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Speaker 1: We come into the front door. Right, you've got the

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Speaker 1: main hallway, and then directly off the main hallway is

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Speaker 1: this door, which is why I think it called parlor

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Speaker 1: or a study, maybe a dining room. So it's now

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Speaker 1: a guest bedroom where you can stay. But look at

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Speaker 1: how big that fireplace is. This was meant to be

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Speaker 1: a public space.

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Speaker 2: Historian and interpreter Nicole Brown was my guide in Williamsburg,

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Speaker 2: Virginia for a few days, and then after I left,

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Speaker 2: she offered me a tour on FaceTime of Colonel John

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Speaker 2: Chisel's sprawling home in the heart of the town. I

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Speaker 2: had already left Virginia by the time she was given

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Speaker 2: access to his property. His estate is now called the

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Speaker 2: chisel Bucktrout House, and it's now a historical building where

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Speaker 2: you can rent a room and enjoy an authentic home

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Speaker 2: in colonial Williamsburg. Chisel's house has nine rooms on two floors,

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Speaker 2: including several fireplaces. Nicole is the one who texted me

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Speaker 2: about this story. She's helped me with the research, with scheduling, experts, everything.

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Speaker 2: I've been very lucky because I've had so many relatives

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Speaker 2: contact me over the years about the stories and their

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Speaker 2: family histories and why they think it's important to tell

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Speaker 2: these stories. Nicole is a historian who was also a

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Speaker 2: big true crime fan, my favorite combination.

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Speaker 1: So I should preface this by saying I'm deeply interested

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Speaker 1: in this case because I love true crime, and to

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Speaker 1: the point where that's pretty much all I listened to

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Speaker 1: and think about when I'm not at work. The interesting

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Speaker 1: thing about this case, both in the seventeen sixties as

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Speaker 1: well as today, is that there's a lot of rumor, innuendo,

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Speaker 1: and speculation surrounding the case.

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Speaker 2: John Chisel and his gilded world were impressive on the surface,

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Speaker 2: particularly to the guests inside this house in the seventeen sixties,

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Speaker 2: Nicole describes the home for me.

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Speaker 1: So he's definitely trying to whine and dine in the elite,

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Speaker 1: continue to represent himself as elite, reflect his status in

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Speaker 1: his house, and from looking at them, it's gorgeous, but

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Speaker 1: that's definitely what he's trying to do.

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Speaker 2: The architectural details in Chisel's home are really impressive. They

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Speaker 2: all signal prosperity, or at least they're supposed to convince

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Speaker 2: visitors that the Chisel family was excessively wealthy.

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Speaker 1: So here's a great example. So you have this big fireplace. Right,

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Speaker 1: it's not just the fireplace. To build the fireplace, you

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Speaker 1: have to afford the bricks, you have to be able

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Speaker 1: to import what you need in terms of tongs and

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Speaker 1: fire dogs. And then you have enslaved labor. We're going

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Speaker 1: to help run and clean and manage the fireplace. So,

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the fireplace, which is, you know,

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Speaker 1: a very sort of essential basic human need.

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Speaker 3: It provides heat.

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Speaker 1: Right, it stops just being utilitarian, and it starts to

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Speaker 1: define someone's status. And so I think it's actually a

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Speaker 1: really good example of the whole house.

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Speaker 2: John Chisel's obsession with status began with his father, Charles Chisel.

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Speaker 2: Charles had gifted his son thousands of acres in Scotch

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Speaker 2: Town in western Virginia, including a mansion house and numerous assets.

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Speaker 2: He also left John a secure spot in the growing

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Speaker 2: aristocracy of Virginia. He had been the Justice of the Peace,

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Speaker 2: and he owned a horse named Edgecombe that had won

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Speaker 2: a race in the Williamsburg Fair. I know that doesn't

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Speaker 2: seem like a big deal, but it was to the gentry.

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Speaker 2: John Chisel had been a member of the House of

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Speaker 2: Burgesses for fifteen years, and by seventeen sixty six, his

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Speaker 2: daughters had married well, which was unfortunately what was expected

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Speaker 2: of them to become a bridge between two families. Marriage

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Speaker 2: expanded a family's resources, and it might also increase their

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Speaker 2: debt depending on the other family. Chisel's middle daughter, Susannah,

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Speaker 2: had married John Robinson, the colon, the treasurer, and the

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Speaker 2: speaker of the House of Burgesses, as well as one

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Speaker 2: of the richest planters in Virginia. The second most influential

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Speaker 2: lawmaker in the colony was Charles Carter, and Chisel's second

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Speaker 2: eldest daughter, Elizabeth, had married him. Historian Julie Richter says

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Speaker 2: that in seventeen sixty six Williamsburg status was incredibly important.

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Speaker 3: So if somebody came to Chisel's house, he would want

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Speaker 3: to be able to put on an elaborate meal that

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Speaker 3: would be served on the right china, and you would

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Speaker 3: eat with the right you tumsils. So if you're fearing debt,

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Speaker 3: you're not going to be able to be a good

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Speaker 3: host anymore. So that's going to strike it your ersonal honor.

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Speaker 3: If you're a gentleman, part of your masculinity is controlling

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Speaker 3: all parts of your life. And if you're in debt.

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Speaker 3: You've missed being able to control your finances, so you're

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Speaker 3: not really in control.

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Speaker 2: And John Chisel needed to stay in control. His wife

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Speaker 2: and his four daughters depended on it.

