A King's Trade

by Dewey Lambdin

  Keith Ashburn, a fellow Midshipman in 1780, was listed in the lower third, in command of a frigate; Francis Forrester, that fubsy fart with all the “interest” and patronage, was above Keith, now pestering the crew of his own Fifth Rate. His old captain in the Far East, Ayscough, was near the top of the list, with a two-decker 74.

  Dropping down to Commanders, he found that Midshipman Hogue of those Far East adventures under Ayscough had just taken command of one of those new-fangled Brig-Sloops, and even more pleasingly, his First Officer into HMS Jester, Lt. Knolles, had been promoted into a Sloop of War with an epaulet on his shoulder, too. Far down, though, there was Kenyon… damn his blood! That “windward passage” bugger was now a Commander, too.

  ” ‘Ere’s your hot water, sir,” Aspinall announced as he and Seaman Bannister staggered into the great-cabins, each bearing two gallon buckets, and Lewrie’s reveries ended for a time.

  It was only after he was squeaky clean, his hair trimmed and still slightly damp, and clad in a fresh-smelling uniform, that Lewrie started in on his personal correspondence. There was a nice selection from which to choose; a thick letter from Theoni Kavares Connor, the mother of his bastard son in London; even one from his half-Cherokee bastard son, who was now a Midshipman in the fledging United States Navy. His actual offspring, Sewallis, Hugh, and Charlotte, had written him, too. There was one from the Trencher family he had met in London, one from his wife Caroline, wonder of wonders, one from Sir Malcolm Shockley, one of his patrons in the House of Commons, but…there was a very thick packet from Zachariah Twigg, and, despite his desire for news of his family…his real family…he felt himself drawn to it despite himself.

  Lewrie undid the bindings, letting the travel-stained covering fall open to reveal a stack of newspapers bound in twine, with a folded letter atop it all. He opened the letter very carefully, using only the tips of his fingers, as if handling a dud exploding shell.

  “Sir,” Twigg’s letter began, “our Cause advances most promisingly, though I must, in good Conscience, confess that the Enthusiasm of your Abolitionist Allies quite took me by surprise, and that I greatly under-estimated just how much Notice…favourable Notice, mind…that the Publick has taken of your Exploit. I daresay, as you may see from the enclosed papers, that Revd. Wilberforce and his associates have made of you quite the Nine-Day Wonder, and your freeing of slaves in the Caribbean the talk of the city. As the odious French might say, you and your Cause are become a cause célèbre!”

  “Oh…my…God!” Lewrie groaned aloud. “Damn their….”

  “It is possible that General Napoleon Bonaparte’s recent escape from his failed Egyptian expedition and his most recent accession to power once back in Paris maybe the greater news, at present, but, you do run him a close second,” Twigg went on.

  “You are lauded, should that be the correct way to put it, by the sobriquet which I supplied them, of ‘Ram-Cat’ Lewrie, the Publick and the newspaper scribblers making the obvious mistake of imagining that ‘Ram-Cat’ represents your belligerent Nature when confronting our foes at sea, instead of what we both know as more representative of your Lascivious proclivities. You will find from the Abolitionists’ tracts which I included, however, that you are now equally spoken of as ‘Black Alan’ Lewrie, or ‘Emancipation’ Lewrie, and the Hero of the hour!”

  “Mine arse on a band-box if I am!” Lewrie shakily growled; he had no idea it would come to this! What happened to subtle defence?

  “All this was prompted,” Twigg continued, “by a letter which I received from Mister Peel on Jamaica. Peel continues to thrive, by the by, and expressed to me that I should convey to you his utmost respect and best wishes. It would seem that the Beauman family, from whom you stole those dozen slaves for seamen, had finally coerced, or beaten, enough evidence from the other Slaves remaining on their Plantation on Portland Bight to discover the Hows and Whens, and, most especially, the Identity of their Thief. Peel warned that the Beaumans intend to pursue the Matter in a Court of Law, and are not to be dissuaded from their Purpose by any means at Peel’s disposal. He would stand ready to initiate extra-legal means to thwart them, though he fears any such action on his part might not redound to your Discredit should word of it reach England. They have engaged a prominent colonial Barrister in Kingston who is, I learn, soon to be despatched to London, where he is to lay charges on his own, or further engage lawyers who deal in King’s Bench cases to either assist him, or take upon themselves the Matter, entire. By the time you are in receipt of this letter, he may already be there.”

