SH05_Revolution

by Edward Cline

  “We are fortunate that the obedient agents of the nascent tyrants in the government have no bottom,” remarked Reisdale. “They are confounded by their own doubts about the legitimacy and practicality of their actions.”

  “Aye, that’s the truth of it,” said Jock Frazer. “They were hoping that we also are wormed with doubt, and would submit to their authority with nary a whimper.”

  “I would not call Lord Shelburne a nascent or an actual tyrant,” opined Vishonn. “I have read in the papers and in my London friends’ letters that while he drew up the Proclamation of ’63, that is, all its particulars, he did not expect them to be used as a tool of mischief. But when Grenville became head of the government, Lord Shelburne resigned from the Board of Trade, knowing that man’s intentions and overall taste for ruling like a Persian. It is not Lord Shelburne’s fault that his plan, which would have allowed gradual settlement and exploitation west of the Alleghenies, was misused by his successors in ministry.” He paused. “My information comes from a friend who regularly sups with Lord Shelburne.”

  Jock Frazer laughed. “My information is that he imbibes more spirits than he consumes substance!”

  Jack Frake addressed his host. “Are you defending benevolent despotism, sir?”

  “I am not defending any despotism,” relied Vishonn. “I simply wish to exonerate Lord Shelburne of evil intentions.”

  “He gave our ‘masters’ the means to enslave us, whether or not his intentions were benign,” said Jack. “From what I have read myself, and by what Mr. Kenrick’s friend in the Commons has written, the policy was to contain us in order to better dun us. The Currency and Sugar Acts were the first overtures of that policy. That policy was moved by as many evil intentions as was Mr. Grenville’s.”

  “Really, sir,” replied Vishonn, “you must grant the man some doubt, some rope.”

  Jack shook his head. “I cannot. The rope I would be unwise enough to grant him may someday be put around my neck.” He paused. “I have seen men hang for having been right.” He added, “It is immaterial what were Shelburne’s intentions. Even were it true that he did not intend the lands west of the Alleghenies to be forever beyond our reach, those lands were destined to be parceled out to the colonies by the Crown itself, on Crown terms, at the Crown’s price.”

  Hugh said, “The northern colonies are especially bitter. The Currency Act hurts us all, but the Sugar Act altered and diminished their trade of molasses and rum, whose smuggled exchange once enabled those colonies to maintain their accounts and purchase British goods. What tobacco, wheat, and corn are to us, molasses, fish, and lumber are to the northern colonies. A more ardent Navy in customs enforcement has not helped them at all.”

  “I am afraid that Mr. Pitt will soon enter the picture,” said Reisdale. “He, too, is a good-intentioned man, but he is for empire by means of proclamations and regulations. He may give us half a loaf, but we must beware of it. It may be a sugar loaf, but no less detrimental to our liberties.”

  “Such as the half loaf the West Indies sugar growers managed to drive through Parliament?” queried Hugh rhetorically. “To hear the northern delegates at the congress tell it, the difference between six pence and three pence on French and Spanish molasses is poverty and hostility. The reduction in that particular tax was a conscious attempt to collect revenue and subvert what little freedom to trade they had up there. Barring free trade, the old Molasses Act of 1733 was the basis of their prosperity. Now new duties on wine from the Azores and Madeiras, and on white sugar, coffee, pimento, and indigo from islands in the Indies not under British sovereignty are also dutied. The extension of that Act and its more rigorous enforcement have brought many merchants in Boston and Newport and New York to grief, especially now that the Navy has become a more conscientious agent of the customs collectors. And the customs collectors themselves, who once turned a blind eye to illicit cargoes in exchange for illicit emoluments, have now mostly eschewed bribery and become more bellicose in their positions.”

  “I view the empowered admiralty court as just as pernicious a threat,” said Reisdale. “It saves the customs collectors the risk of malfeasance, because the Stamp Act allows them to pillage our trade without the necessity of sly, underhanded avarice.”

  “And indemnifies them against their errors,” added Hugh. “And endorses writs of assistance and the employment and reward of spies.”

