War (4 page)

“Mr. Speaker and gentlemen of the House of Burgesses,” he said in a thick Scottish burr, “I have in my hand a paper published by order of your House, conceived in such terms as reflect highly upon His Majesty and the Parliament of Great Britain, which makes it necessary for me to dissolve you. And you are accordingly dissolved.” With a brief but accusing glance at Washington, who stood behind Randolph, he sat back in the great chair to await a reply.

Peyton Randolph nodded once. “Your pleasure, your excellency.”

At his silent signal, the burgesses parted to make way for the Speaker,
then turned to file out of the chamber behind him and back down the stairs into the late afternoon sun.

A
n impromptu meeting of the House leaders beneath the statue of Botetourt resulted in a decision to reconvene the body in the Apollo Room of Raleigh Tavern further down the boulevard to discuss immediate action, and to troop en masse to that place once George Wythe, Clerk of the House, and his charges had finished their journal entries and saw to other formalities for ending the session.

Hugh Kenrick, who had had to settle for standing with other burgesses on the stairs that led up to the Council chamber to hear the Governor dissolve the House, stood apart from groups of them on the Capitol grounds and observed the predictable division of the representatives: the foot-dragging conservatives in several knots to one side, dominated by Peyton Randolph, Richard Bland, and George Wythe, while the “radicals” and “hot heads,” dominated vocally by Patrick Henry, and physically by Colonel Washington, gathered in clusters on the other. He smiled in sad amusement at the predicament of the blondish Edmund Pendleton, who seemed to hover between both groups, wanting to be associated with both. The man was still settling the estate of John Robinson, who died in 1766 leaving the colony in debt; Pendleton seemed more conscientious about that onerous task than about his political principles.

Edgar Cullis emerged from the Capitol and approached him. “I am departing for Caxton,” he said with petulance. “I will not participate in the outlawry I have heard proposed here.”

Hugh shook his head. “That is unfortunate, sir,” he replied coldly. Cullis was the sole burgess to speak in the House against Nicholas’s resolution, claiming that it would “damage the natural affection between the colonies and the mother country.” It was rumored that Cullis or John Randolph, the Attorney-General and the Speaker’s brother, had personally informed Lord Dunmore of the resolution, either verbally or with a copy of the broadside. “You will miss the chance to note what will be said by this band of outlaws, and to report that to the Governor, as well.”

Cullis bristled at the insinuation. “That is a lie! I know for a fact that it was — ” Then he stopped, realizing that Hugh had not actually accused him of being an informer. Instead, he remarked, “I am surprised that you
voted for the resolution, Mr. Kenrick. You are not known to much fast or pray, and humiliation is not to be found in your catalogue of virtues.”

“Thank you, sir,” Hugh replied, by way of agreement. “Short of storming the Palace and demanding an apology from His Excellency, it is the only action open to us, for the moment. But, you are right. I shall not do much fasting or praying, and I do not believe in the efficacy of humiliation in any circumstance. Least of all, this one.”

Edgar Cullis merely smirked.

Hugh then asked, “Do you recall the awful poem that appeared in one of the
Gazettes
celebrating Lady Dunmore’s safe arrival with her three sons and three daughters?”

“Vaguely,” said Cullis, wondering what his fellow burgess was leading up to. He relented in his hostility to Hugh to add, “If I correctly recall, there were several odious eclogues dedicated to her and her children. I confess I blushed in shame, knowing they were penned by Virginians.”

“No more than I, Mr. Cullis. Well, allow me to appropriate some lines from the most offensive one. ‘Your lovely offspring crowd to his embrace, while he with joy their growing beauties trace. The tears of pleasure from each cherub flows, all eager pressing round about his knees.’”

Cullis sniffed in amazement. “I am surprised that you remember such bad verse.”

“Remarkably bad and exceptionally good lines etch themselves permanently in my mind. However, many in the House remind me of tearfully pleased cherubs pressing against the Governor’s knees, though I can’t imagine a less appropriate description of Lord Dunmore. He can hardly tolerate knee-embracing burgesses, never mind children.”

