Cassie tried to curb her impatience at his condescending tone. “Your point, signore?”
Signore Montalto tugged uncomfortably at his black waistcoat. “The Dutch trade has been primarily with the West Indies. Pirates and Caribbean storms have brought them—and his lordship—substantial losses, and thus, their recent shift to trade with the colonies.”
“A logical course, it would seem to me, signore.”
“Ah, but there is more, Cassandra.” The earl waved Marcello to continue. Cassie was aware that the earl was regarding her intently, and she grew more alert.
“For every cause, there is an effect,” Marcello said grandly. “The southern colonists have constant need of labor for their cotton and tobacco plantations. The Dutch proposal, a proposal, I might add, that meets with my approval, is simply to capture African savages, transport them to the colonies and sell them to the plantation owners. Immediately, there is a sizable profit. Cotton, tobacco, and timber could be brought back to England and Europe, and thus the profit is doubled.”
“I am not certain that I understand, signore,” Cassie said. “You believe that we should encourage, through our financial backing, the capture of people to be sold as slaves in a foreign country?”
“People,” Marcello scoffed. “They are naught but savages, dear lady. Their only value is that they breed at an appalling rate and work well in the fields.”
“And how does one go about capturing these savages, signore? Are they trapped?”
“Oh no,” Marcello hastened to correct her, “trapping would mutilate them and lessen their value at auction. They are like children, signorina, and can be herded together quite readily with but one musket shot over their heads.”
“How odd it is that you now liken them to children. If it is true that they live in a state of primitive innocence, like children, then they should be protected from predators.”
“Perhaps calling them ‘children’ was unfortunate,” Marcello ground out. He shot a silent plea toward the earl, but received only an ironic smile.
“Everyone buys and sells these black beggars. Even the Church is not certain that they have souls.”
“And, of course, they do not speak the civilized Italian tongue, do they, signore?”
“No, ’tis gibberish they utter. One can make no sense of them at all.”
Cassie slowly rose from her chair. As Signore Montalto was not a tall man, she was very nearly at his eye level. “So it is your proposal, signore, that we should agree to the capture and sale of innocent men and women to fatten our coffers.”
“I have told you, signorina, that they are animals, uncivilized savages.”
“It is very curious, you know,” Cassie said. “I was very near to believing that the Italians held no claim to civilization, since they do not speak the English tongue and do such barbaric things as locking their female children away in convents. But look how very wrong I was.”
Signore Montalto turned a mottled red, and the earl intervened. “So, Cassandra, we will agree to leave the Africans to other, less scrupulous, men. However, my dear, our financial problem still remains.”
The earl knew he was placing her in a situation that called for experience she did not possess, and he was on the point of rescuing her when she asked abruptly, “Is it not true that there are vast, unpopulated lands in the colonies?”
Signore Montalto had learned painfully not to patronize her, and thus responded cautiously. “Yes, signorina. It is so vast that all of Europe—and England—would fit on the eastern seacoast.”
Cassie chewed furiously on her lower lip and turned to the earl, a hint of apology in her voice. “I ask that you forgive my ignorance, my lord, but since there is so much unused land, would not free men and women do just as well as slaves?”
“What do you mean, cara?”
“Could not the Dutchmen transport Englishmen and Europeans to the colonies? Men and women who want to begin a new life on their own land. Would not such men and women swell the colonies’ population and increase the valuable exports Signore Montalto speaks of? Perhaps I am being naive, my lord, but would there not be profit to be made from such a venture?”