The Heart of Liberty

by Thomas Fleming

  “Any idea how many men they bring with them?”

  “Some say ten thousand, others twenty. It looks like there’ll be hot work in New York and maybe here in Jersey before summer’s over.”

  This was not the tiny garrison army that the minutemen of Massachusetts had so easily beaten. It was an immense host, committed to a war of conquest. Reports on their numbers multiplied them until they were thirty thousand strong. More than a few of our loudest independence men suddenly became meek. It was one thing to damn the King and sneer at the British army when they were several thousand miles away. Now only a day’s brisk marching would put British regiments at the door of Strangers’ Resort. For the first time the independence men realized their violent words could cost them everything they owned, possibly their lives. Anthony Skinner was in the tavern every night warning that the punishment for rebellion was the confiscation of a family’s land and wealth. The Committee of Safety summoned him for a hearing. He ignored them.

  The chairman of the Committee, Lemuel Peters, was among the first independence men to show signs of panic. He drafted a petition and persuaded over a hundred men to sign it, demanding an immediate reinforcement for the defense of eastern New Jersey. In the taproom that night, Peters damned George Washington and the Continental Congress for sending New Jersey’s best soldiers to Canada. And what was the point in defending New York and Long Island? Both places were thick with Tories.

  But these were trivial issues compared to the major question. Would - should - the Congress declare independence now, when it was clear that the declaration meant war? The number of independence men still wholeheartedly in favor of an immediate declaration dwindled markedly. A startling number now began to think it would be better to wait until the King’s peace commissioner, Lord Richard Howe, arrived with - it was hoped - terms that Americans could accept.

  A few disagreed, with Kemble Stapleton acting as their fiery spokesman. Although neither of us was old enough to vote, Kemble and I scoured the countryside rounding up signatures for a petition urging an immediate declaration of independence; we collected 211 names in a district where, if unanimity had prevailed, we could have gathered 4,000. We came back dismayed by how lukewarm most men were, how fearful they had become of publicly avowing their opinions in any direction.

  “The Tories have them cowed,” Kemble said.

  “Don’t expect so much of the average man, Kemble,” Jonathan Gifford said. “Can you really blame them? Most of the state’s soldiers are fighting somewhere else. In Shrewsbury and Middletown, able-bodied men are disappearing every night. No one knows where they’re going - they may be joining the British - or lying low in the swamps, waiting for a signal to attack. We are practically defenseless.”

  Jonathan Gifford was startled to find Kemble smiling at this solemn monologue. “What’s so funny?”

  “That’s the first time I’ve heard you say ‘we.’ Are you joining our side, Father?”

  Jonathan Gifford was standing behind the bar polishing glasses. The taproom was not yet open. “I don’t like men who cut horses’ throats - especially in my own barn.”

  What was he saying? Jonathan Gifford asked himself dazedly, picking up another glass. Now was not the time for bravado. Now, above all, with the British army only a day’s march away.

  Before he could qualify his words, Kemble was asking, “Do I have your permission to join the army now, as soon as I can find a place?”

  Jonathan Gifford looked stonily at Kemble’s pale face and reed-thin body. He still could not bear to tell him the truth - that he lacked the physical strength to be a soldier. Groping for a path between freedom and obedience, he said, “I’ve been thinking - thinking of writing to General Putnam - asking if you might serve on his staff as a volunteer. You’d have no rank - but I’m sure you could be helpful. For one thing, you can spell.”

  “I’ll get you a pen and paper this instant,” Kemble said.

  Ten minutes later, the letter was sealed and Kemble was preparing to depart for New York. Jonathan Gifford vetoed this precipitous plan. They would send the letter to the General by an army dispatch rider. One was certain to come by in the next day or two. Kemble reluctantly agreed to wait for an answer.

  Later that day Jonathan Gifford found himself under assault from Kate. She had heard about her brother’s plans. Angrily, she pointed out what Jonathan Gifford already knew - Kemble’s delicate health made him a poor candidate for army life.

