War (10 page)

Hugh shrugged. “For the moment, in more immediate ministerial doings, to more covinous stealth,” he remarked. “Who do you think it was?” he asked.

Roger shook his head. “I could not speculate with any certainty. Your father believes it was Sir Philip Francis, in the War Office. Others think Lord Shelburne.” The captain looked ironic. “If I had spent more time in the Commons, instead of traipsing about the Continent, I might have had a better candidate to suggest, such as a discontented Whig surgeon in the army!” he added with a laugh.

“Yes,” replied Hugh with amusement. “My father wrote me about that. He also noted that wagers were made on Junius’s identity.” Then he sighed. “Well, the public reporting of the Commons business, and the plummeting of actions against printers — they are both posthumous victories of Mr. Jones.”

The conversation turned to the James Somerset case at the King’s Bench of two summers ago. “Ah, yes! There’s another cause he would have taken up with consummate alacrity!” exclaimed Hugh.

Proudlocks had followed the case while he was in London, taking a special interest in it and other cases of slaves attempting to gain their freedom in the courts. “I was present at the King’s Bench in Westminster
Hall when Lord Mansfield read the final decision on Mr. Somerset,” he said. “After consulting his many other deliberations on the subject, I concluded that he is a timid, cautious man. And, the decision has been misinterpreted by slaves and freedman alike.” Proudlocks sipped his wine. “Mr. Somerset’s case was championed by Mr. Granville Sharp and a brace of sergeants who matched his ardor on the issue. Mr. Sharp in particular has represented many blacks in Britain. He has also turned his attention to abolishing press gangs, another form of slavery. I have met him. He has even endorsed the American cause.”

“Lord Mansfield is no friend of liberty,” Hugh remarked. “I don’t wonder that he wished to tread softly on the matter of a man’s liberty. He belittled colonial authority and recommended passage of most of the Acts passed by Parliament after the late war with the French. But, how was he misinterpreted?”

“Everyone believed the freeing of Somerset a universal emancipation of slaves in Britain. That was not Lord Mansfield’s intention. He simply discharged Mr. Somerset in a ruling that he hoped avoided precedent. But, it is seen as one, nonetheless. I have heard that he strenuously objected to the misreading of his finding. However, most freedmen, slaves, and abolitionists continue to remark that Mr. Somerset’s situation was similar in many respects to that of any slave who ran away, was recaptured, and who subsequently sued for his freedom.”

“What were Mansfield’s reservations?”

“He was cognizant of the consequences of a universal emancipation, in Britain, at least. He dwelt on the enormous loss of property by slaveholders there, especially in the port towns, and imagined large bands of ex-slaves roaming the Isles to enslave whites or steal their employment.” Proudlocks laughed. “It was a most amusing predicament that Lord Mansfield found himself in. He could not deny the logic and justice of Mr. Somerset’s cause, and could not but concur with it, however, under protest!”

Tallmadge chuckled. “Well, it seems that Lord Mansfield played the quack physician by prescribing a vial of mercury to cure the patient of an insufferable complaint. But, he accomplished the patient’s demise, instead, quite to the surprise of both parties!”

Hugh raised his wine glass in a mock toast. “Here’s to Lord Mansfield, then, and to all such quackery!”

The company laughed and joined him in the toast.

Proudlocks said, “Of course, the greatest advocates of the re-enslavement
of runaway blacks were the West Indian planters. The Attorney-General and Solicitor-General sided with them, accepting their petitions to oppose emancipation and abolition.” Proudlocks looked thoughtful. “Your friend, Glorious Swain, lived in a legal purgatory not dissimilar to that of most blacks in Britain today, imprisoned between Chief Justice Holt’s ruling in 1706 that once a black set foot in England, he could claim his freedom, and the Attorney-General’s contention, which conformed with the common legal opinion that this was not true, that neither a black’s baptism as a Christian nor the lapse or extinction of feudal villeinage in Britain nullified his status as a slave.”

“Glorious was born in London, as well, on London Bridge,” Hugh mused. He looked pensive for a moment, then turned to Roger. “Well, a portion of His Majesty’s personal budget relies on the slave trade, and what justice or Parliament would ever dare deny him it?” He paused again, and asked Tallmadge. “When you supped with the Governor, Roger, did the subject of slavery arise in your conversation? His Excellency also derives a fractional share in that trade.”

Roger shook his head. “No. Not once.”

“Another reason I dislike that man is that a year or so ago he is alleged to have remarked that all the runaways here and throughout the colonies could be encouraged by the Crown to exact their ‘revenge’ on their former masters and anyone else who opposed the Crown’s conquest of the colonies.”

