by Avi
Later that morning, the captain lined us convicts up in preparation for buyers to come aboard.
“I wish to inform you,” the captain proclaimed, “that Moco Jack attempted to escape, was shot, wounded, caught, and taken ashore: that by his actions he has extended his term of transportation from seven years to fourteen. Let that be an example to you all.”
I had to wonder: Did the captain tell the truth? My fervent wish was that Moco Jack had gained his freedom. But I had no way of learning. No more than I knew if I would ever find Charity.
Oh, how we yearn for outright endings, good or bad. But alas, I have learned that life is more often a list of questions, with answers that are rarely yes or no if given at all. The world is full of maybe, perhaps, and I don’t know. I would never learn the fate of Moco Jack.
What I did learn for certain was this: A man like the captain never allows the notion to get about that someone made his way to freedom. It would give others the idea of escaping. Tyranny will always deny the smallest possibility of liberty and thereby reduce the resolve of those who seek it.
I had little time to think such big thoughts, however, because in a brief while the buyers were to come aboard.
Moco Jack—dead or alive—was, in some fashion, free no matter what the captain said. I was alive but about to be sold.
Chapter Sixteen
In Which We Are Given Advice How to Sell Ourselves.
It was mid-morning when four or perhaps five small dories, propelled by sailors with oars, approached the Owners Goodwill. Ropes were dropped and gathered so that our ship was towed to a wooden quay. This quay poked any number of yards into the town itself, a kind of inlet, round which clustered some modest wooden buildings. A few other boats, sloops and the like, all rather small, were also at the wharf. For the first time, I also observed what I would come to know as a canoe. Other, bigger boats were being loaded with large round barrel-like containers, pushed up gangways by Negroes, slaves, I presumed.
The ropes that were used to haul the Owners Goodwill were the same that warped the ship against the quay and held us fast. Long wooden planks were laid down from our ship to give people easy access.
Before the ship was towed in, we prisoners had been chained one to another, with particular use of the iron collars that had been fastened round our necks. Then we were arranged in six lines of thirteen men, with a three-foot space between rows.
The crew had been armed with pistols, muskets, and cudgels and stood guard over us. Whether this was the normal practice, or was done because of Moco Jack’s escape (or death), we were not told.
Captain Krets came forward and addressed us.
“Pay heed. The buyers will be coming aboard soon. You shall answer their questions and oblige yourself to their close inspection. It will be much to your advantage to respond to them with such honesty as you still have, courtesy if it exists, and whatever good humor remains within you. It is for them to choose or not choose to purchase you. You have no voice in the matter. You have no right to ask anything.
“Be further advised,” continued the captain, “if you are not bought and taken away, I shall not free you or bring you back to England, where you would only be hanged. Rather, you will become the property of Annapolis and placed in their jail. Therefore, it shall profit me nothing to keep you on this ship. Quite the contrary. If you touch land—unbought—you belong to this town. In all probability, you’ll rot to death. Your fate, then, is in your own smutted hands. It will be to your great advantage to sell yourself. A smile might help.”
Not so different, I thought, from my father’s cynical advice: “To get on you must mask your heart with false smiles.”
“And,” continued the captain, “be further advised that anyone who attempts to break free shall immediately be hanged from the spars.” Captain Krets actually smiled. “I wish you all good fortune and a future that will reward you for your honest labor. God save King George.”
Once these kind, helpful, and patriotic words were spoken, the buyers were allowed to come on board.
Chapter Seventeen
In Which I Am Offered for Sale and What Came of It.
As the day wore on, perhaps fifty or so buyers came aboard. Who were they? In the first instance, they were almost all men, there being but one woman among them. To my best guess, they ranged in age from their twenties to some as ancient as sixty.
Beyond that it was hard for me to know what manner of men and woman they were, their station in life, much less their occupations. One or two of the men—by London fashion—appeared to be gentlemen of wealth, complete with fine powdered wigs, silk stockings and jackets with bright silver buttons, and buckles on their shoes.
Most of the buyers, however, seemed to be of the middling sort and dressed as tradesmen, or farmers, with simple jackets, boots, and black slouch hats. A few seemed poorer. Nonetheless, all were there to purchase us.
At the gangway, at the point where they stepped upon the ship, these buyers were met by the first mate. I could hear the buyers telling him the kind of skill they desired, say a carpenter or chandler. Mr. Babington consulted the ledger I had written up, then pointed out convicts that met a particular need. These buyers also partook of a large bowl of punch the captain had set out, so as to make them more affable. Then they began to saunter up and down the convict lines, examining us as if we were so many dumb beasts.
I studied their faces and was struck how little emotion they showed as they went about purchasing people.
Who, I wondered, would want a boy that could read and write? Would my master be kind or cruel? Would I live out my term, or die?
First to be bought were men with specific skills, such as masons and farriers. These folks commanded the highest price—twenty pounds a man—after much bargaining twixt shoppers and the captain. Then the more common laborers were sold, and I judged their prices—eight pounds—were set by strength, health, and age.
