called revolutionaries.’
Spade said: ‘The London Corresponding Society isn’t about revolution, it’s about reform.’
‘Just a minute,’ said Alf. ‘Didn’t some of the London Corresponding men get tried for treason, just before last Christmas?’
‘Thirty of them,’ said Spade, who read newspapers avidly. ‘Charged with pl0tting against the king and Parliament. The evidence was that they had campaigned for parliamentary reform. It seems it’s a crime now to say our government isn’t perfect.’
Alf said: ‘I don’t remember whether they were hanged, or what.’
Spade said: ‘They had the cheek to call Prime Minister William Pitt to court. He had to admit that thirteen years ago he campaigned for reform of Parliament himself. The case collapsed in laughter and the jury threw the charges out.’
Sime was not reassured. ‘Even so, I shouldn’t like to be tried for treason. A London jury might do one thing and a Kingsbridge jury the opposite.’
Jarge said: ‘I don’t care about juries. I’ll take my chances.’
Sal said: ‘You’re as brave as a lion, Jarge, but we need to be clever as well as brave.’
‘I agree with Sal,’ said Spade. ‘Start a society, yes, but don’t call it an affiliate of the London group – that would be asking for trouble. Call it...the Socratic Society, if you like.’
‘Buggered if I know what that means,’ said Jarge.
‘Socrates was a Greek philosopher who believed you could get at the truth by discussion and argument. Canon Midwinter told me that. He said I was Socratic because I like a debate.’
‘I knew a Greek sailor once. He drank like a fish but he was no bloody philosopher.’
The others laughed.
Spade said: ‘Call it whatever you like, as long as it doesn’t sound subversive. Start with a meeting about something else, like science, the theories of Isaac Newton, say. Don’t keep the meeting secret – tell theKingsbridge Gazette. Have a committee to run it. Ask Canon Midwinter to be chairman. Make everything respectable, at least at first.’
Sal was thrilled. ‘We have to do this!’
Jeremiah said: ‘But who’s going to come to talk about science to a few Kingsbridge working men?’
They all agreed that that was unlikely. But Sal had an inspiration. ‘I know someone who went to Oxford,’ she said.
They all looked at her sceptically, except for Joanie, who smiled and said: ‘You’re talking about Roger Riddick.’
‘That’s right. He’s a friend of Amos Barrowfield and he’s often at our mill.’
Spade said: ‘Can you ask him?’
‘Of course. I was the first to work on his spinning jenny and I’m still operating the same machine. He always stops to ask me how it’s going.’
‘He won’t find that too forward of you?’
‘I don’t think so. He’s not like his brother Will.’
‘So you’ll ask him?’
‘Soon as I see him.’
Shortly after this they broke up. As Sal and Joanie walked home, Joanie said: ‘Are you sure about this?’
‘About what?’
