As he stood on the Hingham quay and watched the packet’s bow inch in toward dockside, it was all he could do to keep his emotions in check. Before the packet was secured to the dock, Caleb swung a leg over her side and jumped down onto the wharf, dropping to a knee from the pain in his left leg. His father gently drew him up and embraced him as those standing nearby looked on in respectful silence.
“How I wish your mother were here today to see this,” Thomas said, choking on the words. Elizabeth Cutler had succumbed two years earlier to the crippling effects of ill health suffered over many years. Caleb had read about his mother’s death in a letter his father had sent him through the British consul in Algiers. “Her last wish was to see you safely home.”
“She knows, Father,” Caleb said, his own voice unsteady. “I’m sure she knows I’m home with you today.”
Richard and Agreen remained on the packet until father and son had turned to walk down the quay together. Then they jumped off, followed by Will and Jamie.
“I’ll get Katherine, Father,” Richard called out when they were on dry land. He squeezed Caleb’s arm in passing and smiled at Anne and Lavinia, his sisters, who had rushed to dockside with the first peal of church bells. Lavinia, the youngest Cutler sibling at age thirty, wept openly as she took Caleb in her arms.
“Stay here with your uncle,” Richard shouted to his sons. It was difficult to make himself heard over the chime of bells in the distance and the excited jabber of people close by.
On their way up Otis Hill, Richard had to hoof it to keep pace with Agreen. Katherine and Lizzy had spotted them and were waving. Standing beside her mother was Diana Cutler, a lass who had inherited so many of her mother’s physical attributes that even at the tender age of nine she was showing all the signs of someday becoming a very comely woman. Behind them, puffing contentedly on a long-stemmed white clay pipe, stood Benjamin Lincoln, the owner of the blue-shuttered gray clapboard house where the women were waiting. As General Washington’s second in command at Yorktown and the senior officer who had accepted Lord Cornwallis’ sword of surrender, Lincoln was Hingham’s most distinguished war hero.
When the men reached the crest of the hill, Katherine stepped close to her husband. “How is Caleb?” she asked anxiously. “And the rest of the crew?”
“Better than we expected,” Richard assured her. “You’ll be amazed at how well Caleb looks.”
Diana tugged on her mother’s sleeve. “Can we go down to the docks, Mommy? Can we, please?” She looked beseechingly up at her father, her white cotton dress billowing in the soft autumn breeze. “Oh please can we?”
Richard smiled at his wife. Diana Cutler was clearly Katherine’s daughter, and not just in physical appearance. Like her mother—like most attractive females of his acquaintance—Diana had seemed to grasp from an early age just how beguiling and irresistible the feminine mystique can be. He stooped down and placed his right hand on the side of her face, pushing back the silky chestnut curls tumbling down across her shoulders.
“So you’re anxious to meet your Uncle Caleb, are you, Poppet?”
She nodded.
“Well, I have it on good authority that he’s just as anxious to meet you.” He stood up. “Your mother will take you to the docks. I’ll be along after a word with the general.” He brushed his lips against Katherine’s cheek in a token show of affection, their custom when in public or in the company of their children.
“Come, Diana,” Katherine said, taking her daughter’s hand. With a farewell wave to Lizzy and Agreen they set off down Broad Cove Lane. Richard turned in the opposite direction, walking toward the older man who was striking flint on steel to relight his pipe.
“You’re right,” Agreen exulted as Richard passed by. He had his hand on Lizzy’s stomach. “It is kickin’ up a fuss.”
“Takes after its father,” Richard replied with a grin. “You’re in for it now, Liz. I tried to warn you. But you wouldn’t listen. Now you’re going to have two fusspots living with you.”
Lizzy returned his smile, the glow of pending motherhood lighting her gentle features, but said only, “We’ll see you at your father’s.”
A few yards farther on, before the porch of the two-story house with a white widow’s walk on the tiled roof, stood a man dressed as casually as Richard in homespun white trousers and a loose-fitting blue cotton shirt tied with strings at the chest and neck. Except that the general’s ensemble required a good deal more fabric in the fitting, the inevitable consequence of advancing age and a wife with a deserved reputation for lavish entertainment.
