Huzza, huzza, huzza, huzza,
For free America.
Charles Skinner crumbled before Jonathan Gifford’s eyes. His huge shoulders slumped, his big head drooped. Caroline called for Jesse, the small spare black butler. He and the Captain hoisted the Squire to his feet and dragged him upstairs to his oversized canopied bed. As they walked to the door, Skinner heaved himself up on one elbow. “Gifford,” he said.
“Yes?” The room was too dark to see him.
“I depend on you - not to let them insult my wife. No matter what the cost, Gifford.”
“I understand,” Jonathan Gifford said.
Caroline Skinner was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. “What if your plan doesn’t work, Captain Gifford? Are you prepared to fight?”
“I am,” he said.
“Can we beat them?”
“I broke a mob this size in Ireland, with twenty men. They ran at the first volley. But these men outside aren’t trained. And they have no great stake in the business.”
“Tell them there's ten guineas in it for every one of them.”
“That may help.”
“And some liquor. Don’t men need liquor before they fight?”
“It’s been known to help.”
She filled her husband’s brandy decanter and handed it to him. “I’m sure they can’t afford this at Strangers’ Resort. Give every man a round.”
Jonathan Gifford found himself admiring her cool courage. “We may make a soldier of you before this business is over. I must go join the reception committee.”
As he opened the front door Caroline’s calmness wavered. “Captain Gifford,” she said, “please be careful.”
He gave her a grim, reassuring nod. She was swept by an emotion she had never felt before. She could not put a name on it. No, she refused to name it, refused with an almost desperate effort of her will.
Outside Jonathan Gifford gave each of his men a swig of the brandy decanter and told them what Mrs. Skinner was prepared to pay them if they had to fight. “Load your guns,” he said, as Slocum and his mob began pouring through Kemble Manor’s gates.
Captain Gifford waited until they reached the oval at the end of the long drive. “Stand where you are, Slocum,” he called. “If you come another foot I’ll blow your head off.”
“You damned English son of a bitch,” Slocum roared. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m here to protect the house of an old friend, a man who saved my life in another war,” Jonathan Gifford said. “He’s upstairs in bed, sick with grief for what his son has done. There's no one else in the house but his wife and a few servants.”
“We don't have to listen to your damn lies, Gifford.”
“I can’t believe there’s a man among you who would burn a house down over the heads of a sick man and a defenseless woman. If there is, I think he deserves to be shot down. I have a party of brave men back there who agree with me. Their guns are loaded and they’re ready to fire at my order.”
“Who are they, let us see them,” Slocum shouted.
Jasper Clark walked to Jonathan Gifford’s side. He blinked into the flickering light of the torches in the front rank of the crowd. “These men are embodied as militia called out to suppress a riot under my authority as justice of the peace. They are all good true Americans and are determined to uphold the laws of their country as well as defend an innocent man and woman.”
Clark walked several steps closer to the crowd and spotted Lemuel Peters and Ambrose Cotter beside Slocum. “I am ashamed to see members of the honorable Committee of Safety condoning much less participating in this lawlessness.”
“We’re not out to break any laws. All we want to do is search the house,” Peters said.
“I’m sure Mrs. Skinner will have no objection to the Committee of Safety searching the house,” Jonathan Gifford said.
“That’s a fair offer,” said Jasper Clark. “There’s no other reason for a man to set foot on this property and we all know it.”
The mood of the crowd was cooling, Jonathan Gifford could feel it. “The last thing I want is bloodshed,” he said. “I want to stand with you and do everything in my power to make this a free country. Be sensible. Don’t give the British a chance to prove what they’re already saying - that Americans are ruled by mobs.”
“Peters, Cotter, come on with me,” said Jasper Clark.
Sullenly, the two members of the Committee of Safety edged around Slocum and moved toward the house. But Slocum declined to be eliminated. He joined the procession without an invitation. “If we find that traitor, we’ll give him tar and feathers and maybe a rope no matter what any damned committeeman says,” he shouted.