Proudlocks said, “He could not encourage them except by promising them their liberty.”

“Precisely,” Hugh answered. “What another pair of shoes that would be! A tyrant proclaiming liberty!”

“The liberty to serve the Crown,” agreed Proudlocks, “and little else.”

“Why, Hugh!” exclaimed Reverdy, “There’s an idea for a dark comedy you could compose!”

Hugh smiled wanly. “No, my dear. I have advanced beyond satire. But, perhaps you shall see its like in London.”

Reverdy, usually sensitive to the nuances of her husband’s moods, was in too gay a spirit today to note the muted bitterness in his reply. She glanced away from him and espied a figure coming from the great house. “Oh! Here comes Mr. Spears, looking very urgent!” she said. The valet and major domo of Meum Hall approached the group and stopped before Hugh. “Sir, a courier from Williamsburg has just called and left this for you.” He
handed his employer a sealed sheaf of papers.

“Thank you, Spears,” replied Hugh, taking it. Spears bowed once and returned to the house.

Hugh broke the seal and opened the papers. After a moment, he said, “It is a dispatch from our committee of correspondence, calling for a convention on August, first, to discuss another association for the nonimportation and non-exportation of goods vis-à-vis Britain, and our joining with other colonies in that project. This, on the advice of other colonies’ committees. ‘Things seem to be hurrying to an alarming crisis,’ it reads. That is an understatement.” He smiled. “And, here is a note from Mr. Jefferson, appending a copy of the broadside I neglected to sign, and chiding me on that account.” He handed the papers over the table to Proudlocks. “Mr. Randolph and the committee are also requesting that we former burgesses ‘collect the sense of our respective counties.’ By that, I suppose they mean resolutions. The citizens of Williamsburg have already sanctioned a convention and nonimportation measures.”

“Mr. Cullis will not help you compose resolutions,” Reverdy warned. “And I doubt that Reverend Acland will lend you his church for a meeting of the freeholders to agree on any, either.”

Proudlocks nodded. “I agree with you, milady,” he said. “Mr. Cullis is a tepid patriot.”

“This is true,” Hugh sighed. “Still, I will call on him to discuss the matter. And, the freeholders can always be called together in one of the taverns.”

Later that afternoon, Hugh rode alone to Cullis Hall on the other side of Caxton to advise Edgar Cullis of the convention news, only to learn from the burgess’s mother, Hetty, that her husband Ralph and her son had departed the day before for the Piedmont on a wolf and deer hunting outing. She did not expect them back for another two or three weeks. “They had planned to leave after the General Assembly had adjourned,” she said, “but were able to go sooner than they had planned.”

This had happened often before, when Hugh needed to confer with his fellow burgess on pressing House business. He thought it too convenient, this time, but did not express his suspicion to the woman that Cullis wanted to distance himself from what he regarded as treasonous actions of the House. Cullis had been the sole burgess to argue and vote against the day of fasting and prayer, which was tomorrow. He thanked Mrs. Cullis for the information and reclaimed his mount from the stable hand.

His next stop on the way back to Caxton was Enderly, where he found
Reece Vishonn riding through one of his vast fields, supervising some of his tenants and slaves in moving young tobacco plants from their seed beds to hundreds of hills.

Vishonn was not so much startled by news of the call for a convention, as disturbed by it. “And Mr. Cullis is away,” he said. “Well, that puts you, as our remaining burgess, in an awkward patch, does it not? Speaking as a justice in our own court, I would question the legality of calling a meeting of the freeholders, with only one of you present. Should they vote on a resolution to approve the convention and that other business, Mr. Cullis would surely sue you or the county for having acted without his consultation. Besides, neither of you is truly a burgess, now that the Assembly has been dissolved. Neither you nor Mr. Cullis would have the authority to call a meeting, or to take any political action at all, not until you were reelected after His Excellency had signed a writ for new elections.”

Hugh grimaced. “That, apparently, is the Governor’s intention.”

“
What
is his intention?” asked Vishonn with a curiosity that sounded offended.

“To cast us all beyond the pale of legal action. To put us outside the law.” He was silent for a while. “Well, I must agree with you about the dubious legality of calling a meeting. But, I had not expected Mr. Cullis to bolt so soon after the alarm. If we are to flout the Crown, we must have some semblance of unanimity.”

Vishonn shook his head. “I am afraid unanimity will not be found in Queen Anne, my friend.”

Hugh imagined that he heard a note of relief in Vishonn’s words. He thanked the planter for his time and rode back across Caxton to Morland Hall, where he spoke with Jack Frake. “He’s right,” said Jack. “Half the planters and freeholders here would not agree to a general meeting without you
and
Mr. Cullis calling for it.”