“A glorious day, eh, Richard?” he beamed. He pointed his pipe toward the bay and the flotilla of small craft tacking this way and that. Beyond, in the far distance, they could discern the beacon pole perched atop Boston’s highest hill. “Now there’s a sight to warm the heart of an old soldier.”
“I suspect it is, General,” Richard said. “When I told Caleb what you have in store for him and his shipmates, he was deeply moved. I want you to know that. All of Hingham is indebted to you.”
Lincoln waved that away. “Nonsense, my boy. I am honored to do what I can and happy to offer my farm for the occasion.” He sucked in a mouthful of smoke and blew it out contemplatively. “It’s going to be quite the event. Most of Hingham will be there,” he said, adding, with a flash of mischief, “and perhaps others from farther away. Perhaps even as far away as Belknap Street in Boston.” He paused, waiting for Richard to rise to the bait. When he didn’t, Lincoln looked up at the sky, the farmer in him weighing the odds of continuing fair weather during the fickle early weeks of autumn. “Let’s hope this weather holds and we’re able to stockpile enough food and spirits to keep everybody happy. The date is set for two weeks from today, but I suggest we move it up a few days now that we have our lads safely home. We still must allow time to send word to everyone and allow them to make arrangements, of course.”
“Whatever you say, General. Just please let us help wherever we can.”
“It’s always a pleasure to call on the Cutler family. Especially your beautiful women.”
With that, Lincoln’s jocular tone turned more serious. “Have you responded to the president? He’s home, you know, and has sent word that he and Mrs. Adams are planning to attend our celebration. In his letter, he asked me to press you about your proposed commission on board . . . Constellation, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She’s the one being fitted out in Baltimore.”
“Yes, sir. At Fell’s Point.”
“Well, the shipwrights of Baltimore are famous for building quality schooners. Let’s see how they do with a Navy frigate.” Lincoln shook his head. “I must say, I was surprised and not a little disappointed that you were not awarded a commission in Constitution.” Lincoln said this as though it had been a foregone conclusion that Richard Cutler would be selected from among a sea of worthy officer candidates to serve in the ship of his choice in the new U.S. Navy. “Though I do understand the logic of having officers from different parts of the country serving on board each ship. And I understand that Constellation is now off her cradle and at dockside.”
“That’s my understanding as well, sir.”
“And? How have you left things with Mr. Adams?”
“By now he should have my response. I wrote to thank him for his patronage and to say that I would be honored to meet with Captain Truxtun.”
“Excellent. Well done, my boy. When do you think this meeting with Truxtun will take place?”
“I don’t know, sir. That depends on Captain Truxtun.”
“Yes, of course, of course. Everything in its own good time. I should tell you that sources of mine who are acquainted with Thomas Truxtun assure me that he is an excellent sea officer. You may be aware that he was impressed into the Royal Navy before the war and was offered a midshipman’s warrant—which he declined. During the war he earned quite the reputation as a privateer captain.” He slowly exhaled a lingering wisp
of tobacco smoke. “Is Katherine accepting of all this?”
“I believe she is, General,” Richard replied, although his tone suggested that he was not entirely convinced. “She is the daughter of a Royal Navy captain, you know, so she’s used to this sort of thing. And Lord knows she has uncanny instincts. I’d wager that she has been expecting this to happen for some time.”
Lincoln smiled. “Knowing your wife as I do, Richard, I won’t take that wager. What about the rest of your family?”
“The same. I haven’t told Caleb yet.”
Lincoln clapped a hand on Richard’s shoulder and looked him square in the eye. “I’m proud of you, my boy. We all are. No man has a greater calling than to serve his country in her time of need. And despite what many of our countrymen seem unable or unwilling to accept, this is a time of need. America can make peace only if she is prepared to make war. And I fear it’s going to take a war to convince the world that the United States is willing to stand up for its principles. If we’re not willing to stand up, if we don’t put an end to these despicable attacks on our merchant fleet, then Mr. Hamilton is right. We are a bankrupt nation, morally and financially. We will have fought the Revolution for nothing. We’d have been better off remaining a British colony.”
