Insurance...

"Your majesty, the calls for the fleet of his majesty to scraped have been going up, especially due to its huge massive investment… we have captured multiple Spanish ships. Most of them are still in the process of repair in the Chilean ports… though most importantly, they don't have a captain or crew assigned to them… only guards." The leader of the liberal party said as he was sitting with the Emperor. 

The liberal party was not what it meant, just like how Democrats meant something else at the time, and it will mean something else in 200 years. 

Either way, they were the majority in the Senate, and they could hold the legislative power and confirm the choices for the administrative wing. This means they will confirm the majors and the finance administrators in cities and state airports. 

They didn't have much time; the president of the Senate, however, had more power since he was the representation of the Emperor in the Senate; the Emperor's will was the will of the president and not vice versa; his most important role most of the time was to choose how to vote and prevent any votes from even doing through. 

"I see, still, my son wrote about how important it is to keep the French from Haiti… which I don't see it personally, but the last time I didn't heed his counsel, I almost died." The Emperor chuckled. "Plus, he is not wrong… we will have to use said ships in the future." 

Everyone in the politics of the Colombian Empire knows about the crown prince and how he is the driver for the whole fucking country, even though the past years, he has created a state of prosperity in which the even most obscure politician could not help themselves but public praise. 

After all, unlike the Grand Duchy of Venezuela, the interior of the Empire was full of just thriving agricultural industry, and the quality of life in the big cities had gone up so much that school reforms were one of the main topics in the people's chatter. 

People were not worried about what they were going to eat the next day, or if bandits were going from one city to another… of course, crime happens even in the most advanced societies, yet compared to before, crime was a shadow of what it was when the politic situation of the country was uncertain. People were still poor, yet they were less poor, so much less poor; even in the Kingdom of Peru, people were not starving to death, which is a very low bar.

The arrival of the Prince felt like a high sea entering into a huge period of calm, and any politician trying to go against the Prince's suggestions would be committing political suicide. 

"Your majesty, even though I am confident in the crown prince's decision… I can not say that I am not skeptical of the fact...… What I mean is that even though the comments of Senator Velarosa are out of line… he has embedded truth in them." Osorio said as he carefully rethought his words in the middle of speaking. Previously, he had dictated how everything went in the senate meeting, and now he was using the opposition leader as a cushion to what was a very awkward thing to say, which was going against the Prince.

During the years of peace that the Empire achieved, the legislative branch gained more power, but all of the senators there were old enough to understand the terror of a power-driven crown prince. The amount of Hubris, the crown prince showed when they entered power could only be seen as insane. 

The crown prince became known in between circles as the Hubris Prince; after all, he checked the boxes. The arrogance was on another level from humans; he believed himself a god, but if not a god, who would be able to survive an outnumbered battle where the deaths could only be described with one word: Biblical? 

"It is indeed true that we should not be putting ourselves in a position of vulnerability." The Emperor said, "There are also not many military-aged men left… ones willing to become sailors and be months on end in a ship… the troops have already participated in years-long war, there I doubt there will be any willing to look forward… our ability to sail is also almost nonexistent."

As the Emperor continued to speak, the leader of the majority party and the Emperor himself realized how bad of an idea it was to make a fleet to fight a superpower such as France. 

They were not experienced at all! And in the sea, the most important factor is experience, even more than skill.

"The prince, however, already has a program to develop our naval Program since way before, we will be just boosting what we already have to war effort levels."

"I am aware of that, yet we don't currently have the war effort income that your majesty and the crown prince has generously have given to the empire to keep just existing… and even though in the past years our Gross Productions has multiplied greatly, the adoption… rather, the integration of the new Grand Duchy of Venezuela will put us in a huge deficit in the following years... unless we obtain the same level of income that we have been receiving... and we can not be oblivious to the fact that the matches company of your majesty was already growing down in sales due to competition, now the reports seem to be real, the largest producer of the match itself has been burnt to crisp…"

Senator Osorio stopped talking as he didn't want to say anything explicit. Instead, he let the Emperor continue the rest of his improvised monologue.

"Felipe has always been rather protective of the business part of the family… even I sometimes end up having less faith than a father should have." The Emperor confessed as he remembered how his child had defied death over and over again. "And sometimes, too much faith." He then remembered how he foolishly let him raise an army and go to war against a rebellion.

"But I have come to realize that God has chosen my son to lead this country; he has been chosen to lead you, our subjects and even myself…" He paused for a while. 

"He has deserved the level of trust in which the fate of the empire lies." The Emperor said as he looked out the window without looking at the majority leader. 

"…" Osorio looked at his monarch rather speechless and understood the stubbornness of the two members of the imperial family. 

--

Back in the present. 

Felipe found multiple letters and correspondence across the office of the acting ambassador—For the past three days, Felipe has turned the embassy upside down as they search for any evidence that might tide someone to the poisoning of HIS ambassador. 

Mauricio was buried one day after his death, and the president of the United States even attended briefly to the burial. 

Felipe was quite mad, mad that such a useful person would die. Even though the number of literates in the Empire has increased greatly since the full implementation of their education system, there were not enough great people like him. 

"I need to get more Authority over the Foreign affairs." Felipe thought as he was thinking of whom he might replace Mauricio; it was clear what a traitor would do for an ambassador, much less for a piece of a living person after he was done with him. 

He sighed loudly and looked at the extensive garden outside the big house that the Empire Calls the Embassy. He felt mentally tired, reading all the letters and correspondence; even though not that much, he understood something; there was someone out to get him, able to conceal themselves in the letters quite well. 

Antonio didn't bleed to death from his shot; he sang everything he knew in an instant. He got an anonymous letter, and then he replied. The letter consisted of a silent revolution against the monarchists who had conquered South American free colonies. 

One thing led to another, and he became a puppet; he would then become an intermediary for the plans, and he would have to pay from the budget directly to goons that the other party made them meet him, and then the explosions happened. 

Now, the thing is, Quincy, his guy in the south, has already claimed the insurance value of the burning of the two burnt matches factories. And there is no one to be held accountable, probably the traitor, but he was a dead man breathing. 

Most insurance companies don't offer arson insurance in the 21st century, much less in the 19th century! The insurance company would sue him to pay up the money they paid, which was no longer liquid; it has evaporated to maintain the operational threshold! 

Especially because the insurance companies started a huge investigation on the fires, well, they started and finished, but the case has not been closed; after all, Felipe himself thought that the reason why the factories were burnt was thanks to the anti-slavery activists--he has had experiences in his New York sites with them.

Now, before such revelation, he wanted the truth to be known; after all, he would be suing to oblivion anyone, and he could get even more money than the insurance if he sued a whole organization. But the responsible is an official of the Empire! It would no longer be arson but an Insurance scam.

Plus, his companies and the Empire share the same fate, so suing the Empire for damages was just counterproductive and rather stupid. he needs money now, not lose money, so he can not make the information that Antonio the traitor was the intellectual mastermind of the arsons. 

"Ahh, this would have been easier to solve if they were anti-slavery activists." Felipe lamented.