SH04_Empire

by Edward Cline

  Etáin took the caricature from his hand and studied it. “Yes, he did. But who is the sleeping man here?” she asked. “I heard you and Hugh laughing about him.”

  “He is a mutual enemy of our mutual acquaintance,” replied Jack. “That is Henoch Pannell, the man who sent my friends to the gallows. Mr. Jones copied his speech in the Commons, and made some observations about him. He is in service to Hugh’s uncle.” He chuckled with irony. “It would seem that I am still his captive, too.”

  “When will you make your own speeches?”

  “When Hugh returns. He has gone to Hanover to see his friend there.” Jack patted his wife’s back. “Well, enough talk about this, Etáin. Let us take our walk to the river.”

  * * *

  It had taken him two days to ride to Hanover County, and another half day of following planters’ and farmers’ direction to find Piney Slash in the lower part of the county. It was pouring rain when he spotted the modest, clapboard cottage that stood among some trees near a muddy road. Smoke rose lazily from the wooden chimney. There were lights shining in the wax windows, and he notice two horses locked into an adjoining stable. A battered but serviceable wagon stood next to it. He must be here, thought Hugh, and not abroad elsewhere in the county. He rode up to the front door, dismounted, and tethered his mount to a post. He removed a pair of saddlebags and a traveling valise, walked up to the door, and knocked on it. The rain clouds had turned the afternoon into an artificial dusk. He was tired and sopping wet. Whether or not this was the home of Patrick Henry, he resolved to pay the occupant for some hospitality, if only to rest and dry himself out in it.

  The door opened, and it was Henry who opened it. The man looked startled at first, then recognized him and smiled. “Well, sir, we meet sooner than I had expected.” He stood aside and waved an arm. “Welcome, Mr. Kenrick. To what do we owe your call?”

  “The Stamp Act,” replied Hugh, stepping inside.

  * * *

  With Dogmael Jones’s parcel of documents had come a crate of things from Hugh’s father by way of Benjamin Worley. In it were books, new clothes, some household necessities, and three tea chests that contained, not tea, but British money in payment for Meum Hall’s tobacco consignments. The money caused Hugh to smile; the documents did not.

  He had had no time to sit and savor the books, only enough time to glance longingly through them as he unpacked the crate. Here were volumes on law by Puffendorf, Grotius, and Vattel, recommended by Dogmael Jones; Sir William Pultney’s treatise against excise taxes; two volumes of The Gentleman’s Magazine; Burgess’s volumes on modern painters; sixteen volumes by Dossie and Barrow on the arts; eight bound volumes of Addison and Steele’s Spectator. There was also a set of Richard Steele’s The Ladies’ Library, and new sheet music, which he intended to present to Etáin as anniversary gifts; and an Italian spyglass and books on agriculture, which he intended to present to Jack, for the same occasion.

  He tore himself away from these things to reread Jones’s correspondence and the Stamp Act. Twin bolts of anger and inspiration shot up his spine and ignited a mind that worked furiously. He drafted Mr. Beecroft, his business agent, and Mr. Spears, his valet and servant, to help him make copies of the act. Together they worked well into the night, and before dawn had produced six copies. One would be sent to Otis Talbot in Philadelphia, accompanied by Jones’s caricature. Another would be taken by Spears to Wendel Barret at the Caxton Courier. He made a copy of the act for Edgar Cullis, his fellow burgess for the county, and another for Reece Vishonn. Then, without thought of sleep, he assembled all the original documents and took them to Morland Hall and Jack Frake.

  When he returned to Meum Hall later that day, he inspected the seed beds of the next tobacco crop, and decided that the shoots would need another week of growth before they were ready to be moved to the fields. He instructed Mr. Settle to begin sowing the corn and oats. Repairs needed to be made to sections of the conduit, the whole of which was stored in a specially built shed; he gave orders to Bristol and Pompey to mend the sections and to reassemble them over the field. He checked on the progress of the brickyard in producing the bricks that had been ordered by a merchant in Richmond, who was planning to build a new warehouse on the James River. He would be away for a month in Williamsburg for the new session and there were many details that needed his supervision and authorization.