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Speaker 3: He is living beyond his means. He has investments that

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Speaker 3: aren't going well. You've got daughters. You have to marry off.

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Speaker 3: I know that term sounds terrible, but you usually provide

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Speaker 3: the man who marries your daughter with money. You're not

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Speaker 3: going to be giving your potential son in law land

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Speaker 3: because you want to keep the land within your family.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, by the seventeen sixties that the elite are

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Speaker 3: many are in debt to their British, to their English merchants.

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Speaker 2: Historian Robert Weathers says that debt wasn't particularly alarming to

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Speaker 2: most colonists. Everybody was underwater.

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Speaker 4: So you know, here's the thing. You know, we may

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Speaker 4: mention of debt a moment ago. Chisel's in debt, but whooped,

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Speaker 4: dee doo. Everyone in Virginia is in debt. As a

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Speaker 4: matter of fact, the colony is in debt. That's the

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Speaker 4: whole soctet. The system is designed to be dependent on

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Speaker 4: the mother country. It is illegal to export gold and

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Speaker 4: silver from the island of Great Britain.

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Speaker 2: Chisel's ego thrived on his status, but when his finances

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Speaker 2: were threatened, so was that status. His wife endured many

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Speaker 2: of his setbacks because despite their apparent wealth, John Chisel

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Speaker 2: constantly made poor business decisions. But before we talk about those,

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Speaker 2: let's talk about who was making money in seventeen hundreds Virginia.

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Speaker 2: Who exactly were the gentry. Virginia had several nicknames, but

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Speaker 2: in the seventeen hundreds it was called Old Dominion because

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Speaker 2: it was the first and oldest of the overseas dominions

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Speaker 2: of England. The colony thrived on agriculture, and the gentry

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Speaker 2: were landowners, and many of the wealthiest planters used their

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Speaker 2: land to farm tobacco. The members of the Tobacco Jin,

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Speaker 2: including John Chisel and John Robinson, along with several of

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Speaker 2: the founding fathers, were firmly in control of the politics

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Speaker 2: of Virginia, but tobacco farming had begun spreading and shifting

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Speaker 2: westward in the Commonwealth. More planters were popping up and

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Speaker 2: becoming wealthy, so the ranks of the gentry in Virginia

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Speaker 2: were swelling. With more gentry came more power and John Robinson,

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Speaker 2: as the colony's treasurer, became even more powerful. He controlled

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Speaker 2: the colony's money, its debts, its profits, and its savings.

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Speaker 2: But this new gentry class was determined to take away

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Speaker 2: some of that power from the older planter aristocrats, and

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Speaker 2: Robinson understood that if he slipped up, there were fledgling

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Speaker 2: politicians just waiting to take his place. Men like Patrick Henry,

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Speaker 2: who were relatively new members of the House of Burgesses,

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Speaker 2: were threatening Robinson's old guard, and the introduction of new

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Speaker 2: taxes like the Stamp Act created attention never really felt before.

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Speaker 2: Robinson was seen as an insider, the epitome of the

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Speaker 2: old entitled establishment, and he knew it. He held the debts

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Speaker 2: of many of the men in the colony, including his

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Speaker 2: own father in law, John Chisel. When Chisel moved to

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Speaker 2: Williamsburg and purchased the large house on Francis Street, he

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Speaker 2: was already in debt for several thousand pounds, which would

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Speaker 2: be about one hundred and fifty thousand pounds today. There

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Speaker 2: were lawsuits and leans against his home in the city

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Speaker 2: and the one back in Scotch Town, but in seventeen

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Speaker 2: fifty nine, his financial prospects finally changed. Remember that both

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Speaker 2: he and his father were land surveyors, and Chisel had

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Speaker 2: discovered led or in Augusta County, to the northwest of Williamsburg.

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Speaker 2: The story of the mines is interesting. By seventeen fifty six,

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Speaker 2: John Chisel had been engaged in mining near Fredericksburg, Virginia,

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Speaker 2: but he wanted to expand his operation. He wanted to

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Speaker 2: make more money. Chisel had no formal training in prospecting

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Speaker 2: for or, so instead of doing something scientific, he began

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Speaker 2: slowly walking around the New River, quietly searching for valuable minerals.

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Speaker 2: With his eyes trained down to the ground. Chisel didn't

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Speaker 2: hear them at first. The story goes that a group

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Speaker 2: of Native Americans threatened him, and despite surely being armed,

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Speaker 2: Chisel ran. He weaved through the trees until he found

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Speaker 2: a cave to slip into. As Chisel caught his breath,

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Speaker 2: he saw it a bounty of rich mineral deposits, the

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Speaker 2: first significant deposit of LF in the colony of Virginia.

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Speaker 2: Chisel's destiny, it seemed, was connected to these lead mines.

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Speaker 2: Chisel gasped, smiled, and then listened. The Native Americans we

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Speaker 2: don't know which group this was seemed to be gone.

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Speaker 2: He ran from the cave, vowing to return to claim

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Speaker 2: this incredible treasure, and soon he dubbed the cave Chisel's Hole.

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Speaker 2: Chisel discovered more sources of lead around the cave, and

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Speaker 2: he quickly applied to the colony for a grant to

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Speaker 2: buy all that land. He soon owned it, and then

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Speaker 2: Chisel approached both his son in law, John Robinson and

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Speaker 2: Virginia's governor to establish a new company. The Lead Mining

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Speaker 2: Company a very successful business venture, but it was also

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Speaker 2: very speculative, and speculative ventures are often very risky.