“I agree, General,” Richard said, leaving aside for the moment the grim reality that for the Cutler family, this affair was an intensely personal one. Cutler vessels bound to and from the West Indies were among those being targeted by French pirates and privateers.
Richard bowed to Lincoln and took his leave, anxious to join his family at the docks, a reunion that on this splendid day included his brother Caleb.
Three
Hingham, Massachusetts October 1797
THE PEALING of church bells diminished gradually as the afternoon wore on, and then ceased altogether as lamplighters armed with flasks of spermaceti oil went about their business on the village streets. Inside the home of Thomas Cutler, a short way up from the village proper on Main Street near the Old Meetinghouse, the glow of celebration continued well into the night, until Jamie and Diana fell asleep on a sofa in the parlor and Caleb, drugged with fatigue and wine and no longer able to resist the allure of goose-down bedding, shuffled upstairs to his room on the second floor.
At 10:40 the next morning he appeared in the kitchen down the back stairway, unshaven and unkempt. He noted the time with astonishment and slid onto a chair at the long kitchen table just as Edna Stowe, the Cutler family’s housekeeper since 1783, plopped down a plate of six fried eggs, rashers of bacon, and a healthy wedge of cheese; a basket of freshly baked biscuits; tins of strawberry jam and freshly made butter; and a mug of steaming coffee.
Caleb’s jaw went slack. “Sweet Jesus in heaven, Edna!” he exclaimed as he gazed down at the bounty. “Is this all for me? It’s a week’s ration in Algiers, and this is real food.”
“Good morning to you, too,” Edna replied in a mock scolding voice. “And I’ll hear no more blasphemy from you, young man, thank you very much. I put the eggs on when I heard you rumbling about upstairs. Now sit there and eat. More eggs and bacon are on the way. I aim to put some meat on those pathetic-looking bones of yours, whether you like it or not. You heard me! Eat!”
“Yes, ma’am.” Caleb picked up a fork, smiling at the thought of Edna’s reaction had she witnessed his skeletal frame at its worst. Smiling, too, because he was home in his kitchen in Hingham, with Edna fussing over him the way she used to do, as though he had never left. Ten years suddenly seemed not such a vast span of time.
“Where is everybody?” he asked after he had made short shrift of the first helping of eggs and bacon and was happily into the second.
“Anne and Lavinia are with Katherine,” Edna answered as she refilled his cup from a fresh pot of coffee. “They’re going riding with Diana. Your father and Richard are with Dr. Percy down at Barker Yard,” she added, referring to the area of Hingham Harbor where the Cutler family maintained a modest office, as much for nostalgic as for business reasons. It was where Cutler & Sons had first taken root in colonial America.
“I should be with them,” Caleb said, pushing away his coffee.
“No, you should not. You were exactly where you should have been: upstairs asleep. And now you’re doing exactly what you should be doing: eating in my kitchen like a horse. Besides, they said they wouldn’t be gone long. I expect them home at any moment.”
True to her prediction, a few minutes later they heard the front door open and footsteps approach through the parlor.
“Up at last, I see,” Richard teased Caleb as he and the elder Cutler entered the kitchen. He doffed his jacket, hooked it on a peg on the wall, and walked over to the table. “Hungry, are we?” He nodded at Caleb’s plate smeared with egg yolk and freckled with breadcrumbs and bits of bacon.
“Famished. What’s for dinner?”
“Sheep stomach and fish guts cooked in olive oil, parsley, and sesame and served over rice,” Richard responded grandly. “Edna’s been preparing for your homecoming, and she’s become quite the Arabian cook in the process. Isn’t that so, Edna?” Richard grinned at her scowl. “By the way, Father and I just met with Dr. Percy. You’ll be glad to hear that your shipmates are coming along smartly, even Captain Dickerson. They’ll need time to fully recover, but recover they will.” He went over to the open hearth and dropped a fresh birch log on the low-burning fire. Dry white bark flamed up, crackling and popping agreeably. “You slept well?”