  “What are we revolting against, sirs? Power, or the corruption of that power?” asked Henry Otway. “I confess the issue is muddled in my mind.”

  “Against the corruption, for the time being,” answered Jack. “And, when London attempts to make its empire and policies pure and corruption-proof — and I agree with Mr. Kenrick’s assessment that this is the direction London is likely to take — then we must revolt against the power. That is in the cards. An honest tyranny is as much to be feared as a dishonest one.”

  “We are not revolting,” objected Vishonn. “We are claiming our liberties. I will not tolerate talk of revolt in this house.” His companions did not know whether or not their host was jesting.

  Reisdale chuckled and said, “Then if you object to such talk, sir, I recommend that you stand for burgess next year.”

  Henry Otway said, “Yes. I have heard that Mr. Cullis may choose to remove himself from his incumbency.”

  “Sir,” asked Hugh of his host, “did you extend an invitation to the Cullis family?”

  Reece Vishonn looked innocent. “Yes, I did, sir. You see them here this evening. The father has appeared with his wife, but they asked me to excuse the son because of an illness.” He paused to chuckle in doubt. “I understand that you assign as much blame to your fellow burgess for the attempted smuggling of the stamps as to Captain Sterling and Mr. Mercer.”

  “No, I do not,” answered Hugh. “He merely prepared the way, a way that cost Mr. Barret his life, as well. And, in consort with the House leaders, he prompted the Governor to deny us any means to protest.”

  “That is a grave charge,” warned Otway.

  “The charge is commensurate with the action and consequences. Mr. Cullis would not have acted alone in the matter.”

  “I did not observe him cheering Colonel Mercer’s dumb show at the Capitol, that is for certain,” said Reisdale. “Many other burgesses did, but not he.”

  Hugh shrugged. “Mr. Mercer? Well, he did not much warm a bench in the chamber when he was elected to it, and I doubt he will have the opportunity to ever warm it, now. As for Mr. Cullis, I cannot predict what he will do. I am not concerned.”

  Henry Otway picked up a copy of the Virginia Gazette that lay on a side table near his chair. “Doubtless you have all read his statement here,” he said, waving the newspaper in the air. “There was a serving of kickshaw to compete with the worst plate ever prepared by the cooks at the Raleigh!”

  Reisdale nodded in agreement. “Yes. Speaking of kickshaw, his feast of words left me feeling empty. There was far too much piety in them for me to purchase belief in their sincerity.”

  “A half loaf of another kind,” remarked Hugh. He chuckled in contempt, and reached for the Gazette, which Otway handed him. He read from the column “‘Thus, gentlemen, I am circumstanced.’ What villainous blather!” he scoffed, handing the paper back to Otway. “No man journeys all the way to London in a quest for a Crown sinecure without being ‘circumstanced.’ He seeks such a circumstance.”

  Reece Vishonn turned in his chair and addressed Arthur Stannard, who stood with a glass of port in the shadow in back of the circle of seated men. “Sir, we know you are full of perspective, yet we have not heard a word from you on any subject. You may speak without risk of censure here.”

  “We did not see you at the pier last week,” said Otway. “Too immersed in your account books?”

  Stannard shook his head. “No, sir. Frankly, I disagreed with the action taken on that day by many of you here, and decided I would not lend my presence to the protest. I still object to it. As does Reverend
Acland. Even Sheriff Tippet had his reservations, and Mayor Corbin.” He paused. “Reverend Acland declined to attend, as you well know.” He smiled nervously.

  Jock Frazer laughed. “It is the first ball he has ever missed!”

  “Well, Mr. Corbin and Mr. Tippet certainly haven’t objected to the outcome!” laughed Vishonn. “They’re here, lapping up my punch and kickshaw! They’re welcome to it!”

  “No, they haven’t objected to the outcome,” agreed Stannard. “What do you think Governor Fauquier will do about it? He is sure to learn of the event.”

  Hugh shook his head. “Nothing, sir. He failed to ensure employment of the stamps. He will neither do anything about it, nor even mention it to the Board of Trade.”

  “There’s another well-intentioned man,” observed Jock Frazer. “I don’t envy him his place.”