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Speaker 5: Chisel and a few other really itant guys, including the

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Speaker 5: governor of Virginia, go in on a project. Did they

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Speaker 5: talk about Chisel's mind anact? Okay, Chisel's mind.

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Speaker 2: This mine was a big project. So here's how it worked.

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Speaker 2: They began mining by digging out lead carbonate ore that

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Speaker 2: was either already exposed or some that was just lying

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Speaker 2: underneath the soil. Some of those minerals contained a huge

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Speaker 2: amount of lead, according to historian John Bryan. A small

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Speaker 2: smelting furnace was erected and soon packed trains of horses

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Speaker 2: were carrying lead throughout the colonies. Situated in a remote

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Speaker 2: and wild location. The operation progressed as smoothly as could

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Speaker 2: be expected. In the seventeen hundreds, mines could be incredibly profitable.

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Speaker 2: In seventeen sixty two, Chisel hired miners, he bought supplies,

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Speaker 2: and he also bought enslaved people. Was his main source

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Speaker 2: of funding, providing more than eight thousand pounds, which would

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Speaker 2: be about two million dollars today. Soon, John Chisel was

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Speaker 2: a financial success once again, and he helped create a

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Speaker 2: strong local economy. But historian Nicole Brown says that the

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Speaker 2: mine's workforce paid a very heavy price. Well, he was

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Speaker 2: a large employer right with his mind's responsible for a

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Speaker 2: lot of employment.

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Speaker 1: Ay, they were responsible for a lot of enslaved labor.

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Speaker 1: So most of the people working in the mines were

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Speaker 1: enslaved and it was a brutal, brutal job. But if

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Speaker 1: we're talking about most of those mines and lead being

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Speaker 1: used in the colony for the benefit of the colony, yes,

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Speaker 1: but the majority of people working in the mines were enslaved.

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Speaker 2: Nicole says that Chisele forced thirty six enslaved people to

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Speaker 2: work on the site. She says it was a massive workforce,

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Speaker 2: and mining was a very dangerous job. That's a theme

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Speaker 2: we'll talk about soon, the lives of enslaved people, how

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Speaker 2: they were used abused, and also their role as witnesses

197
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Speaker 2: in this case. Chisel and Robinson's Lead Mining Company seemed

198
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Speaker 2: to move along well until seventeen sixty three, when King

199
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Speaker 2: George the Third issued what would be called the Proclamation

200
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Speaker 2: of seventeen sixty three. This was at the end of

201
00:13:22,960 --> 00:13:26,559
Speaker 2: the French and Indian War. The crown set territorial limits

202
00:13:26,600 --> 00:13:30,360
Speaker 2: on where colonists could settle in America. It was supposedly

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Speaker 2: meant to appease Native Americans. The King had created a

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Speaker 2: boundary known as the Proclamation Line, which prevented colonists from

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Speaker 2: encroaching on indigenous lands. John Chisel's mind was now on

206
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Speaker 2: Native American soil. This was really the beginning of Chisel's

207
00:13:48,200 --> 00:13:52,079
Speaker 2: financial problems. The Lead Mining Company no longer had an

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00:13:52,080 --> 00:13:55,560
Speaker 2: official title to the land, yet they continued to mine,

209
00:13:55,760 --> 00:13:59,880
Speaker 2: dismissing any threat from the surrounding Native Americans. The mines

210
00:14:00,200 --> 00:14:04,360
Speaker 2: New River did continue production, but at great financial cost.

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Speaker 2: The Lead Minds were becoming insolvent, but John Chisel was

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00:14:08,840 --> 00:14:13,679
Speaker 2: keeping that a secret. From everyone, and remember this season

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00:14:13,960 --> 00:14:19,720
Speaker 2: is all about secrets. By early seventeen sixty six, all

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00:14:19,800 --> 00:14:22,520
Speaker 2: seemed to be well with the Chisels to people who

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Speaker 2: didn't understand their financial situation. John Chisel continued to pile

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Speaker 2: on debts in hopes that the Lead Minds would soon

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Speaker 2: turn a profit. Chisel might have had reason for hope.

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Speaker 2: Carson Hudson, as a historian and author with Colonial Williamsburg.

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Speaker 6: As far as his financial future, kind of looked like

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Speaker 6: it might be bright because if the Lead Minds boom,

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Speaker 6: that would be paying off a lot of debts for him.

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Speaker 2: Chisel was always scrambling for money to pay off debts

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Speaker 2: so his family wouldn't go into bankruptcy, but his spending

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Speaker 2: habits didn't help because he was chronically short on cash.

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Speaker 2: In seventeen fifty four, he ordered a large package of

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Speaker 2: tobacco seed from a London mercantile house for fifteen hundred pounds,

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Speaker 2: which is about four hundred thousand dollars today. Chisel wanted

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Speaker 2: to grow it on his land in Scotch Town, but

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Speaker 2: he had no money, so he requested a two thousand

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Speaker 2: pounds loan at seven percent interest. He would never be

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Speaker 2: able to pay that back. John Chisel was simply terrible

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Speaker 2: at business. He owed friends money he had borrowed thirteen

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Speaker 2: hundred pounds from another member of the House of Burgess's,

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Speaker 2: William Bird the Third. He owed his son in law,

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Speaker 2: John Robinson, many thousands of pounds. Robinson ordered Chisel to

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Speaker 2: put numerous properties in his name to settle the debt,

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Speaker 2: including the tavern Chisel owned. Chisel and Robinson had a

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Speaker 2: transactional relationship. Robinson loaned him money and Robinson was also

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Speaker 2: his chief partner in virtually all of Bizzel's businesses. Many

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Speaker 2: people in the colonies, as well as in England, were

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Speaker 2: in debt. It was almost impossible not to be in

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Speaker 2: debt because there was a trickle down effect. If your

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Speaker 2: employer was in debt and he couldn't pay you, then

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Speaker 2: you couldn't pay your bills, and then your vendors couldn't

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Speaker 2: pay theirs, and so on. It was a vicious cycle.

