Eagle's Cry: A Novel of the Louisiana Purchase (32 page)

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Authors: David Nevin

Tags: #Fiction, #Historical

BOOK: Eagle's Cry: A Novel of the Louisiana Purchase
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Separate?
A broad smile swept Pickering’s expression, and he rubbed his hands together. Adams felt a dismaying heaviness of heart. Radical Federalists intended to peel off New England into a new nation and call on Britain to assist and protect them. They would shake free of democratic nonsense. Let the Virginians sell themselves to France, as they so obviously planned, and the devil take them!
It sounded feckless, the five states of New England—Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont—forming a viable nation, but Pickering hadn’t the slightest doubt and his argument did make a certain sense. New England had the bulk of American trade, most of the shipping, more than most of the manufacturing. But to seal the deal, he added with a sly grin, they would bring in New York. New Jersey certainly would follow, and then they would have all that was worth having and Virginians could go peddle their tobacco.
New York? Alexander Hamilton was part of this plot? Hamilton was no friend of the Adamses—it was on his behalf that Pickering and other cabinet officers had undermined their president, his brutal letter against President Adams that had shattered the election, but you couldn’t help respecting
the man’s intellect Pickering frowned. Obviously feeling he’d admitted a flaw, he said that Alex had not yet seen the wisdom of separation—he still mouthed platitudes about the integrity of the country when any unbiased man could see there was no integrity and scarcely any country left.
No, he said, Mr. Burr was their man. Burr? Yes, he was more than available. Everyone knew he’d been frozen out, the second office in the land reduced to empty mockery. Burr was a ferret in seeking his own advantage, and he would see immediately that the separation plan would create a compact nation actually stronger than the nation he would be leaving. And what sweet revenge it would promise against the villain who’d so abused him! Burr was certain to return to New York soon to seize the reins. He was a political genius; he’d have no trouble ousting Governor Clinton and Clinton’s lickspittle nephew, DeWitt. And he wouldn’t hesitate over secession.
Struck between horror and awe at the sheer effrontery of such a plan, Adams said, “You’d make Burr your—what, president, leader, ruler?”
Pickering grinned. “At first. For the time being. When he was no longer needed, then we’d have to see, wouldn’t we?”
He inched forward on the bench, drawing closer, voice dropping. “Now, Mr. Adams, here’s the point. Your father is too mired in the ways of the past to recognize new opportunity. But you’re young and vigorous. We believe you’ll recognize the stark sound of reality knocking. In short, I’m authorized to reveal these matters because we want you with us.”
“You’re authorized?”
“The group decided. I told ’em I knew you. So I extend warm welcome—”
Adams knew the blood had drained from his face. He was being asked to betray the country he and his father and his family had served most of their lives in a plot that could tear it to pieces. It crossed his mind to slap the man’s face at the insult, but even in Boston that could lead to a challenge and
it wasn’t worth it. He stood suddenly. Pickering’s mouth went slack in surprise.
“Mr. Pickering,” he said, “your plans are rotten to the core, and I, sir, shall fight them in every way I can. Let me tell you this, too. Asking me join in the betrayal of my country is an insult that I shan’t forget.”
Pickering bounded off the bench. “Now, hold on!” Adams turned and walked away. “You’re making a big mistake, young man, and you’ll pay for it—I’ll see to that.”
Adams walked on, feeling soiled and disgusted. Yet within a quarter mile he realized his feelings were more complex; he was also excited and engaged. They had been talking real issues, something to fight, something that mattered, magnitude to engage a man of range and scale. How different Barnstover’s cow!
That New Orleans rumor. His diplomat’s mind was at work. It had a certain smack of authenticity. He’d had too much experience with the French dictator not to know that such a move would fit Napoleon’s thinking perfectly. He began running over the issues that might arise, the variations that could unfold. What would he do if he were in the cockpit when such a rumor matured into fact?