Jonathan Gifford escorted the inspectors inside the house. Even Daniel Slocum was subdued from the moment they stepped into the center hall. Rose wallpaper, decorated with golden coronets, surrounded them. A portrait of Peter Kemble, the first lord of the manor, stared imperiously at them. They saw themselves in their soiled everyday coats and leather breeches, framed by the delicate gold filigree of a huge mirror on the opposite wall. Caroline Skinner met them with icy politeness.
“Let me say first, gentlemen, that I am a firm supporter of our country’s cause. I never dreamt that such support would expose me to a mob.”
A mistake. Daniel Slocum fed on opposition. He became his truculent self again. “That is not a mob, madam. It is a gathering of honest citizens in search of a traitor. Who happens to be your son.”
“He is not here. You may search the house, but I give you my word he is not here. Parents cannot control grown sons in these times, if they ever could. Look at Dr. Franklin and his son – ”
“We had best search the house, madam,” Jasper Clark said, honestly sympathizing with her agitation. “There is no other way to satisfy them.”
“Where is your husband?” asked Daniel Slocum.
“Slocum,” snapped Jonathan Gifford. “You do not address a lady in that tone.”
“Oh, don’t I, Captain Gifford? Excuse me. But this here is a lady under suspicion of concealing a traitor.”
“My husband is upstairs. He is ill. You may speak to him, if you wish to invade his sickroom.”
“I fear it may be necessary, madam,” said Lemuel Peters.
Caroline summoned the butler, Jesse, who looked at the intruders with unmistakable disdain. “These gentlemen wish to search the house, Jesse. Will you please escort them and open any doors that are locked?”
The search party clumped up the stairs. Jonathan Gifford tried to encourage Caroline with a smile. “I think everything will be all right now,” he said.
“Who is that thick, dark man?”
“Daniel Slocum. Our new colonel of the militia.”
“I detested him on sight.”
“I’m beginning to feel the same way.”
Fifteen minutes later the searchers returned. Jasper Clark apologized for disturbing Caroline and her husband. He was sure everyone would now go home peacefully. Outside, Daniel Slocum abruptly turned right and strode over to Jonathan Gifford’s little band of defenders. “I just want to see the faces of men who take Tory money to protect traitors,” he said.
Several of the men protested nervously that they had taken no money. Slocum had already turned his back on them and was walking toward the crowd in the drive. “There’s no sign of the traitor in the house, men,” he said. “He may well have been there, until he was warned of our coming by his friends.”
“Goddamn that fellow,” Barney McGovern growled.
“There was no warning given or taken,” Jonathan Gifford called. But it was too late. Slocum had already made his impression.
“For those who want to quench their thirst after such a long march, the tavern will be open until midnight,” Jonathan Gifford said.
“And I say that any man who drinks there is no friend of his country,” Slocum shouted. “I’m going to drink at Leary’s.” “Leary’s for me,” said Lemuel P
eters.
Slocum’s friends in the crowd took up the cry and the majority followed Black Daniel toward Leary’s, a groggery a mile down the road to Amboy. The place was little more than a shed with a plank on two barrels for a bar. It served cheap, often dangerous liquor, most of which Leary brewed himself. Jonathan Gifford watched them go, then walked back to the door of the manor to say goodnight to Caroline.
“Will he ruin your business, Captain Gifford?” she asked.
He shook his head. “They’ll wake up tomorrow feeling like they’ve been drinking salt water and eating horse manure,” he said. “That’s what Leary’s liquor does to you.”
“I would hate to think of you suffering on my - our account.”
“I hope Mr. Skinner won’t resent the hard choice we made.”
“I hope not. He says he doesn’t know where to turn now, with independence declared.”
“I see no choice but fighting.”
“He will never fight his son.”
“Then he must try to stay neutral. That won’t be easy.”