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Speaker 2: On the other hand, John Robinson not only had power,

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Speaker 2: but he had money, lots and lots of money. He

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Speaker 2: always seemed to have money to loan out, and Chisel

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Speaker 2: depended on it. But now John Robinson was gravely ill,

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Speaker 2: lying in bed at his estate in King and Queen County.

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Speaker 2: It was dark outside that night in May of seventeen

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Speaker 2: sixty six, John Robinson was writhing in pain. He wasn't

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Speaker 2: likely thinking of his father in law, but soon Robinson

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Speaker 2: would consume all of Chisel's thoughts. Robinson would ruin his

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Speaker 2: own family. And what would a ruined man do if

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Speaker 2: given a terrible choice? As the colonies were headed toward war,

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Speaker 2: Americans were defining who they were by taking sides. Were

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Speaker 2: you loyal to the crown or to a brand new nation?

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Speaker 2: Historian Cash Earhart sets the stage, are we starting to

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Speaker 2: call it a divided nation?

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Speaker 1: Well?

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Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, if you've ever seen the cartoon the

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Speaker 7: illustration that Benjamin Franklin drew of a snake chopped into

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Speaker 7: pieces and each one has a letter representing a colony

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Speaker 7: or a region of the nation, and underneath it says

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Speaker 7: unite or die. And he creates that early in the

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Speaker 7: Frenchland Indian War to acknowledge the fact we are a

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Speaker 7: divided people. Really, they think of themselves as subjects of

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Speaker 7: the crown and residents of an individual colony. There is

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Speaker 7: no common American identity for the most part.

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Speaker 2: In seventeen seventy four, Patrick Henry attended the First Continental

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Speaker 2: Congress in Philadelphia. He stood up and he gave a

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Speaker 2: powerful speech about unity in the colonies. It was one

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Speaker 2: of the most incredible speeches offered by Henry.

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Speaker 7: He stands up and he gives a terrific speech, and

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Speaker 7: he says, essentially, we need to do away with these

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Speaker 7: petty self identifying names. I am not a Virginian, I

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Speaker 7: am not a Carolinian, I am not a New Englander.

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Speaker 7: I am an American.

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Speaker 2: The problem was that in seventeen sixty six, all of

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Speaker 2: the colonists were being ordered to pay expensive taxes thanks

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Speaker 2: to a war that they never chose to take on,

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Speaker 2: the French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years' War.

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Speaker 2: Historian Robert Weathers says that Parliament realized that they had

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Speaker 2: made a different, difficult and potentially risky decision.

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Speaker 4: So the British government looks around and they see the

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Speaker 4: subjects on the island of Great Britain having already paid

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Speaker 4: heavy taxes throughout the course of the war, which is

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Speaker 4: never a popular thing no matter what century you're living in,

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Speaker 4: and so they say to themselves, hey, we need to

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Speaker 4: find people who benefited from the war who don't pay

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Speaker 4: as high taxes and still fall within our jurisdiction.

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Speaker 2: So Parliament looked three thousand miles across the Atlantic to

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Speaker 2: the North American colonies. The colonies could help shoulder the

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Speaker 2: Crown's financial burden, and it was difficult to complain when

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Speaker 2: you couldn't protest in person outside Parliament. Taxing the colonies

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00:19:44,680 --> 00:19:51,960
Speaker 2: was an easy solution. Virginia was soon in debt and

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Speaker 2: many Virginias couldn't pay those debts. The colonies planters faced

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Speaker 2: a shortage of cash. The sheriffs couldn't collect those debts,

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Speaker 2: which meant that the Treasure of Virginia couldn't pay the

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Speaker 2: colony's debts. I asked historian Julie Richter to break down

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Speaker 2: how we ended up at war based on several things,

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Speaker 2: including the scandal that we have coming up. The colonists

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Speaker 2: had had enough of high taxes, but they were also

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Speaker 2: nervous about war.

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Speaker 3: They're doing okay, but even a lot of other people

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Speaker 3: are not ready to rock the boat. You know uncertainty,

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Speaker 3: and if you're a trades person who gets your raw

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Speaker 3: materials from England, you want those items to be coming

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Speaker 3: in to the colony so you can continue your livelihood,

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Speaker 3: support your family.

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Speaker 2: But soon those trades people could no longer afford to

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Speaker 2: build houses or horse carts or machinery. What good is

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Speaker 2: it to not rock the boat when you're being pushed

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Speaker 2: out of it by the crown. But this realization takes

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Speaker 2: more than a decade for the colonists to sort out.

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Speaker 3: It takes years, really, from the end of the French

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Speaker 3: nation in War seventeen sixty three to seventeen seventy six

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Speaker 3: for the colonies to kind of ident realize that they

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Speaker 3: need to work together, and then realize that they're not

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Speaker 3: going to get what they want, so they declare independence.

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Speaker 3: How's after the American Revolution simplified.

