Johnson leant back in his chair, thinking quickly in his turn; Tom’s suggestion was very believable, made much more sense than to accept Blaine as sole proprietor in his own right, but it created an even bigger problem. He was Antiguan born, second son of an established merchant and set up as an attorney and small businessman on the side; he had no contacts in London who could guide him through the jungles of society and could do himself great harm if he unwittingly offended a figure as powerful as an earl – there were two in Dorset, he believed, one of them, Shaftesbury, politically prominent. Small colonial merchants had no business thrusting themselves to the attention of such people – a word to the Governor and he could be swatted like a fly.
“Do you know just who the three proprietors are, Mr Andrews?”
“Captain Blaine gave me their names, sir, and told me that they knew me to be one of his junior officers, having approved my name when he gave it to them.”
The second big lie, the first having been accepted.
“Good! They do not know me, and have no reason to place any trust in me, but you can, as it were, vouch for my probity, Mr Andrews. What I would wish to do, Mr Andrews, would be to beg you to act as my messenger and courier. I would wish to transmit the ship’s share, less my commission, to these gentlemen, would normally place the transfer in the hands of my bankers – but that is a very public process, involving much naming of names! Was I to convert the sums involved into gold and trade bills drawn on London, then it would be possible for my messenger, well feed, to carry them to the gentlemen, all anonymously, assuring them that I do not even know their names.”
Over the period of an hour Johnson explained the nature of trade bills, drawn and discounted, often third or fourth hand and effectively untraceable without great effort, and set about persuading Tom to carry such a vast sum for him. They agreed in the end that Joseph should be asked to travel as well, as paid escort, and that Tom should receive the sum of two hundred pounds in addition to, of course, all the costs of a passage to Poole. The sum involved was about twenty thousands of pounds, fifty per centum of the total value of their prizes, the ship’s share.
Two more weeks, Tom on tenterhooks, and the cash and bills was all to hand, in two heavy leather valises, and Tom and Joseph took passage north, to Savannah in the first instance, the convoy having sailed. The survivors of the Star were paid their full shares, the mothers of the dead freemen receiving theirs, much to their surprise – they did not expect honest treatment from white merchants. John, Dick and Luke stayed with the Star, for lack of anything better to do, and Johnson announced that he would find a master and officers and a full crew for her, pro tem, until instructions arrived from England, and send her out again; there were naval officers on shore and seeking employment, beached or wrecked and superfluous to the establishment and he was sure that he could man her.
The made their farewells, reached Savannah and found that they had been directed wrongly, they should have gone to Charleston. In Charleston a few days afterwards they found two convoys about to sail, the larger to London, a much smaller group to New York; to Joseph’s surprise he found himself in a cabin on the largest of the New York bound merchants, Tom having bought space on a London ship, very publicly, but sailed on another as the two convoys left harbour together. They reached New York ten days later, unannounced, unknown and rich.
Book One: A Poor Man
at the Gate Series
Chapter Four
New York was vile, rotten, corrupt, a town under sentence of death, the seat of government for the losing side in a war that still had a year or two to run but whose eventual end was clear; it had no future as far as building a business was concerned, but it provided every opportunity for short-term enrichment. The soldiers could talk of their expectations of winning next season’s battles, and the navy was slowly regaining control of the seas, but the reality in civilian eyes was that the Americans and French would win the war, and have no interest in the frauds and corruption of the previous regime, being too busy establishing their own, possibly using the same people at all except the very topmost level.
Profits were to be made from treachery and spying, looting, smuggling, theft and fraud; government funds were open to every peculator; licences to trade could be bought from the most junior of clerks; blind eyes were more expensive, but every general, customs officer and excise man sold them. For those who already had money, the grease to smooth their way through the maze of officialdom, New York was an Eldorado, a Golconda, the source of unlimited wealth. There was no police force, and the military provosts were few and untrained in the role, their rank and file sometimes honest, their officers – careers finished and seconded to the duty because they were inefficient or cowardly or simply disliked in their regiment - invariably hungry; the sole limitation on the criminal endeavours of the ordinary man was the existence of other criminals with their snouts in the trough and no great desire to share, and opportunities were so great that it was not too difficult to find one’s own, exclusive swindle. For a young man with money, no scruples and fewer morals, New York was a paradise on Earth; the hooked grin on Tom’s face turned into a smile of pure delight. Joseph, ever at Tom’s shoulder, had been brought up to Bible and Hellfire and disapproved, sometimes loudly, but he found himself able to accept a share in the profits, though sometimes wrestling with his conscience as he closed the drawstrings of his purse.
