Foreign Mud
Page 19
“Why, that is very kind of you, Mr Bailey. Tell me, what is the best way of reaching the three plantations?”
“By boat, Mr Jackson. The crops are brought north by water and all purchases made here are taken down that way. Easy to pick up passage on a little coastal scow, sir.”
I left the bank carrying a thousand in his elaborately printed notes and with directions to the proper wharf for a boat to my destination.
There was a little coastal schooner due to make the long reach downriver and then all the way to Cape Hatteras, passing the town of Portsmouth. The three young men – all of them older than me, of course - were to be found there, located close to each other. The master of the schooner offered me a price of ten pounds weight of tobacco, five paper or one silver dollar, the choice mine. I paid in paper and agreed a time to board and walked back to see Mr Bailey in company with Fred.
We had a brief discussion on the relative values of gold, silver and paper currency and I exchanged the thousand dollars he had given me for four hundred of the gold guineas that had been sent across the Atlantic. He was happy to make the transaction, the alternative being to close my mouth permanently, a trick he did not believe he could perform without substantial risk to his own neck.
We sailed away from Richmond, to Mr Bailey’s pleasure and mine. A thoroughly unpleasant, low city, that one. The architecture was undistinguished and the people uncivilised and its poor areas, down by the docks, were as depraved as the lowest rookeries of London or Bombay. It claimed to be the capital of Virginia, the heart of southern civilisation. If that was the heart, then I had no wish to see the arse!
A day and we reached Portsmouth, drifting down the river as much as sailing for the winds being cross-grained. The little boat was of no more than twenty tons burthen and carried its own weight in roaches and rats. I hardly slept for the one night for the noise of battle between the two sorts of vermin – apparently they lived upon each others’ carcasses. The master was an illiterate dwarf of a fellow with a tobacco-stained beard dangling in tangles to his protuberant belly. His sole crew was a black slave who appeared to be permanently drunk. I did not blame the ‘boy’ for that – had I been slave to that degenerate specimen of humanity, I would have taken to the booze.
Fred and I took it in turns to sleep, not trusting the master to sail us so far without either running us ashore or attempting to rob us.
Reaching Portsmouth we found a hotel – self-styled – and sought baths. The request was regarded as outlandish but the proprietor was able to dig out a tin hipbath and have it filled with lukewarm water which rapidly turned black as I removed the grime, tobacco residue and rat droppings which had accumulated upon me in the day and night aboard the schooner. We decided to return to Richmond by horse when our task was completed.
“The Ainslie boys? Three of them? Brothers? Yep, suh, I knows of them. Fine gennelmen and the biggest plantation owners in this neck of the woods. Have you all got business with them?”
“I have, sir. Where may I find them?”
“Why, suh, I do believe you will find them on their plantations!”
The idiot seemed to believe this to be the height of wit and humour. I debated shooting him as he hooted with laughter, decided those who had not spoken to the man might consider me guilty of murder. Personally, I thought it would be no more than mercy killing, putting the fellow out of his misery.
I eventually made the point that I might wish to visit the three at their homes. To that end I would hire a carriage of some sort.
He started laughing again. It would seem that his little town did not extend so far as the carriage.
Looking out of the door to the collection of wooden stores and shacks that comprised the main street, I was not entirely surprised.
“A buckboard, suh, and a horse to draw it. That is a possibility so long as Caleb has no funeral planned for today. I shall send the boy to discover. Git up, you idle good-for-nothin’!”
He booted a black youth who seemed to have been sleeping below the front desk, sent him running to enquire of the buckboard.
I paid for our rooms – twenty cents in coin or five times as much in paper or a pound of tobacco – and waited. The boy eventually returned leading a sway-back ancient nag in the shafts of the buckboard. A broken-down vagrant was sat on the bench. I presumed, rightly, that this was the undertaker.
I offered him a gold guinea as deposit on his rig and was told it was mine, I had purchased it but I was to send the boy back. Slaves were a mite more expensive.
“The boy know where the Ainslies at, suh. He done take you. Kick he if so be he backanswers. Got a clever mouth on he.”
I gained the impression that cleverness was frowned upon in the backwaters of Virginia. Rather like the House of Commons, in fact.
Baggage was a problem – I had two large leather cases and Fred one – he carried all three, of course. We each had a small valise as well containing the basics – a change of underwear and a second pair of breeches and reloads for the pistols. We put the valises in the buckboard and I suggested strongly to the hotel proprietor that I expected the bigger bags to be present and untouched when we returned.
“Should they not be, I shall burn you out. Do you understand?”
He did and agreed sulkily that all would be untouched.
We stepped into the buckboard and the boy touched up the old nag and we reached a good four miles an hour within the length of the main street. The old horse made it clear she would go no faster and we gave her leave to do as she wished.
I turned to the boy and asked his name.
“Don’t got no name. Ah is Boy.”
“Do you know how old you are?”
He shrugged.
“Been heah since the big wind came through. Dunno when.”
I looked around saw that none of the trees were full grown – a tai fun, the great wind, had come through here at least twelve and no more than twenty years previously. I thought the boy was closer to twelve years of age.