Jonathan Gifford mournfully remembered the dour face and voice of William Alexander, Lord Stirling, as he stood in the doorway of the tavern the night they arrested Governor William Franklin. A man must choose one side or the other in this thing. He gave each member of his impromptu company another swig of brandy and told them to go home. He returned the empty decanter to Caroline and rode back to Strangers’ Resort. There he was pleased to discover about half of the mob had chosen to walk an extra mile to enjoy good liquor, rather than be poisoned by Leary. Jasper Clark joined the drinkers. He hoisted his mug of hard cider and assured Jonathan Gifford that no one believed Slocum’s accusation. This was an overstatement. If Gifford wanted to look on the dark side of the question, every second man had believed Slocum - or was intimidated by him. But he smiled and accepted Clark’s encouragement for what it was - the good intentions of an honest man.
“Kemble,” Captain Gifford said. “Would you go out to the greenhouse and fetch a work of art I finished last night?” Kemble looked puzzled.
“You’ll recognize it the moment you see it,” his father said. “It’s about this big.”
The Captain spread his arms wide.
In five minutes Kemble returned carrying the work of art. It was a sign. The border was deep blue. At the top was a rising sun dispensing bountiful red rays. Beneath it, beautifully lettered on a white background were bold blue words: LIBERTY TAVERN
“I thought it was time we changed the name of this place,” Jonathan Gifford said. He smiled as he spoke but I caught an ambiguity, an edge of sadness in his voice.
Kemble was much too enthusiastic to notice such things. “I’ll hang it up,” he said.
Black Sam fetched a ladder from the barn. There was a ready surplus of hands to hold lamps and candles. Teetering at the top of the ladder, Kemble hoisted off the old sign and put the new one on the hooks. Jonathan Gifford stood to one side, watching, the same uncertain mixture of sadness and gladness on his face. Everyone roared out three cheers. He could only wonder if any of them - especially Kemble - understood how much the change meant to Jonathan Gifford, ex-captain of the 4th Regiment, the King's Own.
SO WE PLUNGED into the chaotic summer of 1776. It began with frantic preparations for battle. Most people believed that there would be one climactic clash and the fate of America would be decided. The British would either lick their wounds, count their dead, and creep aboard their ship to sail home - or America would be prostrate beneath the tyrant’s heel. If I seem to be writing fustian, forgive me. That is the way all the politicians spoke that summer.
In Liberty Tavern’s taproom the conversation was more down to earth. Samson Tucker stirred his drink with his finger and said, “What is the matter with those damned lobsterbacks? thought by now I would have made a lane through a hundred or so of’m. Instead, they cower over there on Staten Island like a flock of sparrows within sight of a crow.”
Samson was drinking on credit as usual. Next year, always next year, he was sure a fabulous harvest would get him out of debt. He had an incurable weakness for Stewed Quaker, a south Jersey specialty. It consisted of hard cider and cider oil, with a roasted red apple floating on top. It was really a winter drink but Samson consumed it year round. “That Englishman will own this farm before you are through,” his wife often screamed. But Samson was safe, no matter how many Stewed Quakers he drank. Jonathan Gifford never foreclosed on a debt in his life. He had an innkeeper’s rather than a banker’s heart. He also enjoyed having Samson around because his opinions were almost invariably those of the majority at any given moment. Samson was a living political weather vane in his ability to absorb and reflect the prevailing mood.
Through broiling July and steaming August, the British army sat in their tents on Staten Island, with no apparent interest in fighting the battle that would decide America’s fate. We attributed their lethargy to two things - their fear of our military prowess and the hope that they could scare us into negotiating peace with Admiral Lord Richard Howe. This gentleman, the brother of Jonathan Gifford’s old commander, had arrived in New York about a week after the Declaration of Independence was issued. He had sent letters ashore at Perth Amboy urging Americans to open peace negotiations with him. The gesture was spurned by Congress but it had a debilitating effect on our militia.
“Damn me, if I see any point in chasing Tories in this weather,” said Samson, “when like as not we’ll patch up a peace with the cowardly bastards before harvest time.”
“If you think that way, it only proves your head is stuffed with horse shit,” said Daniel Slocum.
He had returned to drinking at Liberty Tavern within a week of his march on Kemble Manor. He had no choice. The effects of Leary’s dreadful liquors were just what Jonathan Gifford had predicted, driving even the most dedicated Slocumites back to his tables.
