The Patriots were united in this desire for independence, but Charles discovered through listening and occasionally asking questions that they were united in very little else, and that there were as many internal fears and jealousies and mistrusts as in any group of men. Many doubted the wisdom of calling in the aid of France, for all General Washington's certainty about it. It was likely that Spain would ally with France, and when the British were defeated, many feared that the two Catholic powers would simply carve up America between them, and that the colonists would pass from the comparatively easy slavery to Britain into a slavery to Popish powers ten times as abject.
There was also hostility between the planters of the south and the traders of the north, who felt their interests conflicted and held each other in suspicion. There was fear on the part of the slave-owners that the New Englanders would try to abolish slavery. There was suspicion by the east coast dwellers of the western farmers, who never drank tea and felt the heel of Europe less firmly on their necks. And there was a great fear on the part of the Old Families, the American 'aristocracy', that independence from Britain would unleash the mob, and that a republican government would abolish wealth and privilege.
Despite all this, Charles found himself growing more sympathetic towards the Patriots as time went on, and resenting their presence in his life less. But he was still aware that he was under suspicion, and that if the British navy sailed into Chesapeake Bay, his position would be very delicate indeed.
CHAPTER NINE
The Ariadne's three-year commission ended in March 1777, and she was sent home to Portsmouth; but the navy was desperately undermanned and short of ships, and as soon as she had paid-off she was recommissioned with all her officers, and the men had not one single day on shore to spend their accumulated pay or taste the joys of the Portsmouth grog shops and brothels. It was a delicate time, and there was almost mutiny, and five men had to be flogged before things were quiet again. Ariadne delivered despatches, collected letters for the fleet, revictualled, took on a dozen new hands, and sailed without delay.
Even the officers had seen nothing of their families. One of the lieutenants had a wife in Portsmouth, and she had sent a message by a shore boat that she was waiting on the dockside for him, but the most he had been able to do was to borrow a glass and look at her from the taffrail. For Thomas and William it was, of course, doubly impossible, their families being so far away, but there were at least letters. William was better pleased than Thomas, for he had no particular reason to want to go home, and his letters, from his mother and father and Edward, with a line from Father Ramsay, were full of news and more than he expected. His mother, he learnt, was well advanced in pregnancy and had been told not to ride any more until she was delivered, which made her feel frustrated. She was using up her energies on reorganizing the house. Papa had got her a housekeeper, Mrs Mappin, to ease the burden from her shoulders, and the two were at continued loggerheads over the way things should be done.
All this he learnt from his father's letter. From his mother's letter he learnt that his father was doing far too much, and wearing himself out, for as well as all his duties as a Justice of the Peace, he was on the boards of both the Turnpike Trust and the Canal Trust, was a governor of St Edward's School, and overseer of the Workhouse and Hospital, and was now determinedly trying to interest other landowners in growing potatoes. And that Persis was wonderfully fit, and was going to win everything at the York races, and another of Artembares' offspring was going to come second. All in all, he learnt that his father loved his mother, and that his mother loved his father and horses, and thus that all was well in his world, and he was satisfied.
Thomas was less happy. He had hoped, of course, to see Flora; he had longed to see his daughter Louisa, who was now two and a half, and walking and talking and delighting Rachel by promising to have curly hair, and who would not recognize her father if she saw him. That was the greatest sadness in the life of a sailor. But he was not entirely happy with Flora's letters. They were shorter than he would have liked, and never mentioned the child - it was Jemima's correspondence that told him about Louisa's progress - and contained a great deal about London and parties and very little about Flora herself, or her feelings for her husband. He was glad that she was enjoying herself, of course, and that she had been presented at Court, and that she was so friendly with the Countess of Chelmsford; but though he would not go quite as far as admitting he wished her back at Morland Place, he thought she might be sorrier that he was not sharing her pleasures.