  “Kate - give me credit for knowing one or two things. Kemble has been trying to join the army for a year. It seemed to me the best available alternative. If he goes in defiance of me, he’ll enlist as a private. You’ve seen some of the sick creeping home or being carried along the roads.”

  “But Anthony says that being a general’s aide could lead to hanging. He says it is sure to come to that in the end for Washington and his pack of fools.”

  “Washington doesn’t look like a fool to me.”

  Boots, the tavern cat, came slinking across the room and leaped up on the bar between them. He was Kate’s favorite pet and the sight of him brought out her natural affection. She stroked him for a moment. “Well,” she said, “there’s no point in arguing. Kemble seems to think because you are letting him join the army, you have joined the Congress men.”

  “That’s saying a bit too much,” Jonathan Gifford said, “but I don’t like the game the loyalists are playing either. I’ve never let any man intimidate me. I couldn’t face myself in my shaving mirror each morning if I did.”

  “I don’t have to face myself in my shaving mirror,” Kate said. “Maybe that’s why I don’t give a damn which side you are on.”

  She picked up the cat and tickled him under the chin. “I’m like Boots here. Just feed me regularly and I am content.”

  She looked up and caught Jonathan Gifford frowning. “Oh, look at him, Boots. Can’t you just see what he is thinking? ‘What woman has ever been content in her life? Give her ten new gowns and she wants twenty. Give her a fine upstanding Virginia captain and she ignores him.’”

  Kate gave her father an impulsive kiss. “Stop worrying, Father. It will be all right.”

  She was at the door when she turned with an exclamation. “I almost forgot. Uncle Charles asked me to give you a message. He warned me to tell no one about it, not even Anthony. He would like you to meet him at nine o’clock tonight at the southeast corner of the manor, where it meets the road to Freehold. He will be in the grove of trees that stands just inside the property.”

  “Do you know what this is about?”

  “What else?” Kate said. “Politics.”

  That night Jonathan Gifford kept his rendezvous with his old friend. Charles Skinner was only a dark blur against the bulk of his bay stallion. “Friend Jonathan,” he said, “I’m glad you’ve come. No one must know about this, not even my wife or my son.”

  “No one shall,” said Jonathan Gifford.

  “I’m here to seek advice, friend Jonathan - and perhaps to give some. I know not which way to tarn.”

  “Not many of us do these days.”

  “Have you brought your pipe? I’ve got a full pouch of tobacco here. Let’s light up and sit down amongst those trees and pretend we’re on patrol again in the north woods.”

  “I have my pipe and I have my own tobacco,” Jonathan Gifford said.

  When Charles Skinner’s match flared, Jonathan Gifford was shocked by the haggard lines in his old friend’s face.

  “I brought along a bottle of Madeira, too. Let’s pass it back and forth as we did with Lord George Howe’s best.”

  “Good enough,” said Jonathan Gifford. He could feel the strings of emotion tugging him into the past, where Charles Skinner was trying to go, back to those simpler days when courage and luck were the only requisites for survival.

  “Those were the days, weren’t they now?” Skinner said. “At least we had them. No one can take them away from us. We had them round and true compared to today - ” />
  Jonathan Gifford felt the bottle touch his knee. He took a pull of the warm sweet wine.

  “You know, I suppose, that before they arrested the governor, he appointed my kinsman Skinner major general of the loyal militia?”

  “I’ve heard it.”

  “He’s on Staten Island now with General Howe. I have an offer from him - to be a brigadier.”

  “What does Anthony say about it?”

  “He urges me to take it. The offer came through him. My good wife Caroline vows that she will leave my bed and board if I accept it. Anthony says I should ignore her. But that’s easier said than done. She can be as much of a handful as her sister, Gifford, when she so inclines. Not as wayward but every bit as willful.”

  For a moment Jonathan Gifford was transfixed by the image of Caroline Skinner defying her stepson and her husband.