Hugh stood in Jack’s study. He smacked his open palm with a fist. “What a shame! And ours was the county that foiled the stamp men, yet it cannot bring itself to defy a greater beast!”

Jack nodded in agreement. “Mr. Vishonn is right about no quorum of the citizenry being possible here, Hugh, even though he is wrong to be happy about it. The day is coming soon when the Governor will dissolve the House permanently, and then we must form our own lawful assembly, without the Crown’s leave.” He watched his friend pace back and forth before his study windows.

Beyond, at the far end of his fields, his tenants were busy planting the last tobacco seedlings from the beds, on both sides of the irrigation trench he had dug years ago. “We could at least call a meeting of the Sons of Liberty, Hugh, to advise them of the news. They represent about one quarter of the freeholders in the county. Not that any resolutions we might pass would be countenanced by Mr. Randolph and his committee.”

“Nor recognized by him as being in anywise legal. He was, after all, once the Attorney-General.” Hugh stood before Jack’s desk for a moment, looking thoughtful. Then he picked up his hat and snapped it on. “Well, Beecroft and I can pen some notices, at least, for the Sons, and post them on the courthouse door and at taverns. To meet at Safford’s place. What day would you recommend?”

“F
asting, humiliation, and prayer? Three guarantors of weakness and submission!” exclaimed Jack Frake at the supper table at Meum Hall the following evening. “I have never understood how those expressions of virtue could ever be regarded as sources of strength and resolve in the face of tyranny.”

“Hear, hear!” echoed Hugh Kenrick. “And let their companion,
moderation
, also be stricken from the catalogue of virtues — except in science!”

Proudlocks proclaimed, “The Crown’s tyrannical policy shall wreck itself on the Godwin Sands of folly and war, and the disparate principles of England’s constitution, like ruptured bulkheads, shall fill up with water and drowning men!”

“Hear, hear!” replied Jack Frake quietly with a smile at his oldest friend.

“What a sad sentiment to wish on your countrymen,” Reverdy remarked in mild reproach.

Jack Frake leaned forward and said, “We do not wish it upon them, Reverdy. It is what must happen, in time.”

“And happen here first,” added Hugh. “And, if our countrymen are fortunate,
there
.”

The supper table of Meum Hall, cleared now of the finished main courses, was resplendent with some of the finest Delft and creamware table furniture and cutlery in the county, resting on a shimmering, oblong plane of thick, French-made linen. Candelabra, silver candlesticks, and wall sconces lit up the table, the room, and the company. In the precise middle of the table reigned the silver epergne that Hugh had used years before to explain and praise the British Empire. Its many-layered dishes were piled with sweetmeats, biscuits and fruit. Dessert consisted of slices of pineapple, peach and pear in a cream sauce and brandy-flavored wine cake. The wine itself was the best Bordeaux from Hugh’s cellar.

Captain Roger Tallmadge and Lieutenant William Manners sat together at the table. Around them sat the other guests: Rupert Beecroft and William Settle, of Meum Hall, and Obedience Robbins and William Hurry, of Morland Hall. Tallmadge said nothing in reply to the exclamations of Jack Frake, his friend Hugh, and John Proudlocks. He said very
little at all; he merely smiled, and observed, and was happy that he knew such men. He would like to have seconded his hostess’s remark, but thought it wiser to keep his own counsel. Lieutenant Manners merely ate and appeared indifferent to the talk.

While the rest of Queen Anne County — indeed, while much of Virginia, at the behest of parish ministers and returning burgesses — observed the day with fasting, humiliation, and prayer in protest of the closing of the port of Boston, Hugh had decided to protest in his own manner, by celebrating the prosperity that was to be denied Boston.

Most of Williamsburg’s citizens had turned out to hear Speaker Peyton Randolph deliver a noontime address from the steps of the courthouse on Market Square. Then they followed him and his colleagues to Bruton Parish Church to hear a sermon delivered by the House chaplain, the Reverend Thomas Price. This person replaced Reverend Thomas Gwatkin, the principal of the grammar school at the College of William and Mary, who had declined the invitation by the House to endorse the protest with his own sermon. He was later to become Lady Dunmore’s personal chaplain, and ultimately leave with her in a pique of self-exile for England.

In the warm confines of Stepney Parish Church in Caxton, Reverend Albert Acland stood at his pulpit and delivered his prayers and sermon. He was pleased that so many of his flock had decided to attend this special service, even though he had opposed the idea. But Moses Corbin, mayor of Caxton, had appeared at his doorstep early yesterday morning and requested in a curiously insistent manner that he accede to the wishes of many in the county.