  “I shall return in three or four days, Spears,” he told his valet, who watched his employer hurry about his room, collecting and packing things into his valise.

  “The session will have opened by then,” said Spears. “I believe that Mr. Cullis is preparing to leave for it.”

  “Yes, I know. Send a man with a note to him, informing him that I will join him in Williamsburg in a week, and asking him to have his cousin make the same arrangements for my stay there.”

  “Yes, sir.” Spears discreetly noted that his employer still looked strange. There had been something of a look of madness in him yesterday morning, when Mr. Kenrick had dragooned him and Mr. Beecroft into the arduous task of making copies of the Stamp Act. Some of the madness remained, but Spears could not be sure that it was simply exhaustion and lack of sleep. He ventured, “Where are you going, sir?”

  “To Hanover, Spears. I shall leave in half an hour. Have a mount ready for me, will you? The bay. She’s sturdy.”

  “Yes, sir.” Spears left the room for the stable to see to the saddling of the horse.

  Back in his library, Hugh put a copy of the Stamp Act and some of his notes in a tarred, weatherproof pouch. He paused for a moment; he had the odd feeling that he was being watched. He glanced up at his renderings of the Society of the Pippin, and smiled in salute, and with confidence that they would have approved of what he was about to do. His sight rested on the image of Glorious Swain. For some reason, he felt that the journey he was about to embark on was part fulfillment of a promise he had made to that man in a London garret, long ago. It had been a promise to live, and to find certain words that made living possible: “…You do not know who you are…. The name for you has not yet been devised. The answer lies in you, and only you can put it into the right words…. You are the future, my friend! And I forbid you to die until you have lived it…. ”

  He thought: I have lived. He remembered everything he had done since that fatal day on the Charing Cross pillory, and everything before it. He felt transported into the cathedral of his own life then, and felt the rapturous pride of a man who knows his own glory. I have lived, he addressed the memory, but I have not yet found the words. Words I will speak in the coming Assembly, and perhaps they will bring me closer to the ones your wisdom was certain I should find.

  Hugh thought of Jack Frake, and knew that something about the man had prompted the memory of him, too. He thought: Perhaps we have the same task, and have made the same promise. But which of us is the true future?

  Chapter 2: The Alliance

  A form of this sense returned to him when he was in the presence of Patrick Henry. After his mount had been stabled and a supper prepared for him by Sarah, Henry’s wife, they had talked for a while about mundane things: the dim prospects for a bigger tobacco crop this year; his host’s recent sale of the cottage, a ramshackle collection of rooms that had been built over the ashes of the original place, a wedding gift from Henry’s father-in-law, and Henry’s plans to move his family to Louisa County; about muskets and the best way to bring down game; the poll in Louisa County and Henry’s virtually guaranteed election as burgess; Henry’s suspicions, shared by Hugh, about the purpose of a loan office proposed by Speaker John Robinson, which they were both certain was intended to be a ruse to disguise some malfeasance and skullduggery; about mutual friends and acquaintances in the region and in Williamsburg.

  Hugh mentioned Governor Fauquier and his frequent guest at the Palace and fellow musician, Thomas Jefferson.

  “I do not know the Governor,” said Henry, “though I am sure that he will come to know me, but not as a f
riend.”

  “Mr. Jefferson is not your friend, either,” remarked Hugh.

  “I am acquainted with Mr. Jefferson. I hope he does not hold an unjustified animus toward me.” Henry smiled tentatively. “We met one Christmas holiday, years ago, when he stayed at Captain Dandridge’s place on his way to the College. A convivial young man, as I recollect, a gay and promising fellow. But I sat near him on the occasion of your speech, and he did not recognize me. Perhaps the Governor’s society has spoiled his memory and manners.”

  Hugh shrugged. “He felt that you had hurt Reverend Maury, his early teacher, whom he esteems, over the Two-Penny award.”