They landed on an autumn morning, looked about at the expanse of crowded, bustling wharves, a hundred times greater than English Harbour or Poole, men and horses, wagons and handcarts intermixed, crates and sacks and packing cases in heaps on the waterfront, moving into and out of warehouses and ships’ holds, a shouting cacophony, an apparent chaos. First impression said it was wide-open, an uncontrolled shambles; more careful observation disclosed two pickets of soldiers, acting as provosts, and dozens of armed men stood watching over individual warehouses and gangplanks, private guards hefting clubs and pistols and cutlasses in casually professional fashion, as ready to kill as to say ‘good-morning’ and as little moved by the one as the other. The presence of so many on police duty meant there was no law and order – as young as he was, Tom knew that the dragoons and excise men were only to be seen when smuggling was rife, when control had been lost – a peaceful countryside needed no armed men to keep it down, an orderly dockside required few visible policemen. The Second Mate from their ship passed by as they stood watching, exchanged a casual nod, and Tom asked him what he should do for accommodation, could he give a recommendation.
“You’ll have to take a hotel room for the while, sir – and very expensive that will be, too, because it will have to be one of the big places, the ones that will have quarters for your boy.”
Joseph scowled and shuffled a pace backwards to a place of subservience.
“Down at the Battery, sir, Robertson’s has a cook who can do more than burn a steak, but ‘tis a guinea a night, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr Jones. It will do for the while, till I can find a place of my own.”
Jones smiled politely, waved and whistled to a four-wheeled carriage drawn by a pair – suitable to the dignity of a man who could afford a guinea a night - and gave the driver directions. Joseph picked up the bags and heaved them aboard before climbing up onto the roof, hissing at Tom when he made to protest that they had to fit in, to do it properly. Joseph, coming from Antigua, knew that he was free, but had no illusions that that meant equal, readied himself to bow and scrape in proper humility, consoling himself that he was going to be richer than most of the whites surrounding him and sneering; one day he would take his money and buy some land and be truly free, somewhere, in some country where a black man could dare to be rich.
Robertson’s was perfect for Tom’s needs – Mr Jones had judged him well, it seemed - it was expensive but not genteel, no sprigs of the English aristocracy, actual or would-be, were to be found inside its doors, it catered exclusively for merchants and polite criminals, those wh
o wore collars and washed their shirts quite often. He laid down fourteen guineas in advance, ringing each coin on the mahogany counter, and took a bedroom and sitting room for himself and a separate cubicle in the quarters for Joseph, not a bunk in the common servants room, meals included. The bags were sealed with quantities of wax and placed in the strongroom, itself under permanent armed guard and generally reckoned to be secure.
On the first evening he came to an amicable arrangement with one of the several unattached young ladies to be found in the public rooms of the hotel, a pretty blonde-haired girl about two years his senior in age, a lifetime in experience; apart from the obvious reason, he had noticed that none of the men were unaccompanied – a complaisant young miss was a necessary accessory - a statement of success. Jenny knew everybody as well, was able to steer him towards a number of useful contacts, found him an attorney who knew of a warehouse with its own living quarters on the docks and was able to arrange its rental at very reasonable terms, for coin in advance – gold was in short supply, most transactions being made in various forms of paper. Tom presumed that she took a cut on each deal, but nothing came for free in this town and she had a living to make, a future to secure in a very uncertain world.
It took a week to close the lease and furnish the living quarters, Joseph doing the actual work of purchasing and moving furniture and equipping the kitchen, again a statement of wealth and position – young Mr Andrews kept his own black, did not get his own hands dirty. Joseph carefully referred to himself as ‘the Andrews’ servant’, implying that he had been a house slave and was still in servitude – freemen were distrusted but slaves were assumed to be stupid and docile – he overheard to their profit many a conversation for being treated as a dumb animal.
Jenny also was able to introduce Tom to Mr Robert Chawleigh – ‘call me Bob’ – an ‘agent’ and ‘trader in bits and bobs, ho-ho’ - who, she said, knew everybody and could be relied upon to point his clients in the right direction and, most importantly, stayed bought, never a whisper of a double-cross from Bob, everybody knew he was straight. Bob was looking for a man with a warehouse, a discreet gentleman who could buy and store a few tons of tobacco and then arrange to ship it out without any fuss. There was a planter ‘down the coast’ who had a consignment he wanted to move urgently – he needed the money, could not wait the months involved in shipping his crop to London and selling it.
Tom showed very interested, wanted to know more, arranged to meet a representative of the gentleman in question, the meanwhile discovering all he could about tobacco growing; it was soon clear that the nearest tobacco plantations were all well south, firmly in rebel-held lands, deep in the colonies, their ports blockaded. The English newssheets were available, with prices of goods at auction – Virginia tobacco was in increasingly short supply, its price rising every month in London; there was scope for profit. Customs could be squared, trading licences procured at little cost, but it might be wiser to attempt to conceal the tobacco in another cargo, give an appearance of legitimacy; rather than buy hold space it would be better to charter his own vessel.
Joseph set to work to discover a legitimate cargo, bought in best-quality seasoned timber for furniture making – oak and maple and walnut – and beaver skins for the hatters, commodities always in demand in London. Tom demanded two hundred tons of tobacco of Bob, disconcerting him, for he had been trying to move a river-boat load of fifteen tons.
“Can’t slip that much through the patrols, Tom, it ain’t possible.”
“Can’t be done then, Bob?”
They were sat to dinner in Robertson’s, both enjoying the change from the well-done beef that was all that was normally available elsewhere, as well as taking advantage of the unusually widely spaced tables that ensured privacy.