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Speaker 2: Richter reminds us that the colony's treasurer was John Robinson,

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Speaker 2: John Chisel's son in law. The crown had gifted Robinson

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Speaker 2: with an incredible amount of power in the seventeen sixties.

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Speaker 3: He held two very powerful offices. He was Treasurer of

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Speaker 3: the colony and Speaker of the House of Burgesses, so

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Speaker 3: he basically controlled everything that happened in the lower portion

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Speaker 3: of the colonial government.

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Speaker 2: In the seventeen fifties, the King of England recognized that

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Speaker 2: Robinson had too much power, so he sent a representative

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Speaker 2: to Virginia to force him out of one of those jobs.

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Speaker 2: But the governor realized that Robinson was incredibly popular and

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Speaker 2: he literally held the purse strings of the crown's wealthiest colony.

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Speaker 2: Undermining him publicly would have been a mistake, so Robinson

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Speaker 2: continued to have absolute power while other men in the

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Speaker 2: colony struggled. Robinson owned several thousand acres of land in

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Speaker 2: half a dozen counties, several houses in the city, and

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Speaker 2: about four hundred enslaved people. Again, appearances mattered. When I

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Speaker 2: write about the time period in America known as the

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Speaker 2: Gilded Age in the late eighteen hundreds, that feels very

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Speaker 2: much like seventeen hundreds Virginia. Opulence reigned there, and the

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Speaker 2: more luxurious the good was, the more the gentry wanted it.

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Speaker 2: Robinson cared very much about appearances.

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Speaker 3: I think the money and shame are deeply interconnected. The

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Speaker 3: elite of Virginia in the eighteenth century deeply needed to

347
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Speaker 3: display who they were if you to come into Williams.

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Speaker 3: For in the eighteenth century, they wanted you to know

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Speaker 3: that they were rich by how they appeared, so their

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Speaker 3: clothing how they arrived into town, whether it was on horseback,

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Speaker 3: if you were a man, or if you were a family,

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Speaker 3: you would come in a carriage. And part of this

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Speaker 3: is connected to their idea of honor as well. And

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Speaker 3: you were honorable if you had money, you were honorable,

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Speaker 3: if you could be a bountiful host.

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Speaker 2: Robinson could also be very generous. He loaned money to

357
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Speaker 2: his cash strapped friends with very low interest, including his

358
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Speaker 2: son in law, John Chisel. He loaned a lot of

359
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Speaker 2: money to Chisel. Simon Robinson and Julie Richter explained the

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Speaker 2: dynamic between Robinson and his father in law.

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Speaker 8: My understanding is that when the scandal broke, Chisel may

362
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Speaker 8: have been asset rich, but he was cash poor and

363
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:07,040
Speaker 8: possibly insolvent. So you know, it had a major backer

364
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Speaker 8: through marriage with the Robinson family.

365
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Speaker 3: Yeah, he is a window into the fragility of society

366
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Speaker 3: at that point. On the surface, he would have certainly

367
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:23,959
Speaker 3: been considered gentry. He really would have been that super

368
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Speaker 3: gentry because of that connection through his daughter to John Robinson,

369
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Speaker 3: who was the most powerful colonist, well connected landowner, owner

370
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Speaker 3: of enslaved men, women and children. But yeah, some of

371
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 3: it was surface level and a good part of it

372
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:48,439
Speaker 3: was tied to his investments and his connection to his son.

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Speaker 2: In law, but Chisel's connection to his chief financial backer

374
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Speaker 2: was about to unexpectedly vanish. Early Sunday morning, on May eleventh,

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Speaker 2: seventeen sixty six, John Robinson died at the age of

376
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Speaker 2: sixty one. The local newspaper reported that he quote paid

377
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Speaker 2: the last debt to nature after laboring some days with

378
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Speaker 2: the most excruciating torments of the stone. It was probably

379
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Speaker 2: kidney stones, which would have been very painful. I was

380
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:20,720
Speaker 2: a little surprised that someone could actually die of kidney stones,

381
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Speaker 2: even back in the seventeen hundreds. I had always thought

382
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:26,640
Speaker 2: they were treatable, but they can be deadly if they're

383
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Speaker 2: severe and if they aren't caught. Scientists have found kidney

384
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Speaker 2: stones in Egyptian mummies, which likely led to their deaths,

385
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Speaker 2: and those deaths would have been excruciating. John Robinson had

386
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Speaker 2: died in immense pain. Susannah Robinson, Chisel's middle daughter, wept,

387
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Speaker 2: and after a somber service, Robinson was laid to rest

388
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Speaker 2: in his family's graveyard, but his secrets were about to

389
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Speaker 2: be splashed across newspapers around the world. Now the first

390
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 2: of three scandals in our story begins to be revealed.

391
00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:10,920
Speaker 2: Shortly after Robinson's death, Chisel was notified about something terrible

392
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Speaker 2: for him and for many of the gentry of Virginia.

393
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Speaker 2: You may have guessed by now that it has to

394
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 2: do with money.

395
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Speaker 6: You know, they're all in there, They're all got their

396
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:25,399
Speaker 6: fingers in the pie. And the Robinson scandal, of course

397
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 6: reaches everybody, including Patrick Henry, who owes like eleven pounds

398
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:33,879
Speaker 6: or something other. Yeah, he's still yeah, And everybody else

399
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:37,199
Speaker 6: owes money. You know, they're all caught. It's it's like

400
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 6: all of a sudden, you know, the flashball went off,

401
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:44,120
Speaker 6: and everybody's caught. It's bad, and it doesn't it doesn't

402
00:26:44,160 --> 00:27:01,159
Speaker 6: make the gentry look good.