I am rarely shocked. Nothing really surprises me these days. The state of the boy came close to taking me aback, however. Not even to grant him a name – that was beyond poor!
“How far is it to the Ainslies’ places, Boy?”
“Maybe an hour. Not far. Can run it with a message without stoppin’.”
“Are they close to each other?”
“One next to the other. Way they tell me, they was new land, given out same time for settling. Same size.”
“Are there others close to them?”
Boy shrugged – he thought there were three more touching and then the river petered out, was too narrow and the hills grew poorly.
“We at the river now. Go alongside she.”
The river was large by English standards, shallow and slow, winding its way down to the coast. As soon as we entered the valley we came to cleared fields, cropping heavily with a broadleaf plant, presumably part-grown tobacco. Ten minutes and we came to a plantation house and yard with curing sheds and a great barn. There was a stables and wagon yard besides, all in good order.
The house was two-storey, all wooden and within reason great. I guessed there might be a dozen bedrooms upstairs with a wide balcony running around. It was well-kept, the paint new. The master, or his shroff, was on top of the job.
“Boy! What you doing here? Who you brought with you?”
I recognised the eldest of the Ainslie sons standing on the veranda.
“Mr Ainslie, I am Giles Jackson, lately of Bombay and here with a message from your father.”
He stared at me and admitted recognition.
“Come inside, Mr Jackson. Your man can go round to the back. He’ll be looked after there.”
I stepped up to the veranda and he introduced me to a young and heavily pregnant female.
“My lady wife, Mrs Ainslie. Mr Jackson of Bombay.”
“Now of England, Mr Ainslie. I have come back to my house at Shawford Manor near Winchester and a few m
iles from your father’s estate. He has returned to England, as you may know.”
“Heard nothing of him since we sailed from Bombay, Jackson.”
“I am here to remedy that, Mr Ainslie. Your father wishes to give you and each of your brothers the sum of ten thousand guineas English. In exchange you will give him your signature on a contract disclaiming your rights to his estate on his death.”
“I did not know I had rights, Jackson. The old man said the plantation was to be my all when last I saw him.”
I thought quickly.
“He had a stroke of luck in the Canton trade after you left, sir, and became richer than he had expected. I believe he thinks it right that you should share in his good fortune.”
Ainslie wished to know what had happened and I explained that he had for a time gained a monopoly in foreign mud going to Canton.
The young man was pleased and rather touched that his father had wished to share with him.
“Disappointed, so he was, that I would not take over from him as merchant. It ain’t the life for me, Jackson. We better go see my brothers. I reckon they ain’t going to argue none, no more than I am. How do we get the money?”
“Banker Bailey at the Tobacco and Cotton Bank is holding it for you. If we go to Richmond, we can all of us deal with the money there.”
Three hours saw the brothers agreed that they must accompany me to Richmond.
The youngest, Sandy, was the brightest of the three, not that that said too much of him.
“Do you say he has sent cash money, Mr Jackson?”
“English money, sent by draft and converted to dollars, Mr Ainslie.”
“Ten thousand English is more than fifty thousand dollars. That is more cash than the whole state of Virginia has to its name, or so I reckon. We can buy up the whole damned county, brothers!”
They seemed to agree with him and roared to their slaves to pack bags and ready them to travel. Each had an overseer, less than a shroff, more than a simple foreman, who took their instructions and were left to mind the plantation while their masters were away. All three were wed, within the previous twelvemonth, all of their wives in the family way and to stay behind as well.
“We agreed we must wed, Mr Jackson, and we brothers do things together.”
It was novel to me but insignificant.
“We shall ride to Richmond, Mr Jackson. That buckboard will not survive the roads. Leave it here. Have you no luggage?”
“At the hotel.”
“I shall send a boy to fetch it. Faster than you could manage in that rattletrap. Is the boy yours?”
“He is to stay with me while I am here, Mr Ainslie.”
“Makes sense. You need a servant with you.”
The three had their own travelling carriages, each with four horses, a full team. They harnessed up two of them to carry the three and their luggage and lent me the third and a driver for myself and Fred. I put Boy aboard as well.
Road travel was slower but far less unpleasant than sea in the little schooner. The road was dirt and a long way from flat but we could make a comfortable seven or eight miles to the hour without exhausting the horses and stopped overnight at a tavern around the halfway mark.
We greeted Bailey and I left the four together just as soon as I had obtained their signatures on the contracts. All was going well until I enquired for shipping and discovered none was to go out before the tobacco harvest came in. To get to London it would be necessary to travel up the coast to New York or Boston.
There was a flourishing coastwise traffic and I could board a boat on the next tide. I did so, taking a mixed passenger and cargo packet of two hundred tons, or thereabouts, clean and well kept. There was food on offer and a choice of cabins, being as there were few passengers.
The master explained that it was the wrong time of year. Passengers travelled when the tobacco and cotton came in, all merchants, most of them buyers and a few with goods to sell to the plantation owners at their rich time.
“I came on legal business relating to an inheritance, sir. I am glad to leave Richmond in this weather.”