However, there was no time for brooding. Ariadne sailed again for the West Indies and Thomas had the additional tasks of seeing the new hands settled in, ridding the ship of the vermin they brought aboard, and exercising the crew so hard that they had no time to think of their grievances. They made a quick passage to Kingston, delivered the letters, picked up despatches, and sailed to New York to join General Howe in his new thrust against Washington's army.
Howe had decided against marching the army across New Jersey, and instead planned to sail the men and horses round the coast to the Delaware River and as far up it as possible towards Philadelphia, General Washington's capital. Embarkation took place on 23 July, 15,000 men, staff officers, baggage and horses, all to be got on board somehow. Conditions below were terrible, even on the three-deckers, and the weather was inimically hot. Ariadne had her contingent to carry. William had grown used to conditions on board, enough to consider the available space adequate if not generous, but even he was amazed to see how many more men could be crammed into a wooden ship when necessary. The soldiers regarded the sailors with suspicion, the sailors regarded the soldiers with tolerant amusement. Many of them were seasick, even though the seas were blessedly calm, and exclaimed in amazement at the conditions the sailors accepted as normal. The sailors thought them effete, unused to hardship, unable to think for themselves. Even William, while he was doing his best to offer the hospitality of the gunroom to the colour sergeants, found himself thinking contemptuously that he would like to see them run aloft in the dead of night in a storm to reef the tops'ls.
The horses were less of a problem, once they had been swayed aboard and hobbled to the deck-rings. Watering them was a continuous job, for they were always thirsty, and could not, like the men, be expected to put up with it; and the first lieutenant cursed and almost wept at the dinginess of his once white decks, fearing he would never rid them of the stable taint. The horses seemed to adapt to the movement 'of the ship quite quickly, and there were few accidents. At least they were not seasick; and at least they did not bring vermin on board with them, as did the soldiers. Within hours of the embarkation, William found himself scratching, and it was not long before the men of his watch began reporting to him, with a mixture of shame and pique, that they had got fleas, or lice, or bedbugs. In the heat, and the crowded conditions, the pests bred exponentially, and there was no hope of tackling them until the soldiers were disembarked again.
‘It won't be for long,' he tried to comfort the sufferers. ‘A week or so and we'll have the soldiers off, and deal with it.
But it was not a week or so - it turned out to be more than a month. They hove to outside the mouth of the Delaware for some time, while every glass in the squadron was trained on the shores, and then the flagship signalled and they passed on down the coast. Howe had decided that the Delaware was too well-guarded to risk a landing. They were to sail instead up the Chesapeake Bay and land the men at the head of it.
‘So we'll be as far from Philadelphia as we were when we started,' a fierce, red-faced colour sergeant said disgustedly when the change of plan filtered through to the midshipmen's berth. 'This is our general's master-stroke then! And how long, boy, will it take, to sail this tub round there?' he demanded of William, who bristled at the idea of his beautiful Ariadne's being called a tub, but forced himself to speak politely.
‘That depends on the wind, sir, but I should think two or three weeks.’
The col
our sergeant spat contemptuously. 'A fine business it would be if I were to give such an answer when a general asked me how long I'd take to march my men to such-and-such a place! Two or three weeks? A pretty margin of error you sailors allow yourselves! And in two or three weeks - or four or five, for all you seem to know -Washington will have organized his defences and we will have the Devil's job to dislodge him. Pah!’
He had been freely imbibing of his liquor ration, William told himself, keeping his temper with an effort, or he would not be so rude. As soon as he could excuse himself, William ran on deck, and climbed rapidly to the foretop, where at least the stable smell was fainter, to scratch himself in peace and swear away his ill feelings towards the soldiers.