The minister today decided to be cautious but outspoken, and delivered a sermon that was not overtly hostile or critical of the day of fasting, prayer and humiliation. So many in his congregation agreed with the purpose of the observance. Also, he knew that many here today had heard of the confrontation between Etáin Frake and the Customsmen at Morland Hall two days before; word of the incident had spread throughout the town and outlying plantations and farms.

Today, instead of donning his vestments of office, he wore a plain cassock, to seem to personally reflect the spirit of the occasion. He read from two “thanksgivings” from the prayer book.

“Let us beseech our Savior to grant us peace and deliverance from our enemies, and to help us restore public peace at home. O Almighty God, who art a strong tower of defence unto thy servants against the face of their enemies!
We acknowledge it thy goodness that we were not delivered over as a prey unto them. O Eternal God, who alone makes men to be of one mind in a house, and stillest the outrage of a violent and unruly people, we bless thy holy Name, that it hath pleased thee to appease the seditious tumults which have been lately raised up amongst us…. ”

Moses Corbin and his wife Jewel were not the only couple that exchanged discreet whispers that their pastor had mixed his texts from the prayer book. And many other parishioners seemed to frown in suspicion of whom he referred to as their enemies and unruly people.

Acland then turned to his sermon, and in it dwelt on the necessity of all present to accept a Lenten mode of sackcloth and ashes. He dared to equivocate between the Bostonians doing repentance for their “sins” and his parishioners doing penance for them.

“It is first noted in Genesis, chapter thirty-seven,” he said, “the willingness of men to grieve in that abrasive attire. Can we, many millennia removed from those times, do no less for our intransigent brethren to the north? For in praying, fasting and gratefully conceding our smallness and the vanity and meagerness of our hubris in the face of God’s will, we shall redeem our souls as well as theirs. Our prodigal brethren to the north, prompted by the designs of scepsical scoundrels, it seems will be reduced to sackcloth and ashes and beggary as the justice of a
greater power
. So, my friends, let us pray and fast today so that they may be welcomed again into His benevolent and forgiving embrace….”

In the course of his delivery, Acland noticed a face in the congregation he had never seen before. It was probably a traveler who had decided to attend the service. He thought, however, that the stranger looked incurious, and not particularly pious.

That person, sitting in a pew in the rear of the church, was Jared Hunt, who had journeyed on horseback up from Hampton to spy on the parties who had informed him of the necessity of searching Morland Hall. Acland was one of those informants. Hunt, listening to the pastor drone on, was satisfied that Acland was a “true patriot,” and could be used somehow in the future.

When the service was over, he was the first out the door. He did not wish to meet the minister, not now. He rode next to Cullis Hall. Here he introduced himself as a citizen of Williamsburg and an acquaintance of her son whom he had met during the late session of the General Assembly, and said that he had spoken with that esteemed person about some legal matter.
He was informed by the mistress of that plantation that her husband and son were away. The woman offered him some tea, but he wisely declined and bid her good day.

When he rode back into Caxton and searched for a place in which to have a drink and a meal before he journeyed to Williamsburg to seek an audience with Governor Dunmore, he saw that all the taverns and inns were shut but one, the Gramatan Inn. Over a bottle of port there, he asked the young wench who served him why this establishment was open, and none of the others.

“It’s this day of starvin’ and mumblin’,” the woman said. “Mr. Gramatan said he’d have no part in it, it was treasonous and such, and wait ’til His Majesty hears of it, they’ll all get what for. His very words, but don’t say I said it.”

“What do
you
think of it?” asked Hunt.

The woman shrugged. “Makes me no never mind, sir,” she said. “I got five years left in my ’denture, and I don’t plan to starve or mumble much of that time. It’s none of my business, all this hootin’ and shoutin’ they do around here about rights and liberty! Well, I ain’t got either, and I ain’t goin’ to risk havin’ years added to my ’denture, you can wager on that!”

“Are you a felon, or a redemptioner? What’s your name?”

“I ain’t no convict! It’s Mary Griffin,” the woman retorted with flashing eyes, “and I bought me passage, if you please! From an agent in Cheapside, right there by the Guildhall, a fella who signed a whole bunch of us up for passage!”

He thought so. Her accent was too pronounced. Probably a true Cockney, if there was any truth in her protest, born and raised within earshot of the bells of St. Mary le Bow. There was no one else in the place except the barman, who was dozing for lack of custom. He asked her a few discreet questions about Jack Frake and Hugh Kenrick, and was rewarded with some derisive commentary on those gentlemen. Satisfied that those men enjoyed some disrepute in these parts, he ceased his queries, for he had pledged to draw the least amount of attention to himself on this expedition. He apologized unnecessarily for the presumption of her felonious status, and Mary Griffin left him to tend to his guinea hen roasting on a spit in the fireplace.