  “I’m ruined, I’m done for,” Lewrie felt like shrieking. “I’m… hung!”

  “Publick Opinion in your Favour, though, has most likely prejudiced their Suit before the case may be laid,” Twigg further wrote to reassure him. “A legal friend of mine, and old schoolmate, who sits on King’s Bench cases, explained to me that you have the right under English Common Law to be confronted by your Accusers in the Flesh, and not by dry Affidavit, as well as by Witnesses, which will require the Beaumans, perhaps their whole odious Clan, to sail to England for the Proceedings, a requirement they should have been told by their legal representative on Jamaica in the first place, or shall soon learn, to their further distress. Equally, Witnesses to testify to your perfidy must include Slaves from that Plantation, and, what a cunning Defence Council may make of their living Conditions, Punishments, Victuals, and the Means the Beaumans applied to force Confessions from them will be the finest Grist for the Abolitionists’ mill! Were I a Beauman bent upon Revenge against you, I should think twice before appearing such a despicable Ogre for all the world to see!”

  Lewrie raised one eyebrow as he fantasised Hugh Beauman in the dock, squirming in anger and arrogance as a sharp barrister took him to task, whilst the gallery, perhaps the judges, too, openly wept over the slaves’ testimonies, all England swayed to freeing every…

  I’ve been had…again! Lewrie suddenly thought with a gasp.

  The Abolitionists could have mounted a silent, subtle defence, but, had they really looked upon him, that morning he had walked into the Trenchers’ parlour, as a test case, the very sort of cause célèbre which would sway public opinion to demand emancipation for slaves in the British Empire?

  Have I been their “Bread Cast Upon The Waters”? he had to ask himself; Their sacrificial baa-lamb? It works, I’m a hero, not hung. If it fails, they’ll weep a bit, then try again with someone else, and I’m a martyr to their cause! Christ, shit on a… !

  And why, Lewrie suddenly wondered, feeling that such erudition on his part had come much too late; did Zachariah Twigg write to me so quickly? Am I his damned cat’s-paw…again? He knew just exactly whom to approach, the conniving, devious old… secret Abolitionist! Why, he might’ve been one of ‘em for years! In on it from the first!

  Now glowing with anger, Lewrie returned to Twigg’s letter.

  “Conversely, you may not be tried in Absentia, which will require your presence, a Circumstance subject to the whim of Admiralty, and an advantage greatly in your Favour so long as the Navy needs you at sea in command of a frigate, delaying the Confrontation for years, during which your allies the Reformers and Abolitionists may continue to beat the drum and keep the matter of Emancipation in Publick notice.”

  “I knew it!” Lewrie growled. “I just knew …well, no, dammit. Not ‘til now I didn’t, but…damme!” he spat, sopping sweat off his forehead.

  “This has, of course, required us to engage legal representation for you, and, with the aid of your Solicitor, Mister Matthew Mountjoy, and his good advice, succeeded in engaging one Mister Andrew MacDougall, Esquire, one of the finest up-and-coming legal minds in England. He is one of those canny Ed-inborough Scots, usually thought to be just too clever by half, but, in your Cause, such sharp and clever wit may prove to be vital,” Twigg continued. “Do not dread the costs, for I am assured by Reverend Wilberforce, the Trenchers, and others, that a campaign will be launched to gather donations towards your def
ence, so this Necessity might not touch your purse too dearly.”

  “Not too dear, for God’s sake?” Lewrie bleakly croaked, with a cringe, imagining all his prize-money being shovelled down a rat-hole, of ending penniless, homeless, and on half-pay…and that was if he prevailed. The scandal would be too great, as if it already wasn’t!, and the hour after his vindication, the Navy would chuck him out the servants’ entrance like a drunk at closing time, and did they feel a keen vindictiveness, a Court-Martial for “Conduct Unbecoming” would make even half-pay moot!

  Unless…

  For a mad moment, Lewrie contemplated Wigmore’s circus. Three of his Black hands were now dead and gone, already, and two more now “run.” He wondered what sort of deal he could strike with Wigmore to hire-on the rest, so when he sailed back to England, he could respond with “What stolen slaves? You see any?”

