Revolution (15 page)

Hugh shut his eyes briefly, then said, “Well, I must go to Caxton, and you to fair company.” He took the captain’s hand and shook it. “Thank you again for the intelligence. Forewarned is forearmed.” He paused. “Do not be surprised by what you may see, when you come to Caxton.”

“I’ll try not to give myself away,” said Ramshaw. “’Til we meet again, sir.” He turned and strode back down the street in the direction of the chophouse.

For a while, Hugh was conscious only of sounds: the wind blowing in from the Bay, the crying of seagulls, the groans of docked merchantmen pulling on the hawsers that tied them to the land.

Hugh pursed his lips in determination, then turned and walked briskly to the hostler’s stables, where he paid the stable boy a crown to saddle his horse. Then he mounted and left the stable.

He could not resist going by the chophouse. He paused. There, through the window glass, he saw Reverdy’s profile at a table. She turned and saw him, and her eyes widened in recognition.

Hugh did not see her astonishment. By now he had wrenched his sight away from her, dug his heels into his mount’s sides, and struck the rump of the horse with his riding crop. The horse broke into a gallop. Hugh did not rein it in to a slower pace until he was well out of the town, on the road that cut diagonally across the peninsula to Williamsburg.

Some hours later, he cantered past a paired chaise with two men, and left them behind.

* * *

L
ieutenant James Harke, aged twenty-two, of the
Rainbow
, did not grasp his dilemma until he was halfway up the York River. He stood on the
Sparrowhawk
’s quarterdeck, watching the opposite bank glide by as the pilot took the merchantman up the middle of the river. It suddenly occurred to him that he had been delegated a responsibility — and possibly even a liability — that he did not want and did not think it was right of Captain Sterling to delegate. His eagerness and impatience to perform a welcome duty soured with his growing suspicion of having been duped.

He knew that he could hardly have protested his orders, which were to deliver a box of stamps and stamped paper to George Mercer’s residence in Williamsburg, by way of Caxton, with “the least disturbance of the populace and with utmost discretion.” The captain had explained the reasons for the ruse and pointed out the risks. An earlier plan to dispatch a tender with a complement of marines to follow the
Sparrowhawk
and support Harke and his party had been abandoned as “too likely provocative and risky.” Harke commanded a party of ten crewmen, each man armed with a cutlass, sword, or pistol. Leading them was Bosun Will Olland. Harke had briefly met Mercer before that man was rowed ashore from the
Rainbow
to begin his journey to his father’s house in Williamsburg.

Harke glanced at the object of the conspiracy, which sat on the quarterdeck not three feet away, a brown wooden container, roughly knocked together, about half the size of a sea chest. Carrying poles were fixed to its sides. He and his party were to quick march it to Williamsburg and deliver it. He had been instructed where to find the residence of the stamp distributor’s father there. Once the stamps were delivered, he and his party were to find a vessel to transport them back to Hampton. Harke was to hire or commandeer a vessel at Capitol Landing or Yorktown to convey him and his party back to the
Rainbow
.

They were not to dally in Caxton or the Capitol, lest the colonials take exception to their presence or wonder about the purpose of their mission
and create an incident.

Sterling assured the lieutenant that he would not encounter any opposition in Caxton — “it is a sedate and loyal hamlet, I have heard that the court there intends to carry on its business nevertheless” — nor on the road to Williamsburg. Sterling gave him strict instructions not to stop in Caxton, but to pass immediately through it and over the Hove Stream bridge. If he were to be asked by anyone what his business was, he was to say only that he and his party were on Crown business, and no more than that.

If pressed for a better answer, he was to say that Captain Sterling was an acquaintance of Mr. Mercer, and that his party was delivering as a favor some of Mr. Mercer’s personal property that had been misplaced in the
Leed
’s stowage and found only after Mr. Mercer had departed Hampton. “Above all,” cautioned the captain, “avoid communication with anyone in the government there. No one in it must know or suspect the purpose of this plan, especially not the Governor.”

The dubious legality of his mission had since dawned on the lieutenant. Because he led a party of armed men, whom he would naturally order to defend themselves and their burden if attacked, an admiralty court and a civilian court could easily view the plan as an attempt to “visit violence upon civilians without the leave of a civil magistrate, in an illegal action to suppress without authority rioting and anarchy.” Harke and Sterling could be cashiered from the Navy and charged with criminal offenses, even though their actions were taken in an effort to enforce Crown law. Perhaps, in that instance, a court might make an exception, together with the consideration that the violence was visited on mere rebellious colonials. It depended on the seriousness of the incident and the political sensitivity of the men charged with judging the circumstances.