  “I see.” Henry shrugged in return. “I will not apologize for having injured his or Mr. Maury’s feelings. Well, if Mr. Jefferson is honest, he may change his mind, in time. So may the good reverend.”

  Later, Henry and his guest retired to talk about Hugh’s purpose for the visit. In area, the cottage was smaller than Hugh’s library. They sat together at a table surrounded by books in Henry’s office-study, a small, cramped addition to the place. Hugh could not decide whether the brimming, roughly hewn shelves and the stacks of tomes that rose precariously from the wood floor held up the room or threatened to bring it down. He sat nearest to the fireplace, with a cup of warm port and a dog-eared copy of Trenchard and Gordon’s Cato’s Letters, which he picked from a shelf to read while Henry read the copy of the Stamp Act. As the rain pounded on the shingled roof not far above their heads, his host turned the pages of the document in silence.

  Finally, Henry spoke. “To go into effect the first day of November. All Saints’ Day.” Hugh looked up at his host, and saw that the man’s face had taken on a tinge of red. “But saints did not contrive this act, and only dogs would submit to it!”

  “That is my estimate,” said Hugh.

  Henry grunted once, and turned the pages to one in particular. “Young man, I note here in the act that even papers necessary in ecclesiastical courts must be stamped to have any legal force.” He leaned forward with narrowed eyes, which seemed to drill his guest in some kind of test. “However, there are no ecclesiastical courts in this or any other colony on these shores. What means that, sir?”

  “That the Crown may be contemplating creating an episcopate here. I have heard there is a clamor for it in the northern colonies. And a colonial episcopate would be consistent with the general character of the act.”

  Henry nodded in agreement and in satisfaction with his guest’s answer. He sat back and said, “Which would mean that, aside from imposing the Test Act here and the whole paraphernalia of religious conformity — an event that would not be celebrated by half the good people in these contiguous counties, who are not of the Anglican faith — it would mean that we would also be taxed to support bishops hostile to nonconformists.” He pointed an accusing finger at the pile of papers in front of him. “There is more evil in this act than the filching of mere pounds and pence, sir! One must think ahead of the particulars in it to see what is truly intended by it and what it seeks to accomplish.”

  Hugh closed Cato’s Letters and pushed it aside. He said eagerly, “Precisely, Mr. Henry. That is why I came. To give you a copy of the act, so that you would have time to think about it, and about what you may say about it in the House.” He paused when he saw an inquiring look on his host’s face. “You are respected, sir, among the general populace, and even by some members of the House. And you are feared by older members there. What you may have to say about the act will count for something.”

  “And not what you may say, Mr. Kenrick?”

  Hugh shook his head. “No. But I have thought this through. A division of labor is required here. I will speak against the particulars of the act — I and whoever else wishes to ally himself in opposition against it. I can present the facts of this legislation. You may smelt the slag of the particulars into a sword of reason. You have a style I have not.”

  Henry smiled. “You acquit yourself of vanity, sir, but, all the same, you should not discredit the power of your own words. They played no little role in my own motivation.” He paused. “And you have not heard me speak in court. What could you know about my style?”

  “You have spoken to me,” said Hugh with a grin. “Mr. Addison, falling back on Mr. Locke, wrote a pretty essay in The Spectator on the distinction between wit and judgment. It is a rare man who can wed the two virtues, especially in oratory. I size you to be such a man.”

  Henry chuckled. “Again, I wish there was a good meaning to flattery, and I thank you. But why not you alone? You seem able to wed wit and judgment.”

  “In the Commons, when members go into opposition, and speak against Crown folly or a minister’s policies, they are opposed more to the man than to his policies, and argue for liberty from happenstance, not on settled principle, from convenience, not from conviction. I know some men in that body who are exceptions to that rule, but this is true of most of the members. Here, I am a young man, perhaps the youngest in the Assembly. The same rule is in effect. I would be opposed, or ignored, on that point alone, as I was in the last session, regardless of what I said.”