  Maybe he could learn to ride horses standing up on their backs, and jump through flaming hoops, juggle, or portray naval characters in dramas. No, comedies would be better. More apt!

  There was more to come in Twigg’s long letter, and he returned to it, though by now he dreaded what else the man might have arranged.

  “Support for our Cause in Parliament is building quite nicely, too, I assure you. No matter the seeming Criminality of your Actions, your chiefest Patron in the Commons, Sir Malcolm Shockley, has spoken most eloquently for you, and has gathered round him not only some of the leading lights from his own growing faction, but many of the up-and-coming Reformist sorts, such as Sir SamuelWhitbread, and many of the Crown’s own faction. Given the best face official government has put upon our recent debacle on Saint-Domingue, in which you played a part, and the Publick pronouncements of Congratulations to the former slaves of that colony who rose up and rebelled against the cruel state in which their former French masters kept them—cynical and false though such pronouncements were!—the ruling faction cannot appear the two-faced Janus and condemn one of their Sea Officers who freed a dozen slaves, no matter how ilegally, or be called down as hypocrites. Those voices in Commons condemning you, therefore, are mostly from the Shipping and Sugar interests, whose only god is Mammon, and rest assured that Sir Malcolm and others have made certain that everyone in Great Britain knows their Venality for what it is. A great many who might condemn your actions and call for your immediate return to face charges have muted themselves, else they are tarred the same. Even in Lord’s, a body usually much more conservative and hide-bound than the Commons, you have found remarkably supportive Voices speaking to the Justification of your deed, rather than to the cut-and-dried facts of common thievery, among them your old schoolmate, Lord Peter Rushton, of all hen-headed wonders. Your deed has been interpreted as a bold geste, a blow struck for Human Freedom, as you will note when you see the newspaper articles, and the many letters written upholding your actions…. I’m told that homilies and sermons have been preached…”

  He’d had enough of Twigg for the moment, so he turned to that pile of newspapers and tracts, and, if he thought things were horrid then, he rapidly discovered what “horrid” really was.

  The Times, the Gazette, even the Marine Chronicle’s latest numbers featured articles about him, not one of which actually got the facts right, or made things up out of whole cloth, though they weren’t that condemnatory, and most of the letters to the editors sounded like the bulk of the writers somehow approved. England, after all, didn’t much care for slavery; if “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves” then why should anyone else, and only “foreigners,” meaning Spaniards and other assorted evil types, did it, didn’t they? Slave labour was something that happened far overseas, and even if Englishmen did keep slaves in the Sugar Isles, “our” sort of slavery couldn’t be all that bad, could it, compared to Dons, Dagoes, and Frogs?

  The lesser papers, though, and the tracts…Good God!

  Every one of them splashed a copy of a large wood-cut drawing on its front, a fantastic picture of a bare-headed Lewrie in full uniform storming a minor fort of Utter Evil, with a huge sword, much like fabled King Arthur’s Excalibur, in one hand, and a knight-crusader shield on his other arm bearing a shining Christian cross and the word “Freedom” on its face! The bloated and knobby-faced villains atop the ramparts were as ogreish as anyone could wish, cringing and tearing at their hair as they directed a legion of skeletons garbed most remarkably like French grenadiers to oppose him as he (the artistic Lewrie!) actually was depicted leading a band of winged angels, for God’s sake!

  Little ribbons of captions led from the villains’ mouths, with “‘Tis only Business, ye Meddlesome Upstart!” and “Curses on him who’d come ‘tween us and our Money!” and other statements sure to rile the average reader.

  At Lewrie’s feet knelt several “grateful” Blacks—those not impaled on the evil minions’ bayonets!—expressing the most pitiful expressions of thankfulness for even a few of them being liberated, a selection of phrases that made Lewrie cringe in embarrassment and squirm in his chair!

  “God above, they got Cruikshank t’do it!” Lewrie gawped aloud, when he took note of the wee signature beneath the artwork. No wonder the villains resembled the worst aspects of that artist’s depictions of his stock-character “John Bull”!

  No one had loaned Cruikshank a portrait to copy, though, thank God, so “Saint Alan, the Immaculate” (or so the scribbles on his coat stated) bore an uncanny likeness to Horatio Nelson kicking Bonaparte’s fundament… though Lewrie thought that Cruikshank had made him both taller and more manly than that slim little minnikin!

