by David Liss
Thus it happened that we relocated to Philadelphia in the early summer of 1791, renting a small house in the unfashionable but neat Elfreth’s Alley. It was a narrow thing, with no room more than six feet in width, and it could have housed perhaps four comfortably, but we nine frontier folk made do. The men required a bit of abusing if I was to keep things neat. We could not have the neighbors gossiping about a woman living alone with eight men, so we put it about that Mr. Skye was my brother, and no more was said.
The arrangement did not last long. Our news in the West had been woefully behind the times, but soon after our arrival we were well acquainted with the doings of Hamilton’s bank, which was producing a frenzy upon the streets of Philadelphia. Shares were slated to go on sale on July fourth—did not that alone show the contempt in which these men held American liberty?—and everywhere men schemed how they might best position themselves to obtain their portion. Bank stock was expected to soar almost immediately. It was a mania, a large-scale bribe with which Hamilton tricked people into funding his schemes, making them believe they would be rewarded for doing so.
These moneyed men thought themselves invincible, but I felt certain that destroying their bank would be none too difficult. I took some two weeks to study the matter, consult my books, and take long walks along the river, and so reformulated my plan. When all was in readiness, I presented it to my confederates, and though some finer points were unabsorbed, particularly by the whiskey boys, they agreed one and all.
In a few weeks’ time it became necessary to establish a second base of operations in New York, and though they were reluctant to leave me on my own, I sent Dalton and Jericho, along with two of his whiskey boys, Isaac and Jemmy. Much that would happen next would depend upon their efforts, and I did not think they could possibly succeed for the better part of a year, but within a few months my men in New York had laid plans for the bank’s destruction.
On July fourth, Hamilton’s bank opened for business at Carpenters’ Hall, and before noon its allotment of shares had been sold out. Soon they were trading at 20, 30, and 40 percent above par. It was reckoned an enormous success by the Treasury Department. The Federalist newspapers crowed with triumph. The poor of the city grumbled and observed in the bank the mechanism of British oligarchy, but the rich refused to see how they made a darling of their own destruction.
In New York, Dalton and his boys had done their part; it was now time for me to do mine. Accordingly, I was obliged to spend more of our little stock of money than I should like upon clothing, but I needed to look every bit the lady. I rented my own rooms in a fashionable house on Second Street, and I began to appear in public. I promenaded about High Street and struck up conversations with other fashionable women. I appeared at concerts and performances, sometimes with a handsomely dressed Mr. Skye as my escort. I let it be known that I was a widow of means, and that was all the recommendation I needed to enter society.
As my men in New York discovered, William Duer had more than a few accomplices in Philadelphia. Some of them were known as his agents, and the world presumed they acted upon his orders. Others, however, were unknown. Should they be discovered, their usefulness would come to an end. Their primary responsibilities were no more than to set themselves up as speculators in their own right with their own reputations, and then, when called upon, to soften or freeze trade as Duer required.
If a speculator wished to get the better of William Duer, he need only discover the identities of those hidden agents, learn their orders, and proceed accordingly. Given Duer’s prominence, given that a sneeze or cough from his lips had the power to send prices soaring or plummeting, I was a bit surprised no one had previously attempted our scheme: to infiltrate the innermost sanctum of his operation and outwit him.
Yes, I suppose it required a singular focus to even think of such a thing, and the truth is, such an operation would be unlikely to yield significant results. Duer might be outwitted once and even twice, but upon the third occasion he would certainly begin to suspect betrayal. It required a unique set of circumstances, such as those belonging to our little band of whiskey rebels, that a single instance could suffice.
We waited until late August, when the worst of the convulsions from the bank launch had passed. On the morning in question, I arrived at the City Tavern in the company of Mr. Skye, whom the general company must have thought to be a trader. It was not unknown for speculators to bring a lady to their trading sessions, perhaps to impress someone of the delicate sex with the manly pursuit of financial chicanery. We took a seat at a table in the main room without attracting overmuch notice. We called for tea, and once we had been served, Skye slipped away, leaving me alone in this room full of panting, sweating, gesticulating men, too bent upon their own pursuits to notice that a lone lady sat among their number.
My wish had been to remain unnoticed until I desired notice, and then to be noticed indeed. Accordingly, I wore a cream-colored gown with a high neck and long sleeves. It was not my best color, but I believe its cut showed off my shape to advantage. I wished to be pleasing to the man who looked twice, not the one who looked once.
Here I was, then, at the very center of the Hamiltonian maelstrom. I looked about in disgust at the traders, who seemed in their slavering greed more beast than man, as though, like in a child’s story, transformed by vile magic. I recalled such stories from my own childhood, but I would not tell any myself, not to my own children. That was what this room, these men, had taken from me.
Fifteen years before, in this very city, not a quarter of an hour’s walk from where I now sit, men had gathered in the Pennsylvania Statehouse to ratify the Declaration of Independence. How they had been like gods. How they had put aside their petty differences and concerns, their all-too-real fears for their own safety and property and lives that they might carve from the raw stone of idea and history an empire of republican value. Now all was in decline, as good as ruined, owing to Hamilton and his policies of gluttony and oligarchy and corruption. Men like Jefferson and Madison might condemn these outrages, but their condemnation would do no good if the men and women of the republic did not fight for the principals of the Revolution.
