by Edward Cline
“Yes, sir,” replied the lieutenant, who sat at a side table with an open book. “But, must the Crown remain silent when its character is besmirched?”
Tallmadge’s face became taut with amazement. “Mr. Manners, you are not the Crown. It rests on the wisdom of His Majesty and his counselors to decide if it is in conflict with the colonies or at war with another nation, and to prescribe, as you put it, the proper corrective.”
“Yes, sir.” Manners mechanically turned over a few leaves of Flavius Vegetius Renatua’s treatise, De Re Militari, without seeing a single word, then resolutely closed it shut and said, “Forgive me the insolence, sir, but you must think me less than diligent if, when I witness your actions at Morland Hall today, and hear the sentiments expressed by you this evening, I am not led to suspect that, as Mr. Frake himself put it, your loyalties are divided.”
Tallmadge frowned, and said with sharpness, “If they are, Mr. Manners, that is between me, my conscience, and the Crown. I will not answer your or anyone else’s speculation on the matter. The subject is closed to discussion.”
“Yes, sir.” The lieutenant turned in his chair and opened the book again.
* * *
In another part of the great house, Reverdy asked, “When do you think Mr. Geary will return to Caxton?” She stood at the bedroom window, contemplating some lights that shown faintly across the York. She was still shaken by the near-disaster at Morland Hall.
“In a few days. He has cargo to lade at West Point, and then some lumber and oats here.”
“So…I must begin preparing for the journey. Dilch will help me pack.”
“Yes, of course.” Hugh stood studying her figure at the window for a moment. “Well, I am to the study, to draft some letters you may take with you to post. Will you go to London first, or to Danvers?”
“I think I shall see my parents first, in Danvers, then journey up to London to stay a while with Alex’s parents. Or with James and his wife. They have a fine house on Berkeley Square.” Alex McDougal was her late husband, who had died years ago during a foiled robbery. James Brune was her brother, a merchant and trader with the McDougal commercial interests.
“You would surely be welcome in Chelsea,” suggested Hugh. His parents lived at Cricklegate, a spacious house in Chelsea, just west of London on the Thames.
“I know,” answered Reverdy. “I will call on your parents…once I have regained some peace.”
Hugh smiled tentatively. “It’s very odd that you will be seeing the McDougals. I have never met Alex’s parents.”
A moment passed before Reverdy answered, “You were never meant to, Hugh.” It almost sounded like a reproach.
Hugh sighed. “Yes. Of course not.” He paused. “Well, I will be downstairs for a while.” Then he turned and left the room.
* * *
John Proudlocks called on Meum Hall the next day and offered his apology for not having visited Hugh and Reverdy sooner after his return from England. “I am a man of property now, and, as Jack has told me many times in the past, property is a demanding mistress.”
“Well worth the attention, I trust, with commensurate rewards,” Reverdy teased him.
Proudlocks was stunned by this risqué reply. He laughed once, “What an unladylike sentiment!”
“That is what happens when a lady is permitted to peruse gentlemen’s literature, as I do. There would be more and better ladies and mistresses, if our sex could widen its reading. And, I might add, more contented husbands.” Reverdy grinned at the helpless look on her guest’s face. She laughed. “Well, you will need to neglect your own mistress for a while, Mr. Proudlocks, and join us today on a picnic on the front lawn, and tell us all about her and London.”
Proudlocks stayed for the rest of the afternoon, and made better acquaintance with Roger Tallmadge. Tallmadge asked about Alice, whom he had not seen in over a year. Proudlocks assured him that she was in perfect health and in good spirits. It was a perfectly balmy day for the picnic. The house servants set up a table on the lawn near the bluff overlooking the river. Hugh, Reverdy, Tallmadge, and Proudlocks chatted happily over a meal of sweetmeats, tea and wine. Lieutenant Manners, not trusting himself again in the company of his superior’s friends, was granted leave by Tallmadge to ride into Caxton to find amusement there. The conversation ranged from the possibility of a drought to the rising prices in the shops in Caxton and Williamsburg as a result of the stricter enforcement of taxes and regulations by the navy and the Customsmen.
The conversation eventually turned to speculation on the identity of “Junius,” author of a series of letters published in the Public Advertiser in London between 1769 and 1772 that criticized the Grafton ministry. The letters not only scandalized the Duke of Grafton, but St. James’s Palace, as well.
Hugh said, “I am only now finding the time to read the newspapers that Captain Ramshaw was kind enough to send to me. Well, the letters do not so much argue against corruption and the mendacity of Grafton, as attack him with invective and insinuation. Hardly a practical means of bringing men to justice. His letters are too coy to my taste.”
Roger added, “He has also attacked Viscount Barrington.”
“And the whole of the king’s party, and His Majesty, as well,” added Proudlocks.
“It is a wonder to me that the ministry never moved against the Advertiser,” said Hugh.
Roger shook his head. “No wonder at all, Hugh. Lessons have been learned from the Wilkes imbroglio. Now that the Commons’ debates can be reported, ministers and members are chary of bringing charges against publishers and printers. I believe a new era of accountability has dawned in England. Who knows where it will lead?”
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, nonetheles
s. 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 f
oiled 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?”
Chapter 8: The Observance
“Fasting, 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!”