  “Must not’ve paid him all that much!” he muttered. “Damn!”

  He pushed all that aside, skimmed over the last few sentences of Twigg’s letter, which didn’t amount to much, and sat back in utter misery. A trip to his wine-cabinet was in order, he decided, badly! Re-armed with a glass of brandy, he returned to his desk to see what else there was to plague him.

  Well, there were letters from Sewallis and Hugh. Both of them almost made him feel much better, for they were frankly proud of him, all eager to leave their stultifying school, and go fight the French, and the evil “blackbirders”!

  His father, Sir Hugo, was also complimentary, noting that his and their ward Sophie’s social invitations had increased since word of what he’d done had first appeared in the newspapers, though the old fart did complain that he’d have to sell off his shares in a Liverpool slave ship on the quiet side, since the price had suddenly sunk so low, and he might not have profitted from it, anyway, and how dare his son associate with such a “wild-eyed and rabid pack of hounds,” sure to be exposed in future in secret league with the most Jacobite and Levelling wing of the Foxites and “French-Lovers” who had lost all credence after King Louis and his Queen had been beheaded in ‘92! Besides, an English gentleman should not appear in the papers unless he did something glorious or noteworthy; else, only his birth, his wedding, and his demise should be grist for common reading by the lower sorts!

  His daughter, Charlotte, sent a one-page letter, which stated that “Mama told me you did something Heroic, though extremely Foolish and Reckless, over some Black People, but that is your Nature, as Mama has ever said. Thank you for the dolls from heathen Brazil, they are very pretty, though the package contained a large, black, and hairy Spider as big as my hand. Before Governess squished it, it was most awfully good fun to chase about! Mama says the Admiralty told her you are now in Africa or India. If you can find another spider, I would love it. If not a spider, I would very much like a Monkey!”

  And, Caroline, herself, well…

  Long-suffering, God-only-knows-what-you-have-done-to-shame-us-this-time, though she did note that the vicar of St. George’s in Anglesgreen had delivered a rather impassioned (for him) homily about slavery, and why it should be abolished throughout the realm, as it was already in Great Britain. She also noted that her brother, Governour Chiswick, a former slave-owner himself in the Carolinas before the American Revolution, had nearly storme
d out in anger, had not his sweet wife, Millicent, restrained him, and that the two of them were now at-loggerheads over the subject. The vicar had praised their own local “Emancipator,” had almost (but not quite!) called him a “True Christian Gentleman” (which might have set off inappropriate laughter, and driven Caroline to storm out, Lewrie suspected) so that almost everyone in Anglesgreen now thought him a fine fellow, even the local squire, Sir Romney Embleton. What his otter-faced son, Harry, thought was not recorded, but then, who cared a damn what Harry Embleton thought!

  “… though our lands in the Cape Fear, of such sweet Memory, were, indeed, worked by Negro Labour, never in my mind can I recall an instant of such Brutality as the papers describe in the Sugar Islands of the Caribbean, Alan. Why else would Old Mammy and a few others of our household clew to us so fiercely, and kindly, and my old Mammy to Emigrate with us to England, where, ‘til her Passing, she served Mama and Papa and me so Faithfully and Cheerfully, even after Manumission?

  “I can only pray that the accounts of the Reformers and Abolitionists are greatly exaggerated to foment their Cause’s success, or, should they prove True, that the Reformers succeed, for no one of our former acqaintance in North Carolina, a most genteel and refined Society, could ever have even conceived of such fiendishness. Evidently, the planter class in the Sugar Isles are an utterly Depraved lot, bad as the tobacco-chewing dregs who are now, I am told, populating lower portions of the old Georgia colony!”

  Am I too cynical, or is she too naive? he had to wonder at her well-edited remembrances.

  “Alan, you have ever been a Puzzlement. Worthy of cursing for an inveterate Rogue and Rake-Hell, a jocular and slothful Lack-A-Day, where an Upright Man would shew Sobriety, Diligence, and Rectitude in his doings. For a man grown, you evince such a Boyish, Indolent face to Life. Surely, such should preclude your Advancement in such a demanding profession as Seafaring, and the Navy, yet, you not only thrive, you are become a great Success, and a Hero.