As I looked at these men, how I hated Hamilton. More than Duer, more even than Tindall, I hated Hamilton, for what he had wrought. Duer who had lured us west, Tindall who had murdered my husband—they were but dogs. Hamilton was the master who had trained them, and I would destroy him and his work. So help me, I would destroy it all.
And so I readied myself to do so. Glancing about the room, I wondered if any manner of dress, or even no dress at all, could have distracted these legions of mammon. There were some dozen or so tables, at which sat between one and six men. Each had about him saucers of tea, dishes of coffee, tankards of beer, goblets of wine, or some jumble of all four. Papers and documents and books were strewn about, and little portable inkstands had been arranged. Quills dipped and wrote with such fury that they produced a hurricane of ink.
One man would speak to another and a third would lean forward and say, “Ho, what’s that, selling such-and-such, are you? At what price? A good price!” And others would rise and shout and buy or sell and mark it down. And all this done with manic gestures to suggest that these were not men of business but men of madness, better suited for a house of lunatics than for this tavern where the fortunes of a newly born empire were to be set forth.
Not three tables separated me from Mr. Burlington Black, whom I knew, thanks to the excellent work accomplished in New York by Dalton and his boys. The plan was simple but no less cunning, particularly since Duer had executed it many times and remained undetected. He wished to purchase Bank of North America issues at a discount in Philadelphia and then sell them in New York, where the price remained untouched by a rumor that lowered the price in Philadelphia. Thus, the previous evening he had had it set about that the shares were trading at a deep discount in New York, which was untrue. This morning, Mr. Black, acting upon this rumor, would sell a fair
number of shares well below market price. Duer did not worry about the loss, since he would buy enough to make up the difference in New York profits, and experience had taught him that he would be able to buy the shares back himself, and at only slightly more than Mr. Black had sold them in the first place.
In the past, Duer had attempted operations in which one of his agents sold and a second bought, but he had discovered (so I learned through Dalton’s communications) that this entailed a significant risk: namely, that the world might remain oblivious of this bit of stagecraft. It was far more efficacious to recruit real speculators engaged in real efforts to earn money. He knew the inclination of these people to swarm like bees about good news and bad, so all he had to do was offer the right sort of pollen to attract their attention. In this case, Mr. Black would remind the world, through word and deed, of the rumors Duer and his agents had cast about. He would support the rumors with a willingness to shed his Bank of North America issues at any price and would watch while the other men in the room endeavored to unload their holdings. Then, purchases in hand, he or his man would take the next express coach to New York and trade there before word of the sell-off in Philadelphia reached those markets.
No one had yet noticed me, a quiet lady, as I sat alone in that most masculine of taverns, but I observed many men as they went about their business. I especially observed Mr. Burlington Black, upon whom so much depended. He was a soft-looking man of perhaps fifty, inclined to be stout, but his was a softness like the pliable fat of an infant.
I had been in place, sipping my tea slowly, when at last Mr. Burlington Black lumbered to his feet to show the world the unusual shortness of his legs. He then called to another speculator across the room.
“Mr. Cheever, correct me if I am mistaken, but did you not wish, the week before last, to acquire Bank of North America issues?” His voice was far deeper and steadier than I would have supposed. He was in appearance quite foolish but in utterance impressive. “I have some number of shares that I am ready to part with, if you are so inclined. If not—” He shrugged his shoulders to signal his indifference.
The Mr. Cheever to whom he addressed this speech, an elderly gentleman who rose to his feet only with the aid of a cane in one hand and a younger supporter lifting his elbow, readied himself and returned his address to Mr. Black. Like Duer’s agent, he shouted across the large tavern room, but then I had already observed this to be the custom, close conversation and whispering being regarded as mean things. “You were not so ready to part with them two weeks ago, when I offered a reasonable price.”
“I am merely shifting my holdings, as does any man,” answered Mr. Black. “I believe you offered me some twenty-seven hundred dollars two weeks ago, and I stand ready now to accept.”
Mr. Cheever, in return, barked out a laugh. “I’ve done too much business and seen you go about your affairs far too often. You know something about the issues, don’t you? Some trouble at that bank, is it? I would not buy for twenty-three hundred.”
The other men in the room continued to trade and go about their own business, but I could see that each one had one ear or eye upon this transaction, for it was also their business to sense when something might change, and there were signs of such a thing about to happen here.
Mr. Burlington Black swallowed hard, sending a wave of undulation along the wattle of his throat. “I shall sell you the portfolio discussed for twenty-one hundred dollars.”
Now, indeed, trades fell silent and the other speculators turned to watch, for what happened next would determine if they would buy more of the bank’s holdings or sell what they already possessed. Mr. Cheever peered at the other man with much skepticism. “I decline,” he said, with the wave of a withered hand.
Silence befell the room.