403
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:11,159
Speaker 2: Our first scandal was politely referred to in seventeen sixty

404
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 2: six as the Robinson affair. Affair was too mild for

405
00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:19,240
Speaker 2: what John Robinson did before he died. After his death

406
00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 2: in mid May, the Speaker of the House of Burgesses

407
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 2: was mourned. His friends and family lamented their loss. But

408
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 2: then the humdrum business of government had to resume, and

409
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:32,680
Speaker 2: to get an idea about the size of the colony's debt.

410
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:35,600
Speaker 2: The Treasury needed to take a look at John Robinson's

411
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:39,880
Speaker 2: financial books. There had been some whispers that these books

412
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 2: might not be as clean as they should have been,

413
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 2: so his record keeping and his accounts needed to be

414
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 2: examined in detail.

415
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 5: But they don't do it right away, like this is

416
00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 5: the kind of stuff that now, I mean, this is

417
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:52,840
Speaker 5: a big deal, we do it right away. Gentry people

418
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 5: don't run from burning buildings, so they don't like run

419
00:27:56,080 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 5: at major financial scandals fast, especially when they know it's

420
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:03,960
Speaker 5: affecting a lot of the other people who are their peers,

421
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 5: who participated in this process.

422
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 2: When they finally got around to it, Robinson's colleagues walked

423
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:16,520
Speaker 2: into his office, pulled out chairs, and began to examine

424
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,160
Speaker 2: his ledger books, his financial accounts.

425
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Speaker 5: But they sit down with the books and they go,

426
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 5: we got a problem.

427
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:29,240
Speaker 2: It seems that the most powerful man in Virginia, John Robinson,

428
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 2: the man the entire colony had trusted to maintain their

429
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 2: financial affairs, was a liar and a thief. But what

430
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 2: he did is tricky, So I've asked a slew of

431
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:43,080
Speaker 2: historians to explain exactly what happened.

432
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 6: The scheme that he was going under was to basically

433
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 6: have the lower classes pay the debts of the upper

434
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 6: classes by floating money.

435
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 2: He did this by loaning his friend's banknotes that were

436
00:28:57,520 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 2: supposed to have been destroyed when they had been read

437
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 2: deemed by the owner.

438
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 6: He was supposed to burn the notes which were being

439
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 6: turned in, but he was lending them out to friends

440
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:06,760
Speaker 6: to reuse.

441
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:10,400
Speaker 4: He's lending them out to his friends at suspiciously low

442
00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 4: interest rates. And these are these are this is no

443
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 4: small amount of money.

444
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 6: So he was kind of like the money was like

445
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:18,120
Speaker 6: being double dipped.

446
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 2: Basically, John Robinson was making money off of the colony's

447
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:26,680
Speaker 2: own expired banknotes. He was taking money meant for the

448
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 2: colony and loaning the notes to his friends and also

449
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:31,080
Speaker 2: spending it himself.

450
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 8: There had been an economic shock in Virginia in the

451
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 8: mid seventeen sixties, and instead of burning the old banknotes

452
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 8: that had been returned to the treasury, he lent out

453
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:49,960
Speaker 8: that money to his friends and acquaintances, trying to help

454
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:56,120
Speaker 8: them maintain their businesses and their plantation economy in Virginia.

455
00:29:56,960 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 8: And on the basis that these friends in a quaint

456
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,480
Speaker 8: stances and colleagues would at some stage pay him back

457
00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:07,960
Speaker 8: and everything would be fine and the economy of Virginia

458
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:09,080
Speaker 8: would be sustained.

459
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 2: Of course, that didn't happen because just about everyone in

460
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 2: Virginia's gentry class was in debt in the seventeen hundreds. Everyone.

461
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 2: So I wondered if John Robinson would have gotten away

462
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 2: with this, if he had lived, would he have gotten caught?

463
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:29,239
Speaker 3: Yes, hundreds of thousands of pounds and at least, you know,

464
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:33,760
Speaker 3: through surviving documents, it appears that few, if any, people

465
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 3: knew what he was doing.

466
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 2: Wow, no one knew what John Robinson had been doing.

467
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 2: He had been stealing the equivalent of millions and millions

468
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 2: of dollars. The gentry were left stunned. John Chisel, Robinson's

469
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 2: father in law, was silent. He was surely embarrassed, humiliated,

470
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:56,480
Speaker 2: and alarmed because oftentimes it had been the surviving family

471
00:30:56,640 --> 00:31:00,640
Speaker 2: who would be responsible for any financial burdens. After the

472
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 2: Crown discovered that John Robinson was a thief, that he

473
00:31:03,840 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 2: had nearly crippled the colony, the repercussions for Virginia's government

474
00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:09,520
Speaker 2: were swift.

475
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 3: One of the results of the fraud that Robinson committed

476
00:31:14,560 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 3: was that the two offices he held Speaker of the

477
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:20,240
Speaker 3: House of Burgesses to be like Speaker of the House

478
00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:24,440
Speaker 3: of Representatives in our US government today, and then treasurer

479
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 3: are separated. They're not going to put that much power

480
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:29,320
Speaker 3: in the hands of any one person.

481
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 2: Again, the House of Burgesses did that six months after

482
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 2: John Robinson's death, but Virginia was already reeling when the

483
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:40,479
Speaker 2: story leaked out to the newspapers and the middle class

484
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 2: read the news the gentry had been stealing money, their money.