After four weeks on board, the army was finally disembarked at the head of Chesapeake Bay on 25 August, weary and suffering from the heat and confinement. The bulk of the navy was to sail away immediately, but the smaller vessels, and amongst them the Ariadne, were ordered to bring up more supplies, and to look into the numerous creeks and inlets in search of American vessels. It was a command to please most captains, for the vessels captured would be prizes of war, which meant prize money. Thomas was less happy. He thought, of course, of York Plantation, and of Charles and his family. He knew that Philippe had an ocean-going vessel, as well as numerous small craft for use in the Bay itself, and it would be his duty to report their existence, even though he knew that Philippe was no friend to the revolution. It was fortunate that the Ariadne was too large to penetrate the channels and had been ordered to bring up supplies instead - he would not have personally to give the order to take or destroy the boats. He could at least, he thought, find some way of warning Charles to offer no resistance when the landing party came, for the orders would be to harm no one if they did not resist. Philippe, he thought, might object to losing his boats, even to the British navy, and ought to be forewarned.
However much he wanted to, he could not go ashore himself, but he thought it would be pleasant for William to see his Cousin Charles, even if only for a moment or two. He wrote his letter with great care as the Ariadne tacked her way gently down the Bay, and gave it to William, with orders to take the gig and four steady men and deliver it to his cousin. The Ariadne hove to at the mouth of the Patuxent River while the boat was lowered away, and then sailed on, to wait for the returning boat a little further down the Bay, where it was wider and safer.
‘Don't be longer than you have to,' he told Mr Midshipman Morland. 'Give him the letter, wait while he reads it, answer any questions you can, and then come off. It is not a social visit, remember.'
‘Aye aye, sir,' said William, saluted, and dashed away, thrilled to be sent on his first independent command at the age of fourteen, even if it was such a simple one.
*
The appearance of the squadron in the Bay had caused panic. Some of the larger privateers would not have been afraid to try and pick off a small vessel of the British navy, if they could have taken her by surprise, but there was nothing on the whole Bay that could have stood up to a single broadside from the smallest vessel in that squadron. Men went into hiding, ships were hastily sailed or towed into the narrowest and most inaccessible creeks, boats were thrust into the reeds or heaved out into boatsheds.
The news that the squadron was carrying an army was soon known, and had to be passed on to Philadelphia as quickly as possible. Messengers on horseback and in small boats hastened up the Bay, and Hampson himself arrived at York House to keep an eye on things even before the ships had gone by for the first time, on their way northwards.
It was lucky for William that he did, luckier still that when Ariadne put off a boat the lookout troubled to notice the name of the ship before he ran up to the house with the news.
‘It's my cousin's ship,' Charles told Hampson when he heard. 'My Cousin Thomas is her captain. It is probably nothing more than a message for me, a letter from England perhaps, family news.'
‘How many men?' Hampson asked the lookout.
‘Four men,' he answered tersely, 'and a boy in uniform, midshipman I guess.'
‘A midshipman - that could be my Cousin William,' Charles said eagerly. 'You see, it must be family news.’
Hampson and the lookout made no sign of having heard him. 'Four men and a boy,' the lookout said grimly. 'We could take 'em easy. Pick 'em off before they ever landed. Scuttle the boat. The ship's gone on down the bay, there's no one to see.’
Charles paled. 'No, no, I beg you! You must not!' ‘Might be reprisals,' Hampson said, still ignoring Charles. The lookout shrugged.
‘Who's to say what happened to 'em? A boy in charge—'
‘No, please, my cousin - it is family news, depend on it! They mean no threat to you. You must not think of—'
‘Must not, sir?' Hampson interrupted him coldly. Charles felt his hands cold and clammy, and a sickness in his stomach.
‘I beg you, sir, I beg you,' he said desperately. 'My wife is so near to her time - you must not permit violence here. Let him come and go. I promise there will be no trouble.’
Hampson was deep in thought for a moment or two, perhaps the worst moments of Charles's life. Then he said to the lookout, 'Let 'em come. Keep your men out of sight. I want 'em to think this is their place. He might be bringing information we can use.'
‘And afterwards?' the lookout said, licking his lips. Hampson shook his head.
‘No, let 'em go - unless I give the word otherwise. I'll be hidden here, I'll know what passes. If the boy doesn't go back, there'll be reprisals all right. I'll be listening, so Mr Morland won't feel inclined to pass him any information to take back.'