  The lawyer shook his head. “Opposed you were, sir, but not ignored. Nor will you be ignored in this next session.” He paused. “A ‘sword of reason,’ you say? Your plan is a good one. But the kind of sword I prefer to wield may frighten men off, men we would want to support what you called a keen and vigorous protest. Swords mean conflict, sir, and having the bottom to use them in a fight.”

  “In my experience,” said Hugh, “even a sword half-drawn from its sheath may frighten off an enemy, and embolden one’s nascent allies.”

  Henry sighed. “This is also true. Allies we will have, Mr. Kenrick. They are not numerous, certainly not as numerous as the ballast in the Assembly, and in this our country of Virginia, and in the other colonies, but you and I and they may make a difference.”

  “I hope we shall,” said Hugh. He nodded to the Stamp Act. “You doubtless have noted the presence of one item in this act, and the absence of some others. The Governor can be fined a thousand pounds, should he not actively enforce the provisions. I am not certain that Governor Fauquier will have either the inclination or the power to perform his prescribed duty.”

  Henry shrugged. “That will be his choice, risk, and misfortune,” he replied.

  “And marriage licenses, commissions for justices of the peace, and notes-in-hand were made exempt from having to bear stamps. At least, I did not see them enumerated. I cannot decide whether that was an oversight or intended. Every other legal document and commercial instrument, however, must carry one.”

  “I noted the omissions, too,” said Henry, his broad mouth twisting in irony, “which I would not ascribe to oversight or even generosity. Doubtless they were exempted in order to encourage an increase in the number of His Majesty’s subjects who can pay the tax, the number of impoverished households that can be dunned for not being able to honor promises to pay their stamped debts, and the number of justices who can marry couples and subsequently oversee the seizure of their property.”

  The rain had not abated, and the artificial dusk beyond the room’s single window grew into a genuine one. Hugh and Henry talked late into the evening, and were interrupted twice: once by a slave who came to report that a waterlogged pine had fallen across a section of worm fencing that divided some of Henry’s three hundred acres from his neighbor’s land, and once by Sarah Henry, who came in to announce that she and their two young boys were about to retire. When Henry returned from instructing the slave and bidding his wife and sons goodnight, Hugh remarked, “I did not know you owned slaves, sir.”

  Henry sat down and sipped his glass of port. “I had six, but sold three a while ago, to pay some debts.” He scoffed. “I can only wonder why the harpies who prepared this act did not think to devise a special stamp to affix to the persons of every slave and indenture here.”

  He paused when he saw the inquisitive look on his guest’s
face. “Ah! I see what you are getting at, sir! Well, the king derives an income from the traffic in these people, and his trade laws oblige us to engage in their commerce.” He shrugged. “When we are rid of those laws, then something may be done about ridding ourselves of the institution and our dependency on it. Esteem me as much as you may, young man, but I have not an answer for what may be done, and so in turn acquit myself of the vanity of omniscience. One must first have secured one’s own liberty to know how to secure that of another who may be in a worse fettle. For the moment, that is beyond the pale of my abilities.”

  Hugh conceded the truth of Henry’s statements, and told him about his arrangement with Novus Easley, the Quaker merchant in Philadelphia.

  Henry thought about it for a moment, then said, “Truly an ingenious ploy, sir. I commend you for it and for your devotion. But are there so many Quakers who could be persuaded to emulate your friend? I do not begrudge those people, but I have observed that their principles oft-times are only as deep as their purses. And if there were so many of them who were amenable to the ploy, I fear it would cause more commotion in these parts than this Stamp Act is likely to.” He shook his head. “No, sir. First things first.”

  Close to midnight, when the only drops falling on the roof above were those driven by wind from rain-soaked trees, Henry yawned and stretched. “Vae victis!” he exclaimed. “Down with the defeated! You, sir, look as tired as I feel! If you intend to leave so early on the morrow, you must sleep. I have no better amenity to offer than my hunter’s roll. You may sleep here by the fire. Sarah will fix us some breakfast.”