485
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:49,239
Speaker 8: It really reinforced that there was something rotten at the

486
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 8: heart of the way they were being governed.

487
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 2: Everyone who was anyone in the upper classes seemed to

488
00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 2: be in debt to John Robinson, say historians Carson Hudson

489
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 2: and Robert Weathers, and that included future Founding fathers.

490
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 6: The Robinson scandal, of course, reaches everybody, including Patrick Henry,

491
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:10,840
Speaker 6: who owes so like eleven pounds or something other. Yeah,

492
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:14,240
Speaker 6: he's still and everybody else owes money.

493
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:17,920
Speaker 2: Eleven pounds was about twenty three hundred dollars today, which

494
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:20,960
Speaker 2: might not seem like much, but remember Patrick Henry was

495
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 2: the man who stood up in the House of Burgesses

496
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:26,959
Speaker 2: and declared that men like John Robinson shouldn't support the

497
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:30,880
Speaker 2: crown and its attempts to overtax the colonists. Doesn't that

498
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 2: make Patrick Henry a little bit of a hypocrite? Other

499
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:38,200
Speaker 2: revelations followed when Robinson's financial records were revealed.

500
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 4: One of the most famous debt cases in Virginia is

501
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:45,080
Speaker 4: out of William Bird the third. And I've heard rumors

502
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 4: or red rumors of William Bird third taking anywhere up

503
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 4: to thirty thousand pounds. To give you an idea of

504
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 4: how much money that really is, a skilled tradesman in

505
00:32:56,120 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 4: the city of Williamsburg, a journeyman tradesman might have between

506
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:03,320
Speaker 4: thirty and thirty five pounds in a year. So William

507
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 4: Bird thirty thousand pounds an incredible amount of money. Even

508
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 4: Patrick Henry is involved in this. He doesn't have nearly

509
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:14,480
Speaker 4: that much, but he is involved in the takes. Yeah,

510
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 4: a lot of people are, including Chisel.

511
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:20,520
Speaker 2: Right, John Chisel was in debt to him too. Chisel's

512
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 2: name was on the list of gentry who were now

513
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:26,160
Speaker 2: embroiled in this scandal. The middle and lower classes and

514
00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 2: the colonies were already furious over the Stamp Act, even

515
00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 2: if it had been repealed. Large taxes were just the beginning,

516
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 2: and now the illustrious John Robinson had been stealing and

517
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 2: virtually giving away money to his wealthy friends, but Chisel

518
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 2: was now responsible, directly responsible for his son in law's estate.

519
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:50,479
Speaker 2: Because Chisel was Robinson's executor, that role came with a

520
00:33:50,520 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 2: lot of responsibility in the seventeen hundreds.

521
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 3: It puts a huge, huge burden on the people who

522
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 3: were called to settle Robinson's state after he died. If

523
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 3: you were in the colonial Virginia the executor of an estate,

524
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:09,040
Speaker 3: you were financially responsible for it.

525
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I didn't know that.

526
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 3: Yes.

527
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:14,399
Speaker 2: A good example of that family debt is founding father

528
00:34:14,520 --> 00:34:18,840
Speaker 2: Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson suffered from huge debts that were eventually

529
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:22,320
Speaker 2: passed on to his grandson. He owed about one million

530
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:25,399
Speaker 2: dollars in today's money. At one point, he said that

531
00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 2: he was absolutely miserable because he couldn't pay it off.

532
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 2: As we said earlier, debt was not unusual for Virginia

533
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 2: tobacco planters. But Jefferson, it turns out, was also not

534
00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:38,760
Speaker 2: a very good businessman, and his years in public service

535
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:41,320
Speaker 2: caused him to neglect his tobacco crops.

536
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:46,120
Speaker 3: Part but not all, of Thomas Jefferson's financial problems were

537
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:49,920
Speaker 3: due to the fact his father in law died deeply indebted.

538
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 3: Oh wow, And Jefferson obviously had a little bit of

539
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 3: debt problem that was his own, but he also was

540
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:02,440
Speaker 3: responsible for John Wales's debts. So Chisel being connected to

541
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 3: John Robinson is just going to be overwhelming once you

542
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:10,279
Speaker 3: realize what had happened and what he had done with

543
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:10,800
Speaker 3: the money.

544
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:16,319
Speaker 2: In Virginia, family really mattered in colonial America. Family could

545
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:19,719
Speaker 2: make your life comfortable, or it could make your life hell.

546
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:24,520
Speaker 2: John Chisel would be legally responsible for his father in

547
00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:27,640
Speaker 2: law's debts, but how do you pay off the debts

548
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 2: of a son in law when you owe him so

549
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:34,480
Speaker 2: much money? And how did all of this happen? It's

550
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 2: easy to re examine history and detect missteps that altered

551
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:41,680
Speaker 2: the course of so many people. One large mistake that

552
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:44,919
Speaker 2: lawmakers in Virginia made, of course, was offering a man

553
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:48,720
Speaker 2: like John Robinson so much power without any real system

554
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:49,920
Speaker 2: of checks and balances.

555
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 3: If I could put myself in the shoes of a

556
00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:56,040
Speaker 3: member of the House of Burgesses at that time or

557
00:35:56,080 --> 00:36:00,279
Speaker 3: the Council, so that the upper chamber of government have

558
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:04,960
Speaker 3: somebody watching the treasure, very closely. Yeah, you can't assume

559
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:07,360
Speaker 3: that economic stability will be there.