  “Trapped in a political purgatory between policy and principle,” mused Hugh, “unable to reconcile the requisites of the nation with the tenets of liberty and free trade.”

  Jack Frake remarked with a nod, “Yes. In the long view, the most benign minister or member of Parliament must choose between reason and force.” He smiled at Reisdale. “There is the half loaf we must never accept — the mongrel unity of the two.”

  Vishonn puffed thoughtfully on his pipe for a moment, then asked, “If you were a wagering man, Mr. Frake, which would you put your money on? Reason or force?”

  “Neither, sir,” said Jack. “We will see half loaves by the dozen. If the Stamp Act is nullified or even repealed, you may wager on further attempts to subject us. London has won an empire, and is determined to rule it and profit by it. I recollect saying this in this very room, years ago, gentlemen, on the occasion of General Wolfe’s triumph at Quebec.”

  “Do you object to the empire?” asked Vishonn.

  “Only if it treats me as its servant,” replied Jack. “That would be worth a volume of objections.”

  * * *

  Etáin’s last selection was the Welsh melody, “Ash Grove.” After taking her final bows for the evening, she spent time with her husband and other guests. But at one point during the ball, she took Hugh Kenrick aside. “Did you meet someone in New York?” she asked.

  “Yes,” answered Hugh, startled by the question, “many of the delegates.” He smiled back at her, and saw in her green eyes that she meant something else.

  “Were there many women at the congress?”

  “Of course, but not in attendance.” Then he understood the import of her question. “Oh. I see. No, Etáin, I did not meet a lady at the congress.” He smiled and conceded her powers of observation. “No, not at the congress, but in Hampton.” He paused. “But she must have been a ghost, or I had a fever.” He chuckled. “How could you guess?”

  “You have looked distracted, ever since you returned from the congress.”

  Hugh grinned. “Don’t you mean ‘despondent’?”

  “All right. ‘Despondent.’ It darkens your gallantry.”

  “I did not know I was so transparent.”

  “You are not to most others, but are to me. That is because I know you too well.”

  Hugh wished to change the subject. “How are your parents faring? I miss them.”

  “I, too, miss them. They have settled in Edinburgh. Father is with another tobacco merchant firm, although he often travels to London and Bristol on its business.”

  * * *

  John Ramshaw stayed another week at Meum Hall until his business in West Point and Williamsburg was finished. Hugh did not query him again about Reverdy Brune and her brother.

  The captain rode out to the fields with his host to watch the tenants dismantle the conduit and store it for the winter. He did not comfortably ride a horse, but managed to keep up with Hugh. He remarked at one point, as they stopped to rest by the water collection tower by Hove Stream, which was being repaired, “You and Jack and the others have saved me the trouble of retiring early from the sea.”

  Hugh grinned in amusement, glancing at the captain’s crown of silver hair. The shocks of black had vanished now, and he had observed Ramshaw’s slight winces when he moved. Arthritis was beginning to claim the man’s joints. He guessed that his friend was now somewhere in his sixties. “How so, sir?”

  “There was little chance that my artisans could have forged those damned stamps with any success, and in such quantity. And the fates have blessed me all these years, in that no civil or naval limpet has ever rummaged my ship to discover its secret print shop. That can’t last. In a few years I shall hang up my sextant.” He paused to take a swig of port from a water flask.

  Hugh knew about the two men in the captain’s crew who worked in a concealed compartment of the Sparrowhawk to produce false customs forms and dockets for much of the cargo that Ramshaw brought into the various ports up and down the seaboard. He also took a drink from his flask. “I understand that Jack has decided not to husband the Sparrowhawk,” he said.

  Ramshaw sighed and shook his head. “True. All he would need to do is see to provisioning us for the return voyage. But he won’t commit his time or means to such a venture. Offered him generous terms, and he was tempted to accept them. Gave me an odd reason for declining, though.”

  “What?”

  “He said it was too soon, that not enough of us had caught up with him. Said something about his risking a set-to with the customs or Navy, and he would probably be clapped in irons before his time!” Ramshaw paused, then shook his head. “I can’t decide whether that is vanity or wisdom.”

