by John Drake
Later Lady Sarah considered the list and put down her pen. The list now looked like this:
Fletcher
Mr Forster the Magistrate
Mr Pendennis the Polmouth merchant
Mr Richard Lucey the solicitor
Mr Taylor the bookseller (& wife)
Mr Forster’s Constable
The Constables two brothers.
10
Once I’d got things squared with Lucinda, things picked up something wonderful. For public consumption she continued to glide round the house with her head in the air, and looked down her nose at me. She was careful always to address me as “Sah” or “Loo-tenant”, but come night-time and the house asleep she’d tap on my door and everything was “honey” and “sugar”. Mind you, that wasn’t every night. She had to be careful. That’s what she told me, anyway.
Things picked up in another way too, and one that I’d never have imagined. The day after Lucinda and I had executed our first squadronal manoeuvres, a letter arrived in the house from one Henry Knox, who was no less than the Yankee Secretary of War, and the very man charged by President Washington to rebuild the U.S. Navy. Knox was an old friend of the Cooper family, and heavily in debt to Cooper’s Pa for contributions to the back-handers and expenses that got Knox into his present job in the first place. And this shows two interesting things. First, how very well-conducted was the Clan Cooper, and second, that for all the Yankees’ protestations of democracy and equality, the wheels of power in their land turned remarkably similar to those in England.
I say that because the subject of the letter was unofficial confirmation that young Cooper was to get command of Declaration of Independence with the rank of Post Captain. All the niceties would follow: a Commission signed by the President, a Warrant to recruit men, cash to pay the dockyard … etc. But with Knox’s letter, the thing was assured.
Cooper got his letter at breakfast time and danced round the room in his China silk dressing gown.
“Fletcher, my boy,” says he, “just look at this! Just look at this!” and he stuffed the letter in my hand with such a happy smile on his face that for a moment I was genuinely pleased for him. Then his tongue ran away with him: “Shan’t I just show it to those Limeys now?” says he, and burst into fits of laughter as he realised what he’d said.
“Oh!” says he, slapping my shoulder, “you don’t mind do you, old fellow?” Over his shoulder I could see Lucinda making mock of him, by pouting her lips as if to kiss him and wriggling her breasts behind the back of his head. That made me laugh and Cooper thought I was laughing with him, but I wasn’t. I hadn’t forgotten who’d robbed my ship from under me and I don’t see why I should be pleased that he’d got a bigger command to do the same to others.
After that, he got dressed at lightning speed, called for his carriage and was off to the Harts’ yard to set everything in motion. Having got his command, he was terrified that peace would be declared before he could get her to sea and achieve something with her. He was still pulling his boots on as he hopped out of the front door.
“Are you really sure you won’t come too, Fletcher, old friend?” says he. “I’d truly appreciate your good advice on my guns.”
“No, thank’ee, Cooper,” says I, “my wound is aching again and I think I’ll rest this morning.” I winked at Lucinda as he went out. I certainly didn’t want to go over his precious ship with him again. On the contrary, I was hoping to go over Lucinda. But I had no luck there. The house was full of servants, and she said Cooper might be back at any time. She was right too. She’d worked for him for two years and she knew his moods.
Cooper was so exulted with his commission and his wonderful ship that he flew into a passion of activity and once he’d lit fires under the backsides of the dockyard staff and Declaration’s standing officers, he organised a dinner that very evening for the cream of Boston Society. The one thing I did respect in Cooper, was his energy. For when he had an objective in mind he went after it like a greyhound and worried it like a bulldog.
Early in the afternoon he was back in the house and had his servants running messages to the great and the good of Boston. He even had me at work. I was given a list of names and pen and paper, and charged with drawing up the invitations. The cheek of it! He made me feel like a clerk again. But there was no saying no to him, ‘cos he was too busy to do it himself, and none of the servants (even Lucinda) could read or write, they being Southern Blacks, up from the plantations.
He had a good sense of detail too. I suppose I have to concede that. I was invited, of course — how could he show to best advantage without his principal hunting trophy?