The thought brought up an idle dream that had afflicted him with a curious hunger on his long walks. He was an intellectual to his core and politics was vile, but sometimes he could imagine himself at the helm in stormy seas, wise, magisterial, a philosopher king far above the roiling waters of politics. Just a dream, but still …
Could the family be wrong? Did he perhaps owe it to country and community—and, yes, to family too—to take a hand in vital issues wherever he could? But that meant politics and partisanship and soiling himself as he’d sworn he never would do. Yet the Adams name stood for something. The radicals wanted him, and clearly he’d be even more valuable to moderates. Still, he couldn’t seek office, manipulate and maneuver and promise. He wouldn’t stoop to politics, but if the people asked him and he made it plain that he
would be guided only by honor and never by expediency … if the people asked.
Then he stopped abruptly. They had asked! Anthony Markley, representing Federalists alarmed by Essex Junto vitriol, wanted to support him for an open seat in the state senate. Sitting in the senate, speaking his mind on real issues, having a place where he belonged, receiving a small but helpful stipend … it was newly attractive. He turned abruptly and cut down a side street toward the Sword & Anchor where Markley was to be found each afternoon. He felt more alive than he had in months.
A bit later Adams found himself in the distinctly unfinished new city of Washington where forsythia made yellow explosions and the air felt like spring, while in Boston remnants of snow still lay undisturbed in shadow. On the other hand, Boston was a fine city with cobbled streets and brick houses wall-to-wall with little iron fences separating small yards and alleys leading to the barns in back, while Washington reminded Adams of a man who had only a tooth or two left in an empty mouth, so widely scattered were the occasional buildings linked by weed-strewn roads of mud.
He was prowling the unfinished Capitol Building and at French doors that opened onto a terrace below which a long staircase fell he paused to gaze on a bucolic scene. Members and clerks, he had no way of telling them apart, lounged in the sun on the steps eating sausages wrapped in buns and emptying mugs of beer bought from hawkers in the rotunda. Somewhere Adams could hear children laughing; a group of women hesitated at the sight of so many men on the stairs, then with resolute shakes of parasols started up as men hastened to make way for them.
He felt oddly at home here, though he knew no one and doubtless no one knew him. But this was the center of things, national things. The voters of Boston had welcomed him as their state senator and were allowing him to feel that
he honored them by serving as their representative. A state office had limited range, of course, but nevertheless had worked wonders on his mood. Even his law practice seemed less onerous now, and the stipend, though small, certainly helped.
Now, more flattering still, crowds were urging him to run for Congress. He must take care not to seem to want office—he was nothing like your usual politician slathering for power—but if they sought him out, don’t you see, if they presented a need that only he could fill, the office might have its compensations. A decent salary … a return to public life that clearly was his real calling … a hand in national affairs and perhaps a voice in braking the mad rush of the Democrats toward disaster with the French. Yes, it could be attractive, provided it was clear he didn’t seek it.
He was in Washington despite his duties at home because Louisa’s father had died. Poor Joshua Johnson had never been the same since losing the American consul’s position in London; he’d been quite lordly when Adams was in his townhouse there courting Louisa, but he’d gone steadily down since, from a broken heart, Louisa was sure. Having made all the proper observances, Adams felt he might as well visit the Capitol where, after all, he might himself soon be installed. And so, having walked the marble halls and purchased himself an egg custard in the rotunda; he had wandered down an empty corridor to these French doors. The sunny scene outside was appealing, but he had passed an open door and seen books lining the walls of a small room and the student in him demanded investigation.
The room, the door open but no one in attendance, clearly was the Library of Congress, composed mostly of a collection of volumes purchased from Mr. Jefferson’s fine library. Adams walked about looking at familiar titles; during a period of his youth in Paris, when Mr. Jefferson was almost his mentor, Adams had read his way through much of his patron’s already extensive library. There was a tactile, physical pleasure, almost sensuous, in opening the very books he’d
read long ago; eventually he settled on an atlas bound in leather that covered the shape of Europe before Napoleon began rearranging it.
