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impossible.”
    “Then I’ll disguise myself as a man,” she shot back.
    Sir George chuckled. “There are some girls I know who could manage that,” he said. “But you, my dear, are much too pretty to get away with it.” He obviously thought this a clever compliment and looked around for approval. The others laughed dutifully.
    Jay’s mother nudged his father and said something in a low voice. “Ah, yes,” said Sir George. “Has everyone got a full cup?” Without waiting for an answer he went on: “Let us drink to my younger son, James Jamisson, known to us all as Jay, on his twenty-first birthday. To Jay!”
    They drank the toast, then the women retired to prepare for dinner. The talk among the men turned to business. Henry Drome said: “I don’t like the news from America. It could cost us a lot of money.”
    Jay knew what the man was talking about. The English government had imposed taxes on various commodities imported into the American colonies—tea, paper, glass, lead and painters’ colors—and the colonists were outraged.
    Sir George said indignantly: “They want the army to protect them from Frenchies and redskins, but they don’t want to pay for it!”
    “Nor will they, if they can help it,” said Drome. “The Boston town meeting has announced a boycott of all British imports. They’re giving up tea, and they’ve even agreed to save on black cloth by skimping on mourning clothes!”
    Robert said: “If the other colonies follow the lead of Massachusetts, half our fleet of ships will have no cargoes.”
    Sir George said: “The colonists are a damned gang of bandits, that’s all they are—and the Boston rum distillers are the worst.” Jay was surprised at how riled his father was: the problem had to be costing him money, for him to get so worked up about it. “The law obliges them to buy molasses from British plantations, but they smuggle in French molasses and drive the price down.”
    “The Virginians are worse,” said Drome. “The tobacco planters never pay their debts.”
    “Don’t I know it,” said Sir George. “I’ve just had a planter default—leaving me with a bankrupt plantation on my hands. A place called Mockjack Hall.”
    Robert said: “Thank God there’s no import duty on convicts.”
    There was a general murmur of agreement. The most profitable part of the Jamisson shipping business was transporting convicted criminals to America. Every year the courts sentenced several hundred people to transportation—it was an alternative to hanging as punishment for crimes such as stealing—and the government paid five pounds per head to the shipper. Nine out of ten transportees crossed the Atlantic on a Jamisson vessel. But the government payment was not the only way money was made. On the other side the convicts were obliged to do seven years’ unpaid labor, which meant they could be sold as seven-year slaves. Men fetched ten to fifteen pounds, women eight or nine, children less. With 130 or 140 convicts packed into the hold shoulder to shoulder like fish in a basket, Robert could show a profit of two thousand pounds—the purchase price of the ship—in a single voyage. It was a lucrative trade.
    “Aye,” said Father, and he drained his goblet. “But even that would stop if the colonists had their way.”
    The colonists complained about it constantly. Although they continued to buy the convicts—such was the shortage of cheap labor out there—they resented the mother country dumping its riffraff on them, and blamed the convicts for increasing crime.
    “At least the coal mines are reliable,” Sir George said. “They’re the only thing we can count on these days. That’s why McAsh has to be crushed.”
    Everyone had opinions about McAsh, and several different conversations broke out at once. Sir George seemed to have had enough of the subject, however. He turned to Robert. Adopting a jocular tone he said: “What about the Hallim girl, then, eh? A little jewel, if