‘Thank you, thank you,' Charles said. 'I'll say nothing, I promise.’
*
William had been prepared to have to refuse all kind invitations, to press for his departure against a natural desire for him to stay and chat; but his Cousin Charles seemed as eager for him to leave as his orders could ever have made him. Altogether the atmosphere in the house was strange. Charles received him kindly, but with a strained inattention, as though he were listening all the time for some distant signal. He read Thomas's letter in silence, and when he had finished, looked up at William blankly, as if he had not taken it in.
‘I can wait while you write a reply, if you wish, sir,' William said.
‘Oh - no - no reply, I thank you. There is nothing to reply to,' Charles said awkwardly. There was a silence.
‘Your sister is well, sir, I am empowered to tell you, and enjoying the Season in London. And her daughter flourishes. My mother is expecting an increase to her family at any time. My father—'
‘Yes, yes, very good,' Charles said hastily. 'I am glad of it, glad, but should you not be returning to your ship?'
‘Very well, sir,' William said, greatly puzzled. 'Have I any message to give the captain?'
‘Tell him I thank him for the news. My wife and I are well - she is expecting a child almost daily. I will write when things are more settled. Go along now, and thank you for coming.’
William could do no other than allow himself to be hustled out. Something, he was sure, was painfully wrong, and the first thing that presented itself to his mind was that Cousin Charles had gone over to the other side. That would account for his embarrassment, his unwillingness to exchange news, and his desire to hurry William off the premises. But it would be a difficult thing to get across to his captain, for Charles was his brother-in-law as well as his friend, and he would not want to believe that he could betray his country and family.
When William had gone, Charles stood a moment in silence, clutching the letter and pondering. He was tempted to destroy it, burn it before Hampson came in to read it; but if he did, the men would still come to take the boats, and unwarned, Hampson might fire on them, resist, and provoke the landing party to greater violence. He felt bitter, bitter that he should have been placed in this situation, where his own brother-in-law was his enemy. Philippe and Eugenie had trapped him here, and for a mom
ent he hated them, and longed above all to be able to leave, run away back to England and safety. But Eugenie above in her chamber was great with his child, and that bound him more effectively than any chains.
Soon the news came down the Bay that a great battle had been fought on the banks of Brandywine Creek, and the British, despite their tiredness, had defeated the Americans. Forewarned of the intention of the navy to destroy all small craft on the Bay, Hampson had sent orders for as many craft as could be moved to be sailed far up the creeks, or hidden in the Choptank marshes. The larger vessels were to try to evade capture by dodging about from one inlet to another, keeping ahead of the British ships, until it was possible to slip round behind them to safety. In this way many vessels were saved, although others were captured or burnt. The landing party that called on York Plantation came in an armed cutter, looking for the bateau, and when they could not find her, broke up every small boat in the place. Hampson gave orders for his men to offer no resistance and to keep out of sight, and himself posed as the master of the house, for Charles was otherwise engaged.
‘What's that noise?' the British lieutenant asked sharply, as a cry was heard from upstairs just as he was about to leave.
‘My wife, sir, in labour of our first child,' Hampson said smoothly.
The lieutenant frowned a moment, and then bowed. ‘Your pardon, sir. I won't intrude on you any longer.’
Late that night, after a long and hard labour, Eugenie produced her first child. It was a girl, and they named her Charlotte, after her father. When Charlotte was less than a month old, the news came that the British had taken Philadelphia, thus opening up the Delaware River to British ships, even as the Chesapeake had been opened. And shortly after that came the news that Philippe's boat had been intercepted trying to land arms and ammunition on the Delaware coast. The British ship that intercepted her fired a warning shot, but it was badly aimed, and struck her hull very low. Part of the cargo of ammunition exploded, blowing out the bows of the ship, and she sank in a very few minutes. The British ship had put out boats, but though they had swept the area, there appeared to be no survivors.
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