  “Wisdom,” answered Hugh. “You should know better, Mr. Ramshaw. Jack is the proudest man in these parts, and the least vain.” He added, as an afterthought, “He is the north.”

  Ramshaw grunted. “Skelly once told me he was the future.”

  “The future? The future of what?”

  “He didn’t say, sir. I daresay no one could say. Only Jack.” Ramshaw grinned and shook his head. “No, it couldn’t be vanity. For as long as I’ve known him, sir, he’s known what he’s about.”

  Ramshaw left Caxton on the Sparrowhawk two weeks after the incident at the pier. Hugh, Jack Frake, and Etáin saw him off. They expected to see him again in the spring.

  Hugh returned to his routines at Meum Hall. Always in his work was a little ache of memory of Reverdy Brune, one that caused him to wonder where she was now. Was she in Norfolk? Did she and her brother journey to Charleston? To Annapolis? Had she forgotten him? Or was she afraid to see him again?

  Then, one morning while he was supervising with his overlooker, William Settle, the plowing of manure and ground clamshells into the cleared tobacco acreage that he had decided to let lie fallow for two years, he thought he heard the rattle of a carriage in the distance. He put the distraction out of his mind. Then Spears rushed over the fields to inform him that he had visitors.

  His mind still half on the task at hand, he wondered: Was it Lieutenant-Governor Fauquier calling to enquire about his role in the stoppage of the stamps? Who else in Queen Anne County would visit him in a carriage? And who might have accompanied him? Peyton Randolph? Speaker John Robinson? Had they come to chastise him for having attended the Stamp Act Congress last month? He asked Spears who it was.

  “A gentleman, sir,” said the valet, “and his sister. Mr. James Brune, and Mrs. Brune-McDougal, fresh from Williamsburg.” Spears paused. “They say you are an old friend, sir.”

  Hugh simply stared at the valet for a moment, speechless, then remembered to instruct him to tell Mrs. Vere, the housekeeper, to make them comfortable, and the cook to prepare some refreshments. “I’ll come in after I’ve seen to some things here,” he said. “In a few minutes.”

  Spears said, “Yes, sir.” He paused, then added in confidence, “I do believe they are expecting to stay for a while, sir. A wagon came with them, loaded with baggage, I noted. They did not state what their intentions were, of course.”

  Hugh blinked once. “Yes. Well, then see that the extra rooms are also pre
pared, if that is their intention.”

  “Yes, sir.” Spears turned and hurried back to the great house.

  * * *

  Chapter 13: The Visit

  “Gorgeous country here, Hugh,” said James Brune. “Reverdy and I quite envy you the place. It is vast and pleasant enough to even stir a bit of ambition in me to perhaps come here and try my hand.”

  Hugh replied, “You have just missed the summer, James. Summers here can be fatiguing and close. Sometimes, in that season, one feels as though one were struggling inside a vat of butter. Sweat sticks like cloth to one’s skin, denying it breath and providing nourishment for countless insects, foreign and familiar.”

  James Brune laughed. Reverdy’s older brother had, of course, matured into reasonable good looks and had developed an amiable manner and perspective on things. The pallor that he, like other travelers, acquired during a first Atlantic crossing, had ebbed. He was a silent partner in the merchant company of McLeod and McDougal of London and Edinburgh. The financial marriage of the Brunes and McDougals had proven to be propitious and profitable for all concerned. In the place of his late brother-in-law, he had come to the colonies to scout out more trade possibilities for his firm.

  James Brune and his sister had stayed with some relations of one of his partners in Norfolk. “And, some friends of Mr. McLeod also live there. I have never seen so many Scotsmen together in one place before as in Norfolk, except in Scotland! That area of the James is quite active in trade. I was particularly impressed with the shipbuilding there. It quite rivals any port in the south of England.”

  They sat together on a bench at the edge of the trim, landscaped lawn that overlooked the York River on the other side of the great house of Meum Hall. The wide expanse below them was a bluish-gray today, dotted with scattered flotillas of waterfowl and ever-busy with craft of numerous sizes and purposes, sailing in the river breezes in both directions on the great commerce way.