Friday 4th December 2009 - Another view of the 18th Century

    I have just been introduced to Philly's contibution to the culinary arts, Cheesesteak.  It's terrific, although I imagine it's possible to do it badly.  If this is what MacDonald's was aiming for with the cheeseburger, they missed by a mile.

 

          I should have paid attention at school during history lessons.  The younger you learn it, the better it sticks.  I have been reading about the 18th century (if only on Wikipedia) to put these McCalls in context.  My goodness, there was a lot going on.

          Now I'm pretty sure that, at school, I learned there were two Jacobite Uprisings, 1715 and 1745.  But there appear to have been several more they hid from me.  By-the-way, the 18th century, apparently, was longer than other centuries, running from 1688 to 1815, from the Glorious Revolution to the Battle of Waterloo.  The Jacobites were at it from 1689.  And they managed another one in 1719.

          Great Britain was only invented in 1707, but it inherited a full back-catalogue of wars from it's predecessor.  While the McCalls were dashing around the world (including India and China), there was the War of the Spanish Succession raging around them.  In case you think the American colonies were different, the same war, operating under the brand name of 'Queen Anne's War', was in full swing north, west and south of them.

          It's almost as though what we didn't listen to at school, "oh yeah, another war, so?", was something they didn't listen to either.  As if, when you lived and did business on the international stage in the 18th century, war was a constant backgound noise which you just had to ignore.

          While the McCalls were putting together their colonial trading network, they were part of developing the greatest trading enterprise the world has ever seen.  And this, of course is what the fighting was about. 

          If the teenage McCall brothers had a dream of colonial trading, the British Navy helped them put it together.  If success depends on being in the right place at the right time, that's exactly where they had managed to place themselves; and their Glasgows.

 

          They must be a very bad lot, historians.  There's always David Irving to curse, and Hugh Trevor-Roper to remind about Hitler's Diaries, but these small guys wandering in and out of Historical Societies must be a light-fingered lot.  I have been shown, more than once, files with bits missing.  The bigger societies try to police it.  Pennsylvania works very hard.  Although they don't (yet) resort to guns, I think, if they had the equipment, they also would have looked up my bottom. They certainly closely examined the crevices of my computer.  There is a notice outside the restroom forbiding us to take research papers inside.  I must say I thought it was to prevent, how shall I put this, emergency misuse of them, but there are clearly other possibilities.

          At least they're trying to stop me taking things out: the guys with guns are trying to stop me taking things in.