“Can’t be done the way I was first thinking, Tom. The tobacco warehouses are jam-packed full though, so it is merely a question of seeking another way, we could find a thousand tons if we wanted. If we cannot sneak the goods through, then they must come openly, preferably in an official convoy run by the military. We will need to buy papers and permits to load our goods onto military wagons - Major Jackson of the Commissariat who has an unfortunate taste for slow horses and fast women, could well be open to persuasion; settling day comes in two weeks and his credit is at an end, I know. Only yesterday an acquaintance begged me to pass him the hard word, in fact.”
The expression was new to Tom, he asked what he meant.
“Pay up, on time, or go for a swim in the Hudson, wearing lead boots.”
“Ah! That could be a very short dip – sounds like a very fair alternative, though. How much is he in for?”
“Only two hundred, but it’s not the first time he has had to beg for credit and he’s run out of friends – he could be topped with very little fuss, as an example to others.”
“Two hundred is always available to a friend, Bob, and more, perhaps. Could I meet the Major, or should everything be done at a distance?”
“I shall arrange for you to meet him, Tom.”
Tom relaxed as he left the hotel – Jenny had suggested, very strongly, that he should learn to talk like a gentleman, it would enable him to meet them on equal terms, and she had been teaching him, correcting his aitches and broadening his vocabulary – she said her father had been a curate and had wanted her to become a governess, but she had found more congenial ways of making a living, coming out to New York with an officer when she was no more than sixteen. It was still hard work though, the Dorset burr very hard to shift from the tongue – but, he accepted, he needed to talk ‘like a gentleman’ if he was to fleece the gentry, and they had the most money.
Major Jackson was plump, self-indulgent and a fool – not unintelligent, not unwise in the ways of the world, but convinced that life should be easy, that he should not have to work for a living, that he had a right to the comfort he had been born to. He was a second son, his late father a baronet, his brother settled on the family estates in Huntingdonshire on five thousand a year, and himself having inherited only a very few thousands from his mother; he ignored the fact that his brother had bought his commissions for him, for that had been no more than was right for the head of the family, merely deplored that he should be expected to keep himself and his family on his pay. His family was now no more than a daughter, his wife and son having been taken by typhus a year before, and he regretted bitterly that he could not send his girl back to England, to live with his brother, but he could not afford the cost of a passage for her and a maid. His expenses were the least a gentleman could consider, and his gambling losses just one of those unfortunate burdens the well-born had to bear; nothing was his fault, nothing was in his power to amend – he was sure Mr Andrews could appreciate his position.
Mr Andrews appreciated only too well, so much so that he offered a ‘temporary’ loan to tide the major over his current difficulties – a mere monkey, five hundred pounds. As for terms, unimportant, it could be repaid as and when the major might find it convenient – the major could discuss that with Bob, at his leisure. There was no mention of anything so unsubtle as a bribe, not even a hint that the major might wish to offer a favour in return – they were merely gentlemen together.
It took two months, but on a cold January afternoon a military convoy pulled into the yard of Tom’s warehouse, fifty of the largest artillery wagons discharging two tons each of wrapped bales of tobacco – the wrapping to disguise the nature of the goods, although the smell was pungent and unmistakable at fifty yards; the wagons returned a week later with the second half of the consignment. Bob had arranged for the leaf to be brought by small coastal boats - tiny yawls and cutters and ketches that normally carried no more than market gardeners and their vegetables from village to local town - in consignments of five or ten tons at a time to a jetty a few miles down coast; the boats would have stood out in New York itself, obviously out of place, so the last stage had been made overland.
Another five days and Tom’s chart
ered ship docked at the wharf opposite to his doors and his cargo was loaded, clean and dry and bilge-free. She sailed into the storms of winter, her master quite without apprehension – she was a new ship and well-found, would stand up to anything short of a hurricane, and there were fewer hazards in the cold months – cruising men-of-war less often to be found and private ships of war, never.
The convoy from England docked in late June and Tom received a packet from his correspondents in England; his goods had been received and put to auction, the tobacco, best snuff, particularly well-received, as the discounted Bills of Exchange enclosed would testify.
Tom sat to his account books, all payments made and commissions paid, and calculated that he had cleared eleven pounds on each ton of tobacco, thirty shillings a ton on the furniture wood and eighteen pence on each of the four hundred beaver pelts, a little less than three thousands, which was good money, but only a quarter of it from Joseph’s legitimate trading. It was obvious where his endeavours must most sensibly be directed. Bob was asked to lay his hands on another four hundred tons, at least, of tobacco, as quickly as might be.
“Less easy than last time, Tom – the coastal waters can’t be used, due to the navy getting efficient in its blockading. It would have to be overland all the way – American wagons north to the extent of their influence, then ours across the debatable areas and through the English controlled lands. They would have to be escorted – a troop of irregular cavalry, I suspect – they have no uniforms and can belong to either side at need. It would demand more of cash down, I think.”
“Who needs be paid, Bob?”
The Privateersman (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 1) Page 7