But Harke knew that there was no way to predict with any confidence how a court would interpret the intent or execution of the plan. If an incident occurred and the matter were sent for judgment to a court of inquiry, he knew that Captain Sterling had enough influence in the upper strata of the naval establishment to ensure that responsibility would be deflected from him and placed directly on his lieutenant’s shoulders.

Harke grinned bitterly as he recalled Sterling’s words:
least disturbance to the populace…utmost discretion
. Such caution could be interpreted threescore different ways! And the relationship between the naval and civilian establishments was rife with so many contradictions! Officers could be
cashiered for upholding Crown law by bashing the heads of gin-sodden rioters without the Riot Act first having been read, yet he himself had led press gangs in London and Portsmouth to “visit violence” on men who resisted involuntary servitude in His Majesty’s Navy, a common “crime” fully sanctioned by the muteness of civilian courts.

Harke stood quietly fuming a few feet away from Captain John Ramshaw, who had said little to him the whole trip except for the usual cordial chat. The man’s vessel had been literally commandeered for the mission, so he could not blame the man for his stingy reticence. Harke’s men stood below him in a group on the main deck, apart from the vessel’s few passengers, silent and apprehensive. He heard the pilot call to the topmen in the masts to give him more canvas to catch more of the slight breeze that propelled them upriver. He thought he heard a church bell ring in the far distance, but his mind was too focused on his dilemma to pay it much attention. He stood stiffly at the rail, almost at attention, rocking on his feet now and then, hands clasped behind his back, one of them gripping a spyglass.

Some time later, Ramshaw returned from some chores in his cabin below, and stood next to him. “Caxton half a league ahead, Mr. Harke.”

Harke nodded in silent acknowledgement and turned to look in that direction. Beneath a cloudless blue sky he saw the steeple of Stepney Parish church and the still arms of a miller’s windmill on the bluff overlooking a narrow waterfront of wooden and brick structures. There was a crowd on the riverbank at the piers. As the
Sparrowhawk
neared the town, Harke discerned a man on horseback in the throng holding what looked like a flag on a staff. It fluttered in the wind and he recognized the stripes of an East India jack. He brought up his spyglass and trained it on that object. Yes, it was an East India jack, but the red cross and white canton had been replaced with a blue canton, on which was some lettering he could not make out from this distance.

“What the devil…?” he muttered to himself. He ranged the glass over the crowd itself. He saw men in it carrying muskets, and others holding staves or long-handled farming tools. The muskets, he noted, were not brandished in any threatening or challenging manner; their bearers looked at leisure, as though they were waiting their turn at a shooting match. Still, thought Harke, the tableau had the character of a military assembly.

He made up his mind then and there. His mission was hopeless. Sterling was wrong about Caxton: It was as much a venue of resistance to the stamps as Yorktown and Norfolk. He glanced once at Ramshaw. That man
was leaning on the railing, seemingly as curious about the tableau as was he.

Harke frowned. Somehow, the colonials had been warned about this expedition.

He resolved to try once to persuade the authorities in that crowd to allow him and his party to pass. Failing that, he would return with his men and the stamps on the first vessel the pilot would take back downriver. He saw two smaller coastal vessels and a sloop secured to the piers.

He felt the eyes of Bosun Olland and the crewmen on him. He turned a blank face in their direction, and they looked away. They saw that it was futile, as well. Harke grimaced and trained his glass again on the jack. The wind played with it enough so that he could read the words in the blue canton:
Live free, or die
.

* * *

An hour before, Reverend Albert Acland of Stepney Parish church was in his vegetable garden at the side of the rectory, fretting over his insect-infested potatoes and cursing the hornworms that had eaten so many leaves in his tobacco patch — that tobacco was a money crop and had sustained him in hard times — when he heard the pounding of hooves approaching the church on Queen Anne Street. The rider seemed to stop directly in front of the church. Then he heard the church door open and someone race through the space to the altar.

He jumped once when the single bell in the modest steeple began ringing with some odd urgency.

“What the devil…?” he exclaimed. He left the garden and rushed inside the church through a back door to see who was committing the outrage. Inside the bellroom, he nearly collided with the culprit, Henry Buckle, Thomas Reisdale’s cooper. “What are you doing?” he demanded of the man.

“Ringing the bell, sir,” replied Buckle, still pulling on the rope.

“Why?”

“You will soon see, sir!” said Buckle. “Come to the waterfront in an hour!”

