Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  With this we drank October ale, touching neither Madeira nor sherry, though both were recommended us; but I wished not to mix draughts to set that latent deviltry a-brewing in Jack Mount, so refused all save ale for himself and for me, though I allowed him a hot bowl with his hazel nuts.

  We now withdrew to one of the small tables in a corner of the room, a servant bringing thither our nuts and hot bowls, and also some writing materials for me.

  These I prepared to use at once, pushing the nut-shells clear, and seized the pen to cramp it in my fist and set to work, tongue-moistening my determined lips:

  “October 28, 1774.

  “Thos. Foxcroft, Esquire,

  Solicitor, Queen Street,

  Boston.

  “My dear Sir, — At what hour this evening will it prove convenient for you to receive the undersigned upon affairs of the 380 utmost urgency and grave moment concerning Miss Warren whose interests I believe you represent?

  “The instant importance of the matter I trust may plead my excuse for this abrupt intrusion on your privacy.

  “Pray consider me, Sir,

  “Yr most obliged and obedient Servt

  “Michael Cardigan.

  “At the Wild Goose

  near Wiltshire and Chambers Streets.”

  Sealing the letter, I bade the servant take it and bring an answer if the gentleman was at home, but in any event to leave the letter.

  Mount had taken a pipe from the stranger’s rack, and now lighted it, peering out of the window, and puffing away in vast contentment.

  Northward, across the water, the lights of Charlestown glimmered through a thin fog. Nearer, in mid-stream, rose the black hull of a British war-ship, battle-lanthorns set and lighted, stabbing the dark tide below with jagged shafts of yellow light, cut by little black waves which hastened seaward on the sombre ebbing tide.

  As for Boston, or as much of it as we could see over the shadowy roofs and slanting house-tops, it was deathly dark and still. Fort Pitt, with its hundreds of people, which Boston could match with thousands, was far more stirring and alive than this dumb city of shadows, with never a stir in its empty streets, and never a light from a window-candle. Truly, we sat in a tomb — the sepulchre of all good men’s hopes for justice from that distant England we had loved so well in kinder days.

  Somewhere, deep in the dim city’s heart, a fire was burning, and we could see its faint reflection on chimneys in the northwest.

  “Doubtless some regimental fire on the Common,” muttered Mount, “or a signal on Mount W — d — m, where the Light Horse camp. They talk to the war-ships and the castle from Beacon Hill, too. It may be that.”

  Musing there by the window, we scarcely noticed that, little by little, the room behind us was filling. Already at the long table a dozen guests were seated, some conversing, 381 some playing absently with their glasses, some reading the newspapers through round horn-rimmed spectacles.

  Many of them glanced sharply at us; some looked at Mount, smiled, and nudged others.

  “Do you know any of these gentlemen, Jack?” I asked, in a low voice.

  He swung around in his chair and surveyed the table.

  “Ay, all o’ them,” he said, returning their amused salutations; “they all belong to the club that meets here.”

  “Club? What club?” I asked.

  “The Minute Men’s. I meant to tell you that you’re a member.”

  “I a member?” I repeated, in astonishment.

  “Surely, lad, else you never could ha’ passed these stairs. I am a member; I bring you, and now you’re a member. There’s no oath to take in this club. It’s only when you go higher into the secret councils like those o’ the three caucuses, the Mechanics’, and some others I shall not mention, by your leave.”

  Mount watched the effect of his words on me and grinned.

  “You didn’t know that I am one of the Minute Club’s messengers? That’s why I went to Pitt. Did you think I went there for my health? Nenny, lad. I had a message for Cresap as well as you, and I gave it, too.”

  He laughed, and moistened his lips at the hot bowl.

  “Paul Revere, the goldsmith — he who made the print of the Boston Massacre — is another messenger, but not of the Minute Club. He is higher — goes breakneck to York for S. A., you know.”