But I had no evening clothes, so he lent me an old outfit of his father’s: a Frenchified suit of maroon-striped silk. But I can’t wear clothes made for you ordinary folk with your little thin legs and your narrow chests. Lucinda did her best, letting out the old man’s coat, but I looked ridiculous and stitches popped every time I moved.
That evening we gathered in the big, oval dining room which was a feature of the better Boston houses, and was no doubt intended as an imitation of the best English design.* * Not so. Oval dining rooms were not an English innovation but an original design of the very Charles Bullfinch, a native Bostonian architect, who was sitting beside Fletcher on this occasion. A remarkable coincidence. S.P. It was a fine display of local rank, and was by far the most exalted company I’d ever sat down with in all my twenty years. I was up near Cooper’s end of the table with an architect called Bullfinch on one side of me and Cooper’s aunt Gabrielle on the other. The table was enormous (vulgar, if you ask me) and what with all the noise and toasting was too wide to talk across. It was boiling hot, and I sweated like a pig. The food was excellent and the wine plentiful and I as nearly got drunk as ever I have. Normally I go careful with the drink ‘cos I detest a thick head, but I was feeling sorry for myself again.
The trouble was, Cooper — who’d really let himself go with the wine — couldn’t help using me as a but for his tall tales. I’d have thought that by now Boston was fed up with the account of the capture of Bednal Green, but no, it got another airing, and all the company smiled upon him. The ladies simpered, and fluttered their fans, and the gentlemen growled and emptied their glasses.
“So we came alongside of Lieutenant Fletcher’s command,” says he, to enwrapped silence, “and the brave Lieutenant, the victor of great battles in the present European war [I got some admiring looks for that one, and Cooper’s aunt who must have been over forty but wasn’t half bad-looking an old bird, patted my hand in sympathy. I could have had that one in ten minutes given a quiet corner], the brave Lieutenant himself directed a shattering broadside into my own poor ship. But notwithstanding the heavy damage caused, and the loss of American lives, I … etc., etc.”
That was Cooper, you see. Not what you’d call a bad man. He wasn’t mean or cruel or brutal. But he was so damn obsessed with climbing the ladder that he’d swallowed his own lies (it was him that wrote that article for the Washington newspaper, incidentally). I think he probably believed by now that he’d won a real ship-to-ship action. Anyway, it stuck in my craw. I could easily have stood up and denounced him, but I didn’t; the swab could doubtless put me back in prison as quick as he’d got me out. But that didn’t stop me feeling fed up to the back teeth with him. Him and his charity and his father’s suit that didn’t fit me. I was raised on charity and had hoped never to need it again.
So he blathered on, and the courses came and went, and the covers were lifted and the ladies withdrew. That was the signal for the gentlemen to close ranks to fill the vacant places, which put Cooper’s uncle Ezekiah next to me. He was a decent old stick, a man in his fifties, wearing a powdered wig and a respectable suit of black brocade. He reminded me strongly of Mr Nathan Pendennis, who’d been my employer when I was counting-house clerk in Polmouth. I took to him from the first words he spoke.
“Well, young man,” says he, easing himself into the chair vacate
d by his wife, “that was some drubbing you took from my nephew!” He smiled at me and reached for the port. “Least-ways, it was the way he tells it!”
Then he smote the table with the flat of his hand and called for silence. He was obviously a man of some importance, and much respected among those round the table.
“Gentlemen,” says he, “and loyal Bostonians all. We’ve had some sport this evening at the expense of the British, which is a good thing to do now we’re at war with them again.” He looked around the table and nodded at the other men of his generation. “Now some of us here, why, we fought against the British in times past. And some of you were beside me at Bunkers Hill at the birth of our nation.”
The room had gone utterly still, and they were hanging on his words. Even Cooper was, for this man was talking about things deeper and more sacred to the American mind than some little skirmish at sea. “And gentlemen,” says Ezekiah Cooper, “although I wished ‘em ruin, and I gave ‘em fire from my musket, I know that I shall never again, so long as I live, see any sight to compare with the massed Grenadiers of the British Regiments coming up Bunkers Hill to the sound of the fife and drum. So I give you the toast,” says he: “The British Grenadiers!”