“Like old times.”
“Good for you, son.” Thomas Cutler sat down next to Caleb as Richard took a seat across from him. Edna served a mug of coffee to each.
Richard scooped a spoonful of sugar into his mug and stirred it in.
Caleb, watching him, asked, “Is that our sugar?”
His father answered. “Direct from Barbados. Richard was there recently to visit with Robin and John,” referring to Caleb’s first cousins, the two sons of William Cutler in England and brothers of Elizabeth Cutler Crabtree. “You have some catching up to do, but here’s the gist. Two years ago, John and Cynthia and their young son Joseph returned to the Indies from England to help Robin and Julia manage the family business there, particularly on the sales end. John, it seems, has a natural talent for sales, and we sorely need that talent in these difficult times. I tried to keep you informed in the letters I wrote, but I don’t know how many of them got through.
“I don’t know, for example, if you are aware of how serious the threat is these days to our carrying trade. French pirates and privateers are attacking our merchantmen—in the Indies and even off our coast. They seize our vessels, do what they will to our crews, and sell off our cargoes on Guadeloupe, Saint-Domingue, or some other French island. These attacks have forced insurance rates to unheard-of levels. Some shipping families have had to suspend business because they can’t afford to pay them. The Swifts and the Guilds are two examples.
“We’re more fortunate than most other shipping families. Hugh Hardcastle—you remember him, Katherine’s brother—remains on station with the Windward Squadron in Bridgetown. Whenever possible, he arranges for a British warship to escort our vessels through the danger zones to open water. And you may recall that Julia is a daughter of a Mount Gay rum family. That connection helps as well. Understand: there’s a reason for such cooperation from the British. Their colonies in the Indies rely heavily on our trade, so it’s in their interest to protect that trade. But with trouble brewing in Europe, and with so many ships being recalled to Spithead, the Royal Navy is limited in its abilities. What ships they still have on station in the Caribbean can’t be everywhere at once. So the attacks continue.”
Caleb nodded. “I read about all that in the letters that did get through,” he said. “But we’re responding to the threat, aren’t we? Hasn’t Congress approved a new navy? That’s what Agee told us on the cruise home.”
Thomas Cutler deferred to Richard.
“It’s true, in part,” Richard sai
d. “Three years ago, Congress authorized the construction of six frigates. But the Republicans in the southern states managed to add a provision to the bill stipulating that since the purpose of these new frigates was to protect American commerce in the Mediterranean, construction on three of the frigates must cease if the United States should sign a peace treaty with the Barbary States. Which of course is what we did. What these Republicans don’t understand is that the Barbary States are by no means the only threat to our carrying trade. Today they’re not much of a threat at all. France is the threat, and France is not acting alone. Pirates in every sea are capitalizing on our inability to fight back. It galls me no end, I can tell you. Mr. Jefferson told me, face to face in the consulate in Paris back in ’89, that he strongly supported the construction of a navy. But apparently he has had a change of heart. President Adams is pushing Congress hard to approve all six frigates and to approve the construction and acquisition of additional warships. Please God he succeeds. We’ll need every ship we can lay our hands on if we’re to challenge the French navy.”
“The French navy? I didn’t think the French had a navy anymore.”
“They do, though certainly it’s not what it used to be. Nearly all its commissioned officers were aristocrats, and most of them were carted off to the guillotine or murdered by mutinous crews. Former merchant captains command most French naval vessels today, and few of them have experience in battle. British intelligence reports a handful of French frigates in the Indies, though the main fleets remain bottled up in Toulon and Brest. French privateers and pirates do most of their country’s dirty work in the Indies.”
“I don’t understand, Richard.” Caleb shook his head in confusion. “Why are the French so bent on war with us? Don’t they have enough troubles in Europe dealing with the British? And anyway, don’t we have a treaty with France?”
The Power and the Glory Page 3