  “What is S. A.?” I broke in, petulantly. “You all talk of J. H. and S. A. and the Thirteen Sisters, and I don’t understand.”

  “S. A. is Sam Adams,” said Mount, surprised. “J. H. is John Hancock, a rich young man who is with us to the last gasp. The Thirteen Sisters mean the thirteen colonies. They’re with us, too — at least we hope they are, though York is a hell for Tories, and Philadelphia’s full o’ broad-brims who may not fight.”

  “But what is this Minute Men’s Club?” I asked, curiously.

  “Headquarters for delegates from the Minute Men and 382 all alarm companies in Massachusetts Bay. You know that every town, village, and hamlet in the province is organized, don’t you? Well, besides the regular militia we have alarm companies, where half of the men are ready to march at a minute’s notice. One officer from every company throughout the province is delegated to attend the Minute Club here, so that he can keep his company in touch with the march of events.

  “Besides that, the club has a corps of runners, like me, to travel with orders when called on. I’m in for a rest now, unless something pressing occurs.”

  “And — what am I in this club?” I asked, smiling to see how well Jack Mount had kept his secrets since I first knew him.

  “You? Oh, you are a recruit for Cresap’s battalion,” said Mount, much amused. “We recruit here, for certain companies.”

  “Is Cresap coming here?” I asked, eagerly.

  “He marches in the spring with his Maryland and Pennsylvania Rangers — to pay his respects to Tommy Gage? Nenny! To help turn this pack o’ bloody-backs out of Boston, lad, and that’s the truth, which you should know.”

  I sat silent, pondering on the strange circumstances of these months which had brought me so swiftly, from my boyhood’s isolation, into the thick of the tremendous struggle between King and colony, a struggle still bloodless, save for the so-called Boston Massacre of some years past.

  That Mount had coolly recruited me without my knowledge or consent disturbed me not at all: first, because I should have offered my poor services anyway; second, because, had I been free to select, I should have chosen to serve with Cresap’s men, knowing him, as I did, for a brave and honourable young man.

  I told Jack as much, and his face brightened with pleasure. He insisted on presenting me to the company — which was now fast filling the room — as one of Cresap’s Rangers; and he further did most foolishly praise me for my bearing in certain common dangers he and I had shared, which made me red and awkward and vexed with him for my embarrassment.

  The gentlemen I met were all most kind and polite; some appeared to be gentlemen bred, others honest young men — over-silent and sober for their years, perhaps, but truly a sturdy, clean-limbed company, neatly but not fashionably attired, and the majority characterized by a certain lankness of body which tended to gauntness in a few.

  All were officers of alarm companies belonging to the numerous towns of the province; all were simple in manner, courteous to each other, and thoughtful of strangers, inviting us to wine or punch, and taking no offence when I prudently refused, for my own sake as well as for Jack’s.

  Two soldiers of the Lexington militia entertained me most agreeably; they were Nathan Harrington and Robert Monroe, the latter an old soldier, having been standard-bearer for his regiment at Louisburg.

  “For years,” he observed, quietly, “the British have said that all Americans are cowards, and they have so dinned it into their own ears that they believe it. It is a strange thing for them to believe. Who was it stood fast before Duquesne when Braddock’s British fled? Who took Louisburg? What men have fought for England on our frontiers from our gran
dfathers’ times?”

  “Ay,” broke in Harrington, “they tell us that we are yokels without wit or knowledge to fire a musket. Yet, to-day, two-thirds of the men in our province of Massachusetts Bay have served as soldiers against the French or the savages.”

  “That we are under the King’s displeasure,” said Monroe, “I can well understand; but that he and his ministers and his soldiers should wish to deem us cowards — we who are English, too, as well as they — passes my understanding.”

  “Mayhap they will learn the truth ere winter,” observed Harrington, grimly.

  “If I or my friends be cowards, I do not know it,” added Monroe, simply. “It is not well to boast, Nathan, for God alone knows what a man may do in battle; yet I myself have been in battle, and was afraid, too, but never ran. I carried England’s flag once. It is not well that she foul her own nest.”