Well, that was oratory for you. Every man raised his glass. Some of the older ones had tears in their eyes as they remembered their lost youth. And as for me, I was drawn into their conversation in a way that I’d not been before, which I truly believe was Ezekiah’s intention in saying what he did. He turned me from being a tame bear into the representative of an honourable enemy, from a figure of fun to a man with a man’s dignity. It was a kindly act, done out of sympathy for a stranger (so I thought, at least). But it brought me more harm than good in the long run, for it greased the slide beneath me that ran me into danger.
For the conversation, at this stage of the evening, turned to trade. These men around the table were the power-holders of their city. What’s more, they were representative of the great men of their land, the men who sat in Congress and the Senate, and held sway. But they talked about trade. They talked of trade, and manufacturing and enterprise and business. It was wonderful. Here were men who held the same place in American society as the Noble Lords and Dukes and Earls held in our own. But they spoke of trade, which no British nobleman dirtied his hands with. Furthermore, some of these Boston Merchant Princes had been born poor. They’d made their way by their own work and nobody thought the less of them for it! Can you see what this meant to a man like me? A man born poor and orphaned, whose greatest interest in life was … trade?
Some powerfully strange and conflicting thoughts were stirring in my mind, when I noticed the most fascinating conversation was under way at my left elbow. Ezekiah Cooper and another merchant, a man called Blair, were laughingly trying to make some sort of calculation upon the table, with their fingertips dipped in wine. One or two others were leaning across, following the action. All of them were a little the worse for drink or they’d surely have worked out the thing for themselves. I listened a bit and then stuck my oar in.
“No, no!” says Blair. “My son was to go to Canton, as supercargo, and he was to sell the furs that they’d taken on from the north-west coast.”
“Ah,” says Ezekiah, “but how would he deal with the Chinese? They offer a mixture of coin from a dozen countries. Moidores, talers, Spanish dollars and English sovereigns. You or I could keep account, but he couldn’t.”
“Yes, of course,” said Blair, in a slurred voice, trying to draw pictures on the polished table-top. “That’s just my point. I knew the boy couldn’t reckon in different monies, so I told him this,” and he tapped the table solemnly in emphasis. “I told my boy to weigh the gold, and I gave him the scales and all to do it with. He was to bring back gold to the value of 4,000 United States dollars. That’s 18 pounds 9 ounces, sir!”
“Of course,” says Ezekiah, “it’s easier simply to weigh out the coin. That way there’s no need to …”
“But!” says Blair, “yesterday my son comes home. And happy I am to see him, after nearly two years away, but what does he tell me? The rascal tells me that he got his weights and scales stolen and so had to borrow from the Captain of the ship.”
“Borrow what?” says Ezekiah, losing the thread of the story.
“Weights and scales, sir!” says Blair impatiently. “Weights and scales. D’ye see?”
“No, sir,” said Ezekiah, “I do not.”
“Bah!” says Blair, exasperated with his slowness to comprehend. “I gave the wretch jewellers’ weights to measure the gold. jewellers’ weights! And he used some damned ordinary weights and scales of avoirdupois measure. He sold the furs for 17 pounds 8 ounces avoirdupois.”
“Ah!” said Ezekiah, understanding at last, and the whole table laughed as he summarised Blair’s predicament. “So you don’t know whether you’ve turned a profit or a loss?”
“No, sir, I do not!” says Blair, glaring at the smiling faces. “Not till I get into my office tomorrow and have my clerks calculate the matter.”
And this is where I joined in. As you know well, these sorts of dealings are meat and drink to me, and it is my great pride and satisfaction that I’m so good at it. So I was only too ready to butt in and show these Yankees what I can do.
“No need to wait for morning, sir,” says I. “The thing don’t sound so difficult.”
“Indeed, sir?” says Ezekiah, and they all looked at me to see what I would do next. There were some tolerant smiles and some muttering from Cooper and his immediate cronies. But I didn’t mind that in the least. I was about to perform on home ground.