“Well,” said Acland, “stop this instant! People all over will think something is wrong!”

Buckle grinned at his pastor. “That’s the idea, sir! Something is wrong! Just a few tugs more!”

“What are you talking about?” sputtered the minister. “Stop, I say!”

Buckle let go of the bell rope and smiled almost like a lunatic at the red-faced minister. “The stamps are coming!” he exclaimed as the bell above them swung on its timber to peal in diminishing loudness. “We’re going to send ’em back where they came from!” Then he rushed out, leaving Acland to wonder what it was all about.

Over the next hour, he watched with growing trepidation as men and women closed their shops along Queen Anne Street and walked singly or in groups toward the waterfront and River Road below the bluff. Soon he noted people from outlying farms and plantations hurrying in the same direction.

But what sent his heart to his mouth was the sight of Jack Frake, Hugh Kenrick, and John Proudlocks riding together on horseback amongst a group of men he knew were members of the Sons of Liberty. Jack Frake carried a banner, the likes of which the minister had never seen before. Following them in a sulky was Thomas Reisdale, and on horseback behind him the five other justices of the county court, lately adjourned after a three-day sitting.

“What do you make of this, Mr. Harke?” asked Ramshaw. “You’d think they were expecting a visit by the king! What a royal reception!”

Harke glanced again at the captain, unsure whether the man was serious or was mocking him.

“I hope it is mere dumb-show and noise, sir,” he replied, using a phrase whose origins he only vaguely recollected. He had read
Hamlet
years ago in school, but had forgotten the source of his inaccurate but somehow apt choice of words.

“Well, I know those people a mite,” said Ramshaw. “A few stern words will part the ways for you and your men. Invoke the name of the king. That usually does the trick.”

Harke did not think it would. He did not communicate this thought to his host.

Ramshaw said, “Sir, allow my passengers to disembark first.”

“No,” answered the officer. “Someone may alert those people down there.”

“I believe they have already been alerted, Mr. Harke.” Ramshaw clucked his tongue. “Well, sir. Something of a drama at work here! If you go ahead with Captain Sterling’s plan, you may be remembered in history
as the man who delivered the stamps over a beach strewn with casualties, in what may be called by some wit the beginning of our second Civil War, or perhaps our second Glorious Revolution!” He paused. “Perhaps you will be available for an interview.”

“Enough, Mr. Ramshaw,” replied the lieutenant with some tartness. “I see the situation here. I will not press the matter.”

They were saved an argument. When the
Sparrowhawk
was secured by hawsers and the gangboard was lowered, and as the anchors were being dropped, several men who looked like gentlemen approached down the pier and stopped to wait at the bottom. One of them was the man whom Harke had first noticed carrying the altered jack. That object was now being held by a dark-complexioned fellow who sat easily in his saddle behind the crowd below.

Ramshaw preceded Harke down the gangboard to face the waiting men. The leader, a tall, flaxen-haired man with impenetrable gray eyes and a grimly set jaw, nodded once to the captain, who silently returned the greeting and stepped aside. The leader turned immediately to face Harke. Before the lieutenant could speak, he asked, “Are you the officer entrusted with delivering a consignment of stamps to Colonel Mercer in Williamsburg?”

Harke frowned in surprise. What brass! “If I am, sir, I don’t see that it is any of your business.”

“Colonel Mercer sent word to the sheriff of this county with a request that he take custody of them. The sheriff has declined to. He cannot ensure their safety.”

“Are you the sheriff?” asked Harke, more intrigued by this change of plan than put out by it.

“No. But I speak for him.”

“Then I will speak with that gentleman, sir,” replied Harke with all the officiousness he could muster.

The tall man shook his head. “He does not wish to speak with you, sir.”

Harke wanted to reply that this was not the arrangement that he, Sterling, and Mercer had agreed upon in the cabin of the
Rainbow
. There was no mention of transferring custody of the stamps to anyone but George Mercer. But he had not been impressed with that man’s resolve and was not surprised to hear that he had made other arrangements. Harke stayed his tongue. Instead, he said, addressing the leader and the group of men behind him, “I am on Crown business, sirs, and my best advice to you is to allow
me to discharge my duty.” He paused. “What are your names?”

The leader replied with matching coolness, “Our names are none of your business.”

Harke scrutinized the delegation. These men were too well dressed to be rabble. They were probably planters. But most of the crowd beyond seemed composed of farmers, tradesmen, and artisans, with a sprinkling of women. Children and slaves also stood in the throng. Harke wondered which person in the crowd was the sheriff.