“You insult his character, Mr. Kenrick, and impugn the loyalty of so many of your colleagues.”

“I have neither insulted his character, nor impugned the loyalty of my colleagues.” Hugh grinned in mischief. “What do you think, Mr. Cullis? I’m willing to believe it was Mr. Randolph who informed the Governor. After all, his and the Speaker’s father was the only knighted Virginian on the whole continent. Perhaps his son yearns for the same distinction. I’m certain His Excellency could arrange it.”

“That is a slur on his character, as well, sir.”

“No, that is mere speculation on the man’s base motive, for base it must be.” Hugh shook his head. “After all these years, Mr. Cullis, you have yet to learn this about me, that I do not voice opinions. I make observations.”

Cullis sighed in impatient defeat. “Then you will observe my departure. Good day to you, sir.” He turned and strode across the Capitol lawn in the direction of a tenement house he was staying in for the duration of the session.

Hugh shrugged. “Departure observed, sir,” he said to himself.

Later he joined the parade of burgesses — eighty-nine of them out of the one hundred and three who eventually attended the dissolved Assembly — down Duke of Gloucester Street to the Raleigh Tavern. No Council members were among them. Hugh was joined by Patrick Henry and Colonel Robert Munford, burgess for Mecklenburg. Together they had worked in 1765 to have the Stamp Act Resolves adopted and broadcast throughout the colonies. “Well, Mr. Kenrick,” queried the burgess from Hanover, “what do you think His Excellency will do now? I am sure that he waited for the least excuse to be rid of the Assembly for the year.”

“Perhaps he will retire to Porto Bello again to pick peaches,” quipped Hugh with contempt.

Munford laughed. “It has a fine orchard, and good pasture land. I’m sure His Excellency beat poor Mrs. Drummond down on her asking price for the place.”

“Doubtless he will dun the colony for the construction of the stone bridge he threw over Queens Creek to Capitol Landing,” speculated Henry. “I heard talk that he has filed an action in the York County Court to collect reimbursement for the cost.”

“He is a descendent of the Stuarts,” Hugh said by way of explanation, “and, like them, believes absolutely in the range and permanence of his privileges.”

“And the rightness of his power.”

“I have heard that he plans to confront the Shawnees and Ottawas if they rise up, which will likely happen this summer.”

“Who would answer his call to arms? And how could the Assembly now approve an appropriation for an expedition against them, unless he called a new Assembly?”

“The western militia would answer,” answered Munford, “without even the promise of pay. They would be in the direst jeopardy, and would not need coaxing.”

As Hugh talked with his colleagues, he did not observe two horsemen who had stopped to watch with astonishment the long string of burgesses as it threaded down the boulevard. He joined the other burgesses in the spacious
Apollo Room at the Raleigh, where, under Peyton Randolph’s moderation, debates ensued about what the proposed association should advocate, whether or not a regular general congress of the colonies was feasible, and whether or not to call for a convention of Virginia burgesses to choose delegates to such a congress, should one be agreed to by other colonies.

The General Court was also in session, and so the town was more crowded than usual with visitors. The two horsemen, one of whom held the reins of a third mount that carried their baggage, were not the only spectators of the parade. Merchants, farmers, planters, lawyers, and families who had come to Williamsburg on business for the “public times” and market days, also lined the boulevard to watch the irregular procession and to speculate or comment on its cause.

One of the horsemen remarked to his companion, “It may be difficult to find lodging here, Mr. Manners. This place is nearly as busy as Charleston.” He glanced up Duke of Gloucester Street, and nodded. “That must be the legislature, up there.” Even as he watched, the Great Union flag was yanked down from its pole atop the cupola and belfry. The stranger frowned, and thought there must be some connection between that event and the procession to the large, white-painted tavern in front of them. “I say, sir,” he hailed one of the spectators, who looked like a merchant, and