It was not—for the most part—actual money that was used to purchase us so much as signed promissory notes of tobacco. It appeared that in Maryland, the tobacco leaf was more often used for currency than true money, which was valued at whatever was the sot-weed’s (as tobacco was called) current market price.
As the day wore on, more and more convicts were led away to servitude. Although the older ones did not go for high sums, most of the buyers did not even glance at me before passing on. Since I was rather small for my years, I suspected most considered me too young, perhaps too cheerful in appearance, to do such scabrous tasks as they had in mind. It was hard, durable labor they were wanting, not a smiling boy.
I was considered. Prospective buyers peered into my face, perhaps looking for signs of the pox. Sometimes they asked me to open my mouth so as to search my teeth to be sure I had them. (A fair number of my fellow felons did not.) They smelled my breath to sense if I contained any rottenness within. They pinched my arms to judge such strength as I had—or had not. Some counted my fingers. A few bid me to walk about to see if I limped or dragged a foot.
This prodding inquisition was all about my physical self. They would have done as much for a cow. There was little interest in me, Oliver Cromwell Pitts. It was as if I, the mindful person, was without value, naught but bone and muscle. And, let me admit, I had little of that.
While now this frail and uneducated man, now that dull and undexterous fellow was led away, I continued to be ignored. As the day went on, there began to grow in my mind the captain’s threat: that if I were not acquired, I would be left to rot in the local jail. It is perhaps repellent to admit, but being disregarded—not being bought—made me feel bad. Since the thought of escaping was forever in my mind, I told myself it would be far better to be with a person than in prison.
As the day wore on, I wanted to be bought. How perverse.
At last someone—the sole woman among the buyers—stopped to consider me. With her
goodly face and intelligent looks, I thought she would not be harsh, and decided I wanted her to buy me.
She was, I judged, of middle age, with bits of stray gray hair dangling from her cap. She wore a linen shift, over which was a long bodice, then over all an apron. On her feet were decent leather shoes suggesting modest means.
I always had what my sister had chosen to call an impish, merry face. Because of my pleasing looks people often had taken a protective attitude toward me. Surely—I thought—a woman would care for someone such as me, a tender youth. There must be some mothering in her. How nice, I allowed myself to think—I who had lost my mother when I was born—to regain another.
I therefore endeavored to put on my sweetest smile, tried to fill my eyes with gratitude, and flung all the charms that God gave me upon this woman.
With a most solemn bearing, she studied me awhile and then began to ask questions:
“Have you had any illness, boy?”
“No, madam.”
“How long is your sentence?”
“Seven years, madam.”
“What is your name?”
“Oliver Cromwell Pitts.”
“A horrid name,” she said. “At least, I presume, a Protestant. Just know we want no popish folk, Quakers, or Jews here. Where do you come from?”
“England. Melcombe Regis on the Dorset coast.”
“How old are you?”
“Twelve years.”
“You look younger.”
“I speak true, madam.”
“What was your crime?”
“I took money from a wrecked ship, madam.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-three shillings, madam.”
She stiffened. “Despite your age, a true rogue.”
I shuddered. This was not what I had expected.
“Have you any trade?” she asked.
That question delighted me for I assumed I had an answer that would serve her and me. “I attended school,” I said, “and was apprenticed to a lawyer, madam.” (I did not reveal that the lawyer was my father.) “I can read and write. And I can do numbers, madam.”
“Truly?” Her look was drenched in doubt.
“Yes, madam.”
She did not smile. Rather, she frowned. “You had best learn,” she said, “that the wisest servant has the dumbest mind. Do you have family?”
“A father and a sister.”
“And where are they?”
“I last saw my father in London, madam. I have no idea where my sister is.”
I held back that Charity was transported.
The woman gazed at me as if trying to make up her mind. At last she said, “I fear you would have a bad influence on my children.”
She passed on and bought a fellow who was a confessed murderer.
So much for our mutual judgment of people.
Chapter Eighteen
In Which My Hope Darkens and the Reader Is Offered a Warning.
As the sky turned gloomy, so did my hopes. Of all the felons, I alone had not been purchased. Indeed, it was not long before even the crew departed from the Owners Goodwill. How dreadful to say it: remembering the captain’s warning that if I was not sold I would rot to death in a jail, I envied my fellow convicts.
Imagine if you will: A young convict boy whom no one wants (least of all his own country) stands solitary on a ship’s deserted deck, near the shore of an unknown land countless miles from his home. No family to comfort me. No friend. The only connection to my kin was a bit of my sister’s lace, hidden in the bottom of my pocket.
There was, moreover, an iron collar round my neck—emblem of felony and servitude. I had been beneath the sun all day. Having been given nothing to eat, I was famished.
As I stood there, forlorn and forsaken, I observed Captain Krets and the first mate in close conference. Their continual glances in my direction left me in little doubt that it was I about whom they were talking.