Someone entered the room but hunched over the atlas, and resenting interruption, he didn’t look up. The newcomer moved about the room pulling down a book here and another there.
“Mr. Adams?” Startled, Adams looked up to see that the newcomer was the secretary of state. He leaped to his feet. “Mr. Madison,” he said, bowing deeply. Yet there was something desultory in the other’s manner, and Adams had the odd thought, immediately dismissed as totally unlikely and quite self-serving, that Madison had sought him out. That could hardly be.
Sitting across the table as if time was of no consequence, Mr. Madison asked after President and Mrs. Adams, were they well and please convey his greetings. He went on to congratulate Adams on his state senate seat and suggest that he might find happiness here in the national capital. Presently Adams had the curious sense that the man was waiting for something, and finally it dawned on him that Madison waited for him to speak.
So he said, “Sir, in Boston ships from New Orleans are bringing distressing rumors—that the French are reclaiming Louisiana, or at least New Orleans, from the Spanish.”
The secretary didn’t answer, but his eyes brightened. Adams added, “It would be extraordinary dangerous if it were true.”
“Yes … if it were true and if it were realized.” He gazed at Adams and then, as if making up his mind, said, “Now, you’re a seasoned diplomat. I believe you are a man of intense patriotism. I know your father is, and I doubt you’ve fallen far from the tree. Hence, I think you understand diplomatic discretion. Now, sir, these rumors are worthy of discussion … as rumors.”
“Yes, sir,” Adams said, slightly abashed. The secretary would admit nothing but might discuss matters hypothetically. It was a courtesy, more than he had right to expect.
The secretary was folding and refolding a piece of foolscap; from it he fashioned a small paper boat that he placed on the table between them. “Now, suppose for a moment that any country—France, Germany, Britain—were to act as the rumors suggest; we would want to persuade the offender to change its plan.”
“If Napoleon were the offender, he doesn’t persuade easily.”
“Yes,” Mr. Madison said dryly, “but no one is immune to reason, and I think we could demonstrate the reason of our position.” He paused and then added almost casually, “In the end, of course, in the hypothetical we’re building, we would have to meet force with force.”
The words, rich with the clash of arms, had an unlikely sound in this quiet room of books. Both men were speaking in soft voices designed not to carry, and Adams noticed that the secretary sat with chair turned so that he could see the door and anyone who entered. They were almost … conspiratorial.
Force with force when the army was shrinking and naval vessels were being retired? What force? Was this just brave talk? Yes, state militias would be mustered, troops willing but raw, but could they stand against a seasoned army? Then, thinking far ahead of the little secretary, he saw the answer. An army lived by its supply chain. Cut that chain and—
“You’d call in the Royal Navy, wouldn’t you?”
Madison laughed out loud. “Your Federalist colors are showing, sir! Hook or crook, the Federalists want us under the British wing—or should I say between the lion’s paws?” But before Adams could protest, Madison continued, “You see that what would be the Federalists’ first move would be our last—for to call in the Royal Navy would reduce us to a British pawn.”
Pawn? My, my, my. He wondered if the secretary might be a bit more naive than he had at first supposed. After all, the man had never been outside the United States and knew nothing firsthand of the courts of Europe. To Adam’s experienced mind, remembering the long, gloomy corridors of
Whitehall quartering the Foreign Service, London skies leaking rain outside, it was obvious that Britain would react violently to the idea of France trying to restore the empire that Britain had taken from it forty years before.
Look at the threat the French in the Mississippi Valley would pose to Canada; see the way it would challenge Britain’s open interest in the Pacific Northwest. Why, Britain tolerated the independence of the United States only grudgingly a quarter century after the fact. That it would tolerate a French move on North America seemed ludicrous. On top of all else, the American breadbasket would give Napoleon the fuel to conquer the world.
Couching these thoughts with elaborate courtesy, he went on for some time, adding, “Now, sir, perhaps Napoleon’s dreams are feckless, though can one be sure of anything in this modern world? But one thing I do know, Britain will never acquiesce in France reentering North America—”

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