  “I have never smelled powder; have you, sir?” said Harrington, turning to me.

  “Not to boast of,” I replied.

  “Mount says you conducted most gallantly under fire,” said Monroe, smiling.

  “No more gallantly than did all at Cresap’s fort,” said I, annoyed. “We were behind ramparts and dreaded nothing save an arrow or two.”

  “But you had some warm work with certain Tories, too,” began Monroe— “one Walter Butler, I believe.”

  “How did you hear of that?” I asked, in astonishment.

  “Benny Prince brought the news,” he replied. “Where he heard it I do not know, but it is noised abroad that you laid no kind hands on Walter Butler and Lord Dunmore. Nay, sir, you should not be surprised. We have our agents everywhere, listening, watching, noting all facts and rumours for those whom I need not name. We know, for instance, that Walter Butler has travelled north in a litter. We know that Dunmore scarce dare show his head in Virginia for the shame you put upon him and the growing hatred of the people he governs. We know that Sir John Johnson is fortifying Johnson Hall and gathering hordes of savages and Tories in Tryon County. Ay, Mr. Cardigan, we know, too, that the son of your father will fight to the death for the cause which his honour demands that he embrace.”

  “My father died for his King,” I said, slowly.

  “And mine, too,” said Monroe; “but were he not with God to-day, I know where he would be found.”

  Others began to join our group. Mount, who had been conversing with a handsome and very fashionably dressed young man, approached our table with his companion, and presented me to him.

  I had, of course, heard more or less of John Hancock, but had pictured him as an elderly man, sober of costume and stern and gray. Therefore my first meeting with John Hancock was a disappointment. He was young, handsome, decidedly vain, though quite free from affectation of speech or gesture. He appeared to lack that gravity of deportment and deliberation which characterized the company around us; gestures and words were at times impetuous if not whimsical; 385 he appeared not too free from an egotism which, I thought, tinged all he said, so that, somehow, his words lost a trifle of the weight they deserved to carry.

  His style of dress was not to my taste, savouring of the French, I thought. He wore an apple-green coat, white silk stockings, very large silver buckles on his pumps, smallclothes of silver-net tied at the knees with pea-green ribbons, which fell to his ankles, and much expensive lace at his throat and cuffs.

  His hair was frizzled and powdered, and worn in a French club with black ribbon, and the hair on his temples was loaded with pomatum and rolled twice.

  He certainly was most civil to me, mentioning his pleasure that Captain Cardigan’s son should embrace the patriots’ cause, and inquiring most respectfully concerning the last moments of Sir William Johnson, a man, he said, for whom he had entertained the highest possible respect and admiration.

  Our conversation was of short duration, Mr. Hancock being addressed and solicited by so many who had business with him in his capacity of delegate from the secret club at the “Green Dragon Tavern.”

  I learned from the hints dropped that Boston was literally crowded with clubs, some open, some secret, but all organized to discuss politics, and pledged to combat the acts of the British Parliament to the bitter end.

  Many clubs were formed among the Boston mechanics, of which the Mechanics’ Society or Club was the centre. The Boston mechanics, I learned, were the earliest and most constant supporters of the patriot cause. Neither threats, temptations, Tory arguments, nor loyalist bribes could shake their fidelity; and they were the people, too, who had most to lose when the city was closed to commerce. Starvation faced them; troops thickened in Boston; but the mechanics remained true. And although, when in dire need, to sustain their wives and little ones, they thoughtlessly started work on the new barracks, at a word of warning and explanation from the Committee of Safety, they left their work in a body, to the rage and chagrin of General Gage and every soldier and Tory in Boston.

  I further learned that the patriots carried on their political action not only by clubs and through the newspapers, but also by public meetings in defiance of Governor Gage.