560
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 2: Virginia was the most prosperous colony, but now, thanks to

561
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:17,239
Speaker 2: John Robinson, it was in deep financial trouble. There was

562
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 2: the risk that the entire colony would go bankrupt.

563
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:25,960
Speaker 3: Even in the most prosperous of England's colonies. That Robinson

564
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 3: chose to do what he did in the face of

565
00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:32,279
Speaker 3: economic uncertainty the end of the French and Indian War,

566
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:37,000
Speaker 3: I think you have to you'd want to watch a

567
00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 3: little bit more closely. It's just the financial mess he

568
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 3: created rippled through the revolution.

569
00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:50,600
Speaker 2: While John Chisel would have been responsible for Robinson's debts

570
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:54,359
Speaker 2: regardless of the scandal, his son in laws corruption made

571
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:56,359
Speaker 2: it all so much worse for him.

572
00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:02,640
Speaker 3: If Robinson had not embezzled us when he died, there

573
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 3: might have been some debt, but it wouldn't have been

574
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 3: dishonorable debt. It would have been the debt like all

575
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 3: the other elite had, and his executors would still have

576
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:17,720
Speaker 3: been responsible for paying off his debt, but it wouldn't

577
00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 3: have been nearly as big.

578
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:26,839
Speaker 2: Julie's phrase, dishonorable debt is key here. Being subjected to

579
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:30,799
Speaker 2: dishonorable debt was humiliating for a man like Chisel and

580
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:34,720
Speaker 2: his daughter Susannah, because she was married to Robinson. Without

581
00:37:34,800 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 2: the scandal, Susannah would have mourned her husband, but now

582
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:41,640
Speaker 2: she was also embroiled in Robinson's crimes.

583
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 3: That stress would not have been in Chisel's life. That

584
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 3: his daughter, Yes, she still would have been a widow,

585
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 3: she was still most likely would have had debt, but

586
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:56,360
Speaker 3: again it wouldn't have been dishonorable debt. It wouldn't have

587
00:37:56,400 --> 00:38:01,440
Speaker 3: been overwhelming debt. And if you know, thinking with our

588
00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 3: twenty first century medical knowledge, if you take that kind

589
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:09,920
Speaker 3: of stress off a person, it's yeah, it's not going

590
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:12,880
Speaker 3: to take. Chisel wouldn't have had the same physical and

591
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:14,240
Speaker 3: mental and emotional stress.

592
00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:18,840
Speaker 2: John Chisel was in misery. He was hopelessly insolvent, his

593
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:21,760
Speaker 2: son in law was dead and then mired in a scandal.

594
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:24,919
Speaker 2: His family was on the brink of bankruptcy, and now

595
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:29,360
Speaker 2: the Chisel and Robinson names bore a black mark. Simon

596
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 2: Robinson says that John Chisel seemed like a doomed man.

597
00:38:33,680 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 8: I mean, just having that key relationship fall away with

598
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:42,280
Speaker 8: the death of Robinson, that was all immediately a shock.

599
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:47,359
Speaker 8: Then the unfolding financial scandal, that taint would have been

600
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:53,520
Speaker 8: on Chisel, and you know that rumor mill about, Oh

601
00:38:53,560 --> 00:38:57,680
Speaker 8: it's all of the planters, all of the top people

602
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:01,439
Speaker 8: are in this together. You know they're doing fine, they're

603
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:04,759
Speaker 8: scratching each other's backs. All of that would have been

604
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:08,360
Speaker 8: poured over and would have really been a major issue

605
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:10,479
Speaker 8: for Chisel weighing on his mind.

606
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 2: I would imagine as members of the House of Burgesses

607
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 2: continued their investigation, John Chisel's nerves frayed. He was inconsolable, frantic,

608
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 2: and very angry. What else could possibly happen to him?

609
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 2: He thought quite a lot On the next episode of

610
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:43,520
Speaker 2: tenfold more Wicked on exactly right when you walk into

611
00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 2: this town, slavery should holler at you from every angle,

612
00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:49,120
Speaker 2: because people will come here and look at the beautiful

613
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:50,040
Speaker 2: craftsmanship and.

614
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:51,160
Speaker 5: Will remark on it.

615
00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 1: And just as soon as you say, do you think,

616
00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:56,719
Speaker 1: mister Randolph blank those boards? You can see it.

617
00:39:56,719 --> 00:39:57,400
Speaker 5: It's amazing.

618
00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:00,960
Speaker 1: So Colonel Chisel, he's on his home from visiting his

619
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:04,440
Speaker 1: lead mines, and he stops at a tavern. While he

620
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:07,799
Speaker 1: is there, he encounters a merchant who knows and by

621
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:09,799
Speaker 1: the name of Robert Rutledge.

622
00:40:09,560 --> 00:40:14,000
Speaker 5: Scottish merchants. They hate Scottish merchants because guess what they're

623
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:14,560
Speaker 5: good at it.

624
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:18,880
Speaker 6: Yes, Scotts are not well liked. Peter Emerger and especially

625
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:21,960
Speaker 6: the upper class who are supportive of King George. Scotts

626
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 6: are rebels, barbarians and traders.

627
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 5: He is a representation of these guys, these upsight guys,

628
00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:32,440
Speaker 5: these guys who are not gentry having control over his life.

629
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:34,760
Speaker 4: Which puts us right at the scene of murder.

630
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:40,680
Speaker 6: Right.

631
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:48,040
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