Mr. Black, to his credit, reddened considerably and appeared extremely agitated. I know not if his response was from anxiety about the burden placed upon him or mere theatrical skill, but in either case he created the impression of a man most distressed. “Nineteen hundred,” he said, his voice tremulous, “and you know you have a significant bargain.”
A serving boy came in to collect some of the dirty saucers, and one of the speculators shushed him as he dared to clink dish upon dish.
Mr. Cheever evidently scented trouble. “I don’t like your urgency, and I shall decline.”
Now a gasp arose from the room. In but a few minutes, the value of these holdings had fallen by a third, and the speculators were for a moment frozen as they attempted to form their strategies. Those who owned issues from the Bank of North America plotted how best to relieve themselves of the unwanted things. Those who did not scrambled to determine how they might profit from this sudden shift.
It was at this moment, when all was in flux and no one knew yet what he would do, in the seconds before someone would decide to buy and send the main room of the City Tavern into a bacchanal of buying and selling, that Mr. Duer always made his move. I knew this from the dispatches sent by Mr. Dalton. He would rise and announce that he had faith in one of this country’s great banks, and he would be glad to accept Mr. Black’s offer. He would then gather to himself similar offerings, reduced by a third, and when he turned around and sold them in New York, he would be praised as a sagacious businessman who scented the wind far better than his brothers of that trade.
I rose from my chair. “I shall buy for nineteen hundred,” I called in a clear voice.
It is difficult to say if my willingness to purchase or my being a woman produced more surprise, but there was a momentary outburst as all shouted at once, and an expression of terror and confusion washed over Mr. Black’s face.
By the accepted rules of the City Tavern, Mr. Black could not pick and choose to whom he would sell, and his offer to Mr. Cheever, once rejected by that gentleman, might be fairly taken by any other. I had done what any man might do, and my actions might be condemned as improper because I was a woman, but they could not be rejected.
Mr. Black, however, must have weighed his options and determined that he could not sell to me at such a price. He turned a near purple color as he struggled to find some escape, and at last he shook his head, sending his cheeks to shuddering. “I must decline to sell. I do not trade with ladies.” Then he decided he would make himself into a scoundrel if he must in order to save his trade and added, “Or with women, for that matter.”
Once more, the floor erupted. Men called no! and custom! and the rules! One man shouted, “You must sell!” and received general approbation. Encouraged, he added, “If you do not, you are no longer welcome here. We cannot have a man who will not observe our customs.”
This comment received general assent, and, at last, knowing that he had been backed into a corner, Mr. Black nodded. Indeed, he looked somewhat relieved. I supposed he had told himself he had done all he could and Duer could not reproach him.
I strode over to him, and Mr. Black offered me a bow. “I am unused to trading with ladies, and my passions overcame me. I beg your forgiveness.”
I smiled and curtsied and shook his hand, to signal completion of the trade. It was done, and he could not now rescind without ruining his reputation. “It is no matter, sir. You have not harmed me. Indeed, you have served me well, for I know that these issues retain their full value. If I can find no one to buy them here, I doubt not I can sell them in New York, where my agents tell me they will sell quite readily.”
I had not said this in anything above a conversational voice, but I knew I would be heard and the surety with which I spoke would destroy Duer’s ability to perpetuate his scheme. It was not that my opinion carried any weight, for the traders did not know me, and I was only a woman, after all. Yet, the certainty with which I spoke would break the spell cast by Duer’s agent’s efforts, and no one would be anxious either to buy or to sell until more could be learned.
My business being concluded, I went back to my table and collected my things, making a show of preparing to leave. I hoped I would be st
opped. I hoped my sagacity would, after this one trade, be enough to attract interest, but I could not be certain. If not, I would have to risk more trades, though there would be diminishing returns, for each new success would be regarded less with admiration and wonder and more with suspicion.
I need not have worried, for I felt a hand fall upon my elbow, and when I turned, my smile quite prepared, I met the eye of none other than Mr. William Duer himself. I had not known he was present and had not seen him arrive. I had hoped he would be on the scene to watch his little deception, and here he was, witness to my own. He stood before me, the principal villain of my life’s woe, the man who had, through his conniving and greed, destroyed everything I loved. This man had murdered my child and my Andrew, and he now smiled at me.
“Madam, William Duer of New York at your service.” He bowed to me. “Though I observe from a thousand little things that you are new to the business of trading, you have impressed me with your knowledge and your coolness. I wonder if you would honor me by joining me for a dish of chocolate upstairs, where the rooms are far quieter.”
I met the monster’s gaze directly. “Mr. Duer, I should be foolish indeed to neglect the attentions of a man so well regarded as yourself.” And thus it was that we went upstairs together.
Ethan Saunders
I have never enjoyed traveling long distances by road. The movement of the coach prevents any reading or other amusement, and there is little to do that passes the time other than conversation with strangers, yet the quality of strangers in a coach is never high. Instead one must endure perpetual jostling, an ongoing merciless rump paddling, combined with rough swaying and shoving. In winter, when the windows must be closed against the cold, the stench is of stewing bodies, of breath and garlic and onion and unclean breeches. Above that is the smell, too, of old damp wood, wet wool and leather, and inevitable flatulence. It is an unkind experience.