“I agree with Colonel Slocum,” said Kemble. “The Tories and the British are playing a deep game. They are using all this peace palavering to disarm us.”
“Well, by God,” said Samson, “if peace could rid us of those damn Philadelphians, I swear I’d vote for it.”
The conversation summed up our multiple travails in the summer of 1776. To help defend New Jersey, Congress issued a call for thousands of short-term militia from Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. The Maryland and Delaware fellows never arrived. But the Pennsylvanians came by the battalion - and we were soon heartily sick of them. Most of them were from Philadelphia and the thought of sleeping in an open field - even though the weather, which was warm enough to be called tropical, appalled them. Night after night they crowded every room in Liberty Tavern and often filled the taproom and the assembly room and the halls with their snores.
Simultaneously, we struggled to cope with the Tories - the loyalists, as they called themselves. Everywhere they used the presence of Lord Howe and his offer to negotiate peace to explain their disinclination to join the militia or to swear allegiance to the Continental Congress. At least 50 percent of the population in south Jersey were ardent loyalists or neutralists like my father. In some areas such as Shrewsbury, the Tories were a strong majority. At first everyone hoped the stirring rhetoric of the Declaration of. Independence would sweep them into our camp. When this magical change failed to take place, no one knew exactly what to do with them - except Daniel Slocum.
His solution was brute force. He told our militiamen they could take anything they wanted from a loyalist farm. Leading loyalists were hunted down and ordered to swear oaths of allegiance or accept a coat of hot tar and feathers. The trouble was, it didn’t work very well. Slocum made no attempt to discriminate between neutralists, like my father, lukewarm loyalists like Charles Skinner, and aggressive loyalists like Anthony Skinner. Instead of adding to our friends, he multiplied our enemies.
This did not worry Slocum. He knew as well as anyone that the loyalists were no military threat without the support of the British army. Slocum’s ca
mpaign against the Tories was really an excuse to use his militia to take political control of south Jersey in our first elections as an independent state. He nominated candidates for every office on the ballot from justice of the peace to sheriff to delegates to the legislature. Shrewdly he formed an alliance with Lemuel Peters and Ambrose Cotter of the Committee of Safety, which was slated to go out of business when the new government took over. He backed both for judges of the county court.
At first Slocum’s candidates were unopposed. For the first time in decades, not a single Kemble, Stapleton, or Skinner or any of their followers was running for office. The triumvirate had collapsed. Kemble, the heir to the Stapleton name in south Jersey, was too young. The Skinners were totally discredited, most of them loyalists. Walter Kemble, Caroline’s father, had died in 1773. My father, his younger brother, spent the summer on his farm, torturing his intellect and conscience, trying to decide whether he could support the Declaration of Independence.
Jonathan Gifford persuaded Jasper Clark to organize a slate of candidates to oppose Slocum. Most of them were moderate independence men, who had held minor offices under the old royal government with the support of the triumvirate. To Captain Gifford’s dismay, Kemble pointedly and publicly refused to support them. He let everyone who visited Liberty Tavern’s taproom know that he backed Colonel Slocum’s slate. To make his stand even clearer, he regularly rode out with Slocum and his militia on their “Tory hunts,” as we called them.
Alas, neither jasper Clark nor any of his candidates came close to matching Daniel Slocum as a politician. They were used to winning elections with the endorsement of the triumvirate, who passed the word of their approval at church on Sunday, at sociable dinners, and on visits to places like Liberty Tavern. This was all a man needed to win an election before the Revolution. No one made speeches or urged people to give him their votes.
Daniel Slocum displayed a new style, one that has become dominant in American politics. He and his friends roamed the county, haranguing the voters at every crossroads. They touted their candidates as true Whigs, statesmen beyond compare. On their election depended the salvation of New jersey. To this hyperbole they added savage attacks on Jasper Clark and his fellow candidates. They called them Tory stalking-horses. The Englishman, Jonathan Gifford, was behind them and behind him stood the Squire and his son, funneling British gold into their pockets.
The Heart of Liberty Page 15