“Indeed not,” says I. “Mr Blair’s son sold his furs for seven-teen and a half pounds of gold, avoirdupois measure, and Mr Blair needs 4,000 U.S. dollars for a profit. Is that correct, sir?” says I to Blair.
“Yes, Mr Fletcher,” says Blair.
“Well, sir,” says I, drawing on my years of experience as a counting-house clerk, “to begin with, let’s distinguish jewellers’ weight, that is troy weight, from avoirdupois. One pound troy contains 5,760 grains, while one pound avoirdupois contains 7,000 grains … as everybody knows,” says I, looking round. The smiles were gone and the muttering had stopped. Ezekiah laughed. The rest looked on with new respect. “That’s better, you swabs!” thinks I to myself, and continued, “Now I presume, Mr Blair, your calculation that 4,000 dollars equals 18 pounds 9 ounces, bases upon the Act of Congress of 3rd April 1792, establishing that one dollar shall contain 27 grains of fine gold.” (You’ll remember I’d read that in the book of pamphlets in Cooper’s library, and I don’t have the least problem in remembering facts of that kind.) “That, and the fact that you would naturally have sought to measure your gold in troy weight, which divides the pound into 12 ounces.”
“Ah! Hmm!” says Blair and you could have heard a pin drop for the rest of my little lecture.
“So,” says I, and calculated the,rest of the thing in my head, which is child’s play for me, “assuming you have 17 pounds 8 ounces of gold, avoirdupois. With 7,000 grains per pound, that gives you 122,500 grains of gold. And that, at a rate of 27 grains to the dollar, gives you 4,537 dollars and four cents … approximately, Mr Blair.”
Ezekiah and some of the others laughed, but Blair still looked blank, trying to catch up. But I wasn’t done yet. These Yankees might have thought themselves businessmen, but I was out to make a demonstration.
“But that, gentlemen,” says I, to the table at large, “assumes we are dealing with pure gold. Mr Blair,” I asked, “in what coin did your gold come?”
“Mainly British and Portuguese,” says Blair, “with some French.”
“Good,” says I, really showing off now, “turning again to Congress’s Act of April ‘92. The Act allows for the fact that different levels of purity, or ‘fine-ness’ are found in foreign gold. Thus 27 grains of British or Portuguese gold shall equal one dollar, but 27 and two-fifths of French gold shall be needed as it is less fine. So, Mr Blair,�
� says I, “even if all your gold were French, its value would reduce only in the ratio that 27 stands to 27 and two-fifths, say 135/137 times 4,537 … that represents 4,470 dollars, and I congratulate you on a healthy profit!”
There was a moment’s silence then a roar of laughter from Ezekiah Cooper. He laughed till his face was beetroot red and he slapped me on the back and called me a damn fine fellow. He laughed so much that the others joined in (even those who were thinking I was too damned clever by half, and a smart-assed Limey to boot) and it was smiles and applause all up and down the table. And, to be fair to a man I never liked, Cooper himself joined in and his cronies with him.
“Come and see me tomorrow, Mr Fletcher,” says Ezekiah. “Come to my office in King Street. I can use a man like you.”
“Hallo,” thinks Ito myself, “this looks promising.” For Uncle Ezekiah was one of the great men of the town, and fully as important in Boston as my old employer Pendennis was in Pol-mouth. I hardly dared to guess what might be in this for me. But happy speculation kept my mind occupied for the rest of the evening, until the company were taken off in their carriages in the small hours of the morning. I went to bed merry with expectation and tried to keep awake for a while in the hope that Lucinda would tap on my door. But she didn’t and the next thing I knew it was morning.
I saw Cooper at breakfast and raised the subject of his uncle’s offer, while Lucinda swanned about with a coffee-pot and her nose in the air.
“Of course, it would mean my going forth unaccompanied ...” says I, looking closely at Cooper. That was something I’d not yet done and I supposed that he had the right to object, what with my being an enemy officer, parolled into his charge. But he grinned like a monkey and waved this away.