When he had finished his meal, he lingered for a while over another bottle of port and read some newspapers he took from the rack — Maryland and Virginia
Gazettes
, and even some old London papers — then left
to reclaim his mount from the Inn stable hand, who had fed and watered the animal. He estimated that he should reach Williamsburg by dusk and be able to find a room there for the night.

* * *

The concert that evening at Meum Hall was an oddly subdued, almost dispirited affair. Etáin played her harp as beautifully as always, and Reverdy sang some arias from operas, among them Scarlatti’s “Pastoral on the Nativity” and Bononcini’s “The Glory of Loving You,” favorites of Hugh. Etáin ended the evening with Haydn’s “Serenade,” “Brian Boru’s March,” and “Hugh O’Donnell” — the latter for the host and hostess, who were soon to part for a long period of time. She was pleased to see them holding hands as they sat listening to her play that number. But, while all the performances were acknowledged with the appropriate applause, something was missing from the usual enthusiasm. Etáin thought that it was because everyone knew that this would perhaps be the last time they would sing and play together.

“That was a melancholy time,” remarked Jack Frake to Etáin as they rode back in a riding chair to Morland Hall after saying their goodnights late in the evening. Etáin’s harp was strapped to the back of the conveyance. Robbins and Hurry rode behind them. “The company was nearly funereal.”

“Mr. Tallmadge is departing with his friend tomorrow, and Reverdy perhaps in a week, when Mr. Geary returns from West Point. That must explain their own melancholy. But, ours?”

Jack Frake shook his head. “There will be no more concerts for a long while.”

“No,” sighed Etáin, “I suppose not.” After a moment, she said, “Mr. Proudlocks was in fine form tonight. I could see that Lieutenant Manners was biting his tongue.”

“Yes, John was in his best form.” Jack glanced at her once. “And you were in fine form yesterday. Would you have shot that Customsman if he had tried to force his way into our home?”

“Yes, of course.” After a moment, Etáin added, “I was afraid, Jack.”

“Of course, you were. So were Mr. Robbins and Mr. Hurry, and all our tenants, as well.” He reached over with one arm and held her shoulder. “You might have started the war ahead of time.”

Etáin grinned. “Yes. I might have, at that.” Then she frowned. “There will be a war, won’t there?”

“Yes. There will be a war.”

“Ahead of time? Is there a proper time to begin a war?”

Jack nodded once. “From what my friends up north have written, I’m not the only one who has collected a personal armory in expectation of one, and General Gage is on the alert to find those other collections and to rob us of the means of fighting a war.” He paused. “Somewhere, somehow, it will begin when the army moves to seize those means, and is opposed by another.”

“An army of men who have caught up with you, Jack.”

His hand had not left Etáin’s shoulder. He smiled and squeezed it once in silent confirmation. Her hand reached over and rested on top of the hand in his lap that held the reins.

* * *

“Well,
elder
brother, we bid
adieu
again,” said Captain Roger Tallmadge to Hugh.

“
Adieu
, not farewell,” answered the latter. “Remember that,
younger
brother.”

“Well, brother-in-law, we may meet again soon, and in London!” laughed Reverdy.

The officer stood with Lieutenant Manners in the front of the porch steps of the great house of Meum Hall. Their two mounts and the packhorse that carried their bags were held by a stable hand at a distance.

It was early morning and dew still glistened on the leaves of trees and on blades of grass. The four had just finished breakfast. The last hour had been filled with the minutiæ of preparing for the officers’ departure. The last minute instructions about the best routes to take northward — “Ride to the Pamunkey River, take a ferry across it to West Point, then another ferry across the Mattaponi,” Hugh had told him over breakfast, “or perhaps the simplest way, straight up the road to Richmond town from Williamsburg” — the filling of the officers’ canteens with water and the assembling of a basket of biscuits and dried fruit for them to take with them, the shoeing of one of the horses whose shoes had come loose, and silence-filling small talk, all disguised the dampening regret Hugh, Reverdy and Roger felt that they must part.

The breakfast had ended on a highlight, however, with an exchange of gifts. At the table, Roger presented Hugh with an inscribed copy of a book he had translated during his years at the Woolwich academy, Guillaume Le Blond’s “Treatise on Artillery” from his larger work,
Elements of War
, published in 1747. “You are not the only one to pen words,” he said to Hugh. “Please accept this, without it being an overture to the difficulties here.” He laughed. “Consider it a gift from Lieutenant Manners, as well. It is one less book for him to read during our journey!”