  “But this leads me to the burthen of our meeting, friend Jonathan,” Skinner continued. “Anthony has a commission already from Major General Skinner - a colonel’s commission, no less - with orders to raise a loyal regiment in this neighborhood. He has been at it apace this last month, and has three hundred good men and true, armed and paid already with the King’s guineas. All this time he has been waiting for you to speak your piece.”

  “What can I do for him? He doesn’t need a one-legged soldier.”

  “You have a following in this neighborhood. You know who comes and goes along the King’s Highway. You could be useful, very useful. This is only a small part of my reason for speaking to you in this way, old friend. I fear for your safety. In a civil war there is no quarter asked or given. The tavern, everything you own could go up in flames. You could be driven onto the roads, reduced to beggary.”

  “So could you.”

  “What?”

  “I said, so could you. Do you think only the King can be ruthless in a rebellion? I think you’ve lost touch with your own people. There’s a savage lurking somewhere inside almost every American. Didn’t we see it fifteen years ago in the north woods? We told them to fight like Indians and they did, right down to collecting scalps and torturing prisoners.”

  “So you won’t join us?”

  “I won’t join out of fear - when fear could be nothing but a mask for folly.”

  “Folly, folly. What are you talking about? You don’t really think Washington’s men can stand against the British army in the open field? Those ragamuffins? Look at your map, man. Before the summer is over, Washington’s whole army will be caught like cats in a bag.”

  “They will if Washington’s a damn fool. He doesn’t look like one to me.”

  Charles Skinner pulled on his pipe. The glowing bowl momentarily illuminated his haggard face. “So you think I should refuse the King’s commission?”

  “I do. Unless you’re prepared to leave your house and lands and take refuge inside their lines.”

  “You think I should desert my son?”

  “There are sons deserting fathers and vice versa all over America. Look at the Franklins.”

  “It’s easy enough for you to say. You don’t have a son.”

  “I have a boy I’ve raised since he was ten. He’s a son to me.” “A damned hothead. He’s as much the reason why you’re proscribed as anything.”

  “Oh? I’m proscribed?”

  “You’re on a list of those deemed - well - deemed untrustworthy,” Charles Skinner said.

  “And what does that mean?”

  “That you can be - should be - arrested as soon as they have the power, and shot dead if you resist.”

  “Does Kate know this?”

  “Of course not. Anthony has more sense than to tell his business to a giddy girl.”

  They passed the bottle back and forth again.

  “So what am I to do?” Charles Skinner said. “Take the neuter part? I’m a man, Gifford. Besides, I say again this contest will show no quarter for men who are afraid to choose.”

  Jonathan Gifford heard the accusation in those words.

  “I suppose that’s true. But not every man can make the choice at the same time. It’s a choice that involves the head and the heart, old friend. For some of us the heart speaks with a still, small voice, not easy to hear. Let me assure you when I make my choice it will have nothing to do with calculations about the winning side.”

  “I know you too well to expect anything else,” Skinner said.

  The words were cordial, but there was no conviction in them. The tone was empty, flat. With dismay, Jonathan Gifford realized that they were talking more like lawyers than like friends. Another thought crowded into his mind at the same instant, more image than thought, a small, proud woman by a well, speaking words of independence.

  “Damn it, Skinner, I can’t part from you this way,” he snapped. “I can’t part from a true friend without telling him what I really think. Didn’t you tell me that when you were in London, you never felt more an American? This is your country. It doesn’t belong to the English - though they’re ready enough to take it away from you, now that they’ve been given the excuse. Don’t you remember the motto of a British officer - to live well and leave a fortune for his heirs? Well, let me tell you, every one of those gentlemen in command of regiments and companies over there on Staten Island is ready and eager to make his fortune in America. What does it matter now that the trouble began with some damn fool puritans in Boston in search of a holy war? Now the war is at your doorstep and there’s no place for a man with pride but on the side of his country.”

  “Even if it means siding with men like Slocum?”