  All men know that we Americans have inherited the right of public meeting. But when the “regulating act” came from England to prohibit that right, it missed fire, for though it did forbid such meeting unless authorized by Governor Gage, it did not provide for adjourning meetings already in progress. Therefore the assemblies in all the provincial towns had begun meetings in anticipation of the 1st of August, the date set for their prohibition, and the meetings were carried over that date, and kept alive day after day by not being officially declared adjourned.

  It was useless for Gage to fume; he had no authority under the law to adjourn them.

  In Boston the people flocked in crowds to Faneuil Hall and the Old South Church, where Samuel Adams, James Otis, and Josiah Quincy were the orators. And the government, in secret dread, watched the people thronging around these fiery orators, whose theme was liberty and equal rights for all.

  The Committees of Donation and of Correspondence were most active. The former was organized to distribute relief to the poor in the stricken city; the latter was formed to keep all patriots in all of the thirteen colonies in touch with each other, and to observe the approach of the great current which was surely bearing war upon the waves that formed its crest.

  This Committee of Correspondence was the great executive of our party. It watched unceasingly: it received information from all the societies, clubs, town assemblies, caucuses, and local committees. It distributed all information, all warnings, all rumours, not only from America, but also, through its agents, from abroad.

  Many of its members were also members of the “Green Dragon.” John Hancock was such a member, and therefore his presence here at the “Wild Goose” was perhaps significant.

  That he was about to address the company was apparent, for everybody had now taken chairs and formed a semi-circle around Mr. Hancock, who stood leaning against the great 387 centre-table, coolly taking snuff, and glancing over a written sheet of paper which he held in his left hand.

  “It may be,” he said, “a trifle premature to discuss here in open meeting those measures of resistance contemplated and now under discussion in the Committee of Correspondence, the Provincial Congress, and the Continental Congress.

  “It is sufficient, therefore, for the moment, that you should know that Virginia and South Carolina are at last aroused to the necessity of taking thought for their local defences. I may also add that my Lord Dunmore’s government increases in rigour and also in disfavour.

  “The Committee of Correspondence has received word direct from Mr. Patrick Henry that he regards the cause of peace as already lost, and urges us to rely on Virginia, at least, for loyal support in whatever measures we may deem necessary to maintain our manhood in the face of all the world.”

  A murmur of applause swept like a whisper through the room, hushed immediately by cautious gestures and glances at the street outside, which might ha
rbour a spy in its heavy gloom and impenetrable, brooding shadows.

  “There is a certain document embodying a proposed declaration,” continued Hancock, “which, although at present merely under discussion, I expect to see one day printed, completed, and framed, and hung in every home in these thirteen colonies. You may perhaps imagine what document I refer to, and doubtless many of you sitting here are not yet prepared for that supreme step forward in our manifest destiny. Neither, I may say, are many who have the framing of that declaration under discussion. Time alone will show that future of which I, for one, am so certain.

  “I am not here to discuss with you the proposed declaration in question, which is not even yet existent save in the hearts of those who have dared to dream of it.

  “I am here to submit to you a list of crimes against our colony of Massachusetts Bay, committed or contemplated by the King of England.”

  He unrolled his bit of paper, took a fresh pinch of scented snuff, and read, somewhat carelessly:

  “The history of the present King of Great Britain:

  “He refuses his assent to necessary laws for the public good.

  “He forbids his Governors to pass laws of immediate importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent be obtained; and when so suspended he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

  “He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual with intent to fatigue, discourage, and annoy the members of such bodies.

  “He has repeatedly dissolved representative houses for opposing his invasions of the people’s rights.

  “He obstructs the administration of justice.

  “He makes judges dependent on his will alone for tenure of office and payment of salaries.

  “He has created a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people.

  “He keeps among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without consent of our legislature.

  “He renders his military independent of and superior to civil power.

  “He protects these troops, by mock trials, from punishment for murders committed on the inhabitants of this province.