At length Mr. Babington came to me and said, “Come along, boy.” By way of particular persuasion, he held a pistol in his hand. For a terrible moment, I thought he was going to execute me, and thereby be rid of his encumbrance. Instead, he linked a rope leash—some six feet in length—to my iron collar and led me down the gangway to the wharf.
After nine weeks of ocean voyaging, I bid a rueful farewell to the Owners Goodwill, and for the first time set my foot upon the new world. I cannot tell you the precise date, but the temperature was rather mild, the air soft and moist: spring, the season of hope. In my heart, it might as well have been winter for what I was thinking; would I ever regain my liberty?
At the foot of the gangway was a man, whom I recognized as the government official who had first come upon our ship when we reached Annapolis.
The first mate told me to stand fast while he went to confer with this gentleman. As I stood waiting, my bare feet experienced the solidity of earth, which, to my surprise, I had quite forgotten. It was odd to stand upon a surface that remained steady beneath my feet, free from the ship’s pitch and roll.
For a few moments, Mr. Babington and the government man conferred in small voices after which the first mate gave my rope leash to this man. Without so much as a farewell nod or a backward glance, the first mate left me and returned to the Owners Goodwill. I saw neither ship nor man again. Amazingly, I felt a pang of loss, clinging to the bad I knew, so fearful was I of the unknown.
The government man considered me with a baleful gaze that informed me I was an unwelcome problem. With no courtesy, he tugged the leash and said, “Come along.”
“Please, sir,” I said, “where am I going?”
“Jail,” was the brusque reply, and he held up a large key as if that provided proof of his word. Then he gave a snap to the leash, wrenching my neck. Having no choice, I moved. In short, my admittance to this new world, this new life, this new America, was like a tethered dog.
A fair warning: There are some, upon reading the first volume of my memoirs, who commented upon my cheery, optimistic character in the face of all hardships. From this point on, let me warn you that the kind of difficulties I was about to endure left little room for wit or winsomeness. That said, I beg you not to abandon me, but travel by my side until the end—no matter where it might be.
Chapter Nineteen
In Which I Pass Through Annapolis at the End of a Leash.
The Annapolis official walked before me saying nothing, which at least afforded me a closer view of the world into which I’d been brought. I told myself to pay particular attention so that if I managed to break free, I’d know my way about.
A glance informed me that I could not call Annapolis a true city. Captain Krets had told us that more persons came to America through this part than any other. Even so, to my eyes Annapolis was merely a village, though it was the chief town of the royal colony, the seat of its government. My own Melcombe Regis had a population of four thousand. Annapolis appeared to have hardly more than six hundred. Cows and pigs wandered about with great freedom—surely more than my own. Was all of America, I mused, so void of people?
The quay where we had arrived was part of a rectangular cove set right into the town. At the head of the inlet was a small marketplace. Beyond, the community was dominated by the high steeple of a church. There couldn’t have been more than a hundred buildings in all. While most were wooden houses—built of a reddish timber, which I would learn was from local cypress tree—a few were brick. Most buildings were one-story structures set on irregular stone foundations with brick chimneys at the gabled roof ends. The streets, angled in irregular fashion, were all unpaved.
Yes, I sensed newness, whereas Melcombe Regis was old. But that same newness suggested a lack of society as I had known it.
The town had hills—low ones—so that, being built on a peninsula, I could see water no matter wh
ere I was. At the town’s highest point was an elegant two-story brick building set within a circle. As I would learn, it was what they called the Government House.
Close by that structure was St. Anne’s Church, also brick, set in another circle. It was sited somewhat lower than the Government House, though its steeple was the tallest point in town, topped as it was by a golden ball and weathervane.
Narrow streets radiated from these two circles, so plots of land were oddly shaped. Here and there were trees.
As we continued to walk, I studied the passersby. They were of all sorts, tradesmen, artisans, farmers, men and women both, dressed much as they would be in England. Most were white, some were Negroes. No one paid me any heed. Now and again, I did see children. They (unlike their elders) stared at me, as if perplexed by the sight of a boy led by a leash.
As ever, Charity was never far from my thoughts, so I was looking for her. Since I had been informed that most transported felons were sent from England to Annapolis, why not Charity?
I did not truly expect to see my sister, but then again, as far as I knew, she could be anywhere, assuming she had lived through her voyage.
Alas, I didn’t spy her.
I was led through the whole town on what I would learn was Church Street, going past St. Anne’s, then north until we came upon a small stone box of a building. No more than twenty feet to a side, it appeared to be a dungeon, built to withstand my ferocity. It had one small window, with crisscrossing rusty bars and a narrow wooden door, studded with nails. It suggested much to me about America that the strongest structure I had yet observed was a jail.
My guardian applied the key to the door, unlocked it, and pulled it open. Seeing the dismal hole that yawned before me, I was reluctant to go farther.
“Get within,” was the blunt order.