  “If you came out for independence, you could take that militia regiment away from him overnight. Have you stopped to think of what you’ll have to put up with from those arrogant bastards in London if they win? There’ll be a lord lieutenant for America and a standing army in every colony. Your grandchildren will grow up as meek and obedient as their patronizing power can make them. They’ll barely know the meaning of the word liberty.”

  For a long moment the two men sat there, engulfed in darkness and silence. A summer breeze sighed through the branches of the trees above their heads.

  “Gifford, you’re an independence man. I can’t believe it. You’re an independence man,” Charles Skinner said.

  He was on his feet, striding through the trees toward his horse. “But I’m not speaking for myself, I’m telling.”

  The accusation had stunned Jonathan Gifford. The explosion of emotion had not - could not - apply to him, the stranger, the outsider. It had been a compound of wish and hope that he only sought to bestow like a healing balm on the tormented spirit of his friend. But as he limped in the opposite direction and eased his ruined leg over the stone fence to stand beside his horse, he was compelled to face the possibility that his words were the convoluted wish of his own uncertain heart.

  FOR THE NEXT seven days, New Jersey oscillated like a pendulum between two mighty magnets - Staten Island with its British army and fleet and Philadelphia, where the Congress debated a declaration of independence. The countryside was rife with rumors of men making fortunes selling fresh vegetables and meat to the British on Staten Island. In Burlington, New Jersey’s Provincial Congress was still wrestling with the text of our new constitution. On July 1, two of the delegates from Bergen County stayed overnight at the tavern. They told Jonathan Gifford that some thirty other legislators had decided to go home rather than participate in such a revolutionary business.

  The Bergen gentlemen, both stolid Dutchmen who swore picturesquely in their mother tongue, said they did not feel authorized to declare New Jersey independent. Three out of every four men in Bergen detested the idea, they vowed. The Dutch had been treated fairly and had prospered greatly under the King of England’s rule for a hundred years now. It seemed to many of them gross ingratitude if they took the side of the New England men in this present quarrel.

  The whole trouble began and ended with those damned puritans from Massachusetts and Connecticut, the Dutchmen sw
ore. There were just enough of their brethren in New Jersey to poison the atmosphere. They wouldn’t be happy until they made Sam Adams or John Hancock the lord protector of America. All this was declaimed in stentorian tones while the ex-legislators consumed several chickens, a side of beef, a slab of ham, a fleet of vegetable dishes, and several quarts of hard cider.

  Such dissension and timidity in New Jersey’s legislature made men concentrate even more intently on the drama in Philadelphia. With the British fleet and army in New York Harbor, would the independence men still carry the day? Now that there was no longer any doubt of England’s readiness to use force to settle the quarrel, would the men who wished to wait for the King’s peace commissioner, Lord Howe, have a stronger voice?

  That seemed to be the general opinion in Strangers’ Resort crowded taproom during the first two days of July. But it was hard to tell whether the drinkers were a true poll of the neighborhood. There were strangers in the crowd, men who had ridden over from Shrewsbury or Upper Freehold to get the freshest news from travelers on the Philadelphia to New York road. Most of them opposed independence and came out of anxious hope to hear of its defeat. The predominance of this attitude was especially visible on the evening of July 2, when a traveler arrived from Philadelphia with the first news from Congress.

  He was a young lieutenant in a Pennsylvania regiment, who had been given leave to help settle his late father’s estate. He lived next door to John Morton, one of Pennsylvania’s delegates to Congress, and had spoken with this gentleman just before he set out for the Burlington ferry. Morton said that Congress had divided hopelessly, with nine colonies for independence and four - Pennsylvania, New York, South Carolina, and Delaware - either in the negative or abstaining. A wave of exultation had passed through the listeners in the taproom.

  Anthony Skinner stood in the center of the room, a dominant figure. Like a good politician, he was quick to improvise on this new development. Even if there was no declaration of independence, there was still a rebellion to be crushed, traitors to be punished.