“Hot and sticky, sir. Richmond thinks of itself as the leading city of the South. It may be so but it in no way compares to New York. A cabin for you, sir, and a lesser for your man. There are quarters for the boy.”
I had forgotten the miserable slave. By rights, I should have put him aboard a ship and sent him back to his owner.
“Feed him up, if you would, sir. I picked him up just a couple of days back from a mean-spirited hound who starved him as well as beat him freely. I have little time for a man who will not feed his people.”
The seaman agreed. Keeping slaves was one thing – he did not much like it, but the law permitted slavery. Refusing to put food into the slave’s mouth was a different matter, and short sighted for reducing the value of one’s own property.
I gave the boy a little thought in the days of sailing north. I decided he must come to England with me. Having taken responsibility for him, I had to look after his interests. It should not be impossible to put him onto a ship out of Bristol – Ainslie knew merchants there. He could learn the seafaring trade and live a freer life than in Virginia.
Chapter Twelve
The voyage north was comfortable and dull, the weather mild and the winds well-mannered. I spent it sat with a gin and water in hand, sipping slightly and endeavouring not to seem out of place in the hard-drinking company, mostly southern storekeepers heading to New York in the hope of buying to meet the demands of plantation holders after their harvest had put money in their pockets.
“It all depend on the price of tobacco and cotton, suh! Price go high, I sell every damn thing I got on my shelves. Low price, I don’t sell nothin’.”
“I had heard that the price of cotton was rising every year, sir.”
The tipsy shopman laughed and agreed it was so. Tobacco not so much but cotton was always on the way up.
“They English buyin’ every bale that come dockside, suh. Goin’ to Liverpool, wherever that may be. They sellin’ coloured cotton cloths back and made up shirts and trousers what the servants wear, cheap and bright. Ironware besides – hoes and shovels and rakes and cane cutters and just about ever’ thing you name. All cheap, too. Muskets as well, and pistols, but not long rifles – they better made here in the United States. Up north, they buyin’ wool for cloth, too.”
“Where is the cotton and tobacco sold, sir? Is it auctioned at quayside to load onto the ships?”
“No way, suh! It go to auction after it come off the ship. Sold in that Liverpool place, the cotton, and at Bristol, most off, the tobacco.”
There was small prospect of buying in America, it seemed. Wiser to keep out of the trade in cotton and tobacco. I had suspected as much from all Banker Bailey had said but this was to get the confirmation from the horse’s mouth, although most of these self-styled southern ‘gentlemen’ more closely resembled horses’ arses.
Conversation focussed around the plantations – they were central to everything that happened in the southern states, or so it seemed.
“What of the mountains inland, sir? Is there activity there?”
I hoped to hear of coal and iron, was instead told of ‘hardscrabble farmers’ who produced for themselves and a little surplus of slave food to the market. They were no more than peasants, ‘poor whites’ who shamed the real white men who represented all that was best in the States. I stayed silent on that topic.
“Is there not some talk of iron and coal in the upland areas, sir?”
“Gennelmen don’t have no truck with such, suh! A few money-grabbers, all in the northern parts, indulge in such vileness. The true gennelman grows his cotton and tobacco and perhaps rice and sugar down the coast a way. The Irish and their like indulge in such low pursuits as digging in mines, suh!”
I was rebuked and raised the matter of industry no more.
Inquiry was made of my trade and I informed them I was an India merchant.
I mentioned that I had been some years in Canton, which they had not heard of. I explained it was a great city of China, a place that they knew about, vaguely.
“They is Chinks in New York, these days, so they inform me, suh. Why they are there, I do not know.”
“To make a living, I suspect, sir. No doubt they will make themselves and the whole nation wealthier.”
The concept that the country could benefit was beyond them. They seemed to think there was a stagnant pool of wealth and that if one person took more, all others must have less. The concept of trade creating new wealth was alien to them. I made no comment – mitigating the ignorance of little men is a task beyond me.
I inspected these examples of the enterprise of the southern parts of America and was unimpressed. These were the men who actually got off their fat backsides and went out to make money – they were, one might say, the mercantile cream and they were limited in the extreme. I much hoped that I would find a more go-ahead set of businessmen in the north of the country. It seemed likely that I might, the northern parts being colder and less in the way of inducing lassitude in their people. Hotter countries were, in my experience, inclined to be idle places – which might go some way to explaining why the Scots seemed much more active than the English.
Not to worry – leave such to the philosophers to discuss. Suffice it to say that I had no intention of entering into trade with the denizens of the southern states. Leaving aside their indulgence in the vileness of slavery, they had a conceited view of themselves which was irritating to the reasonable man, such as myself.
That left me to consider what was to be done with Boy. My first idea of sending him to sea as a free man was sanguine, I suspected. He had no habits of labour, no knowledge of hard work. He was illiterate, in the nature of things. I wondered if he had any skills at all. I made my way to the forecastle, the cheap kennels where the poorest passengers and servants were quartered. I found Boy resting idly by the rails, eating a crust of bread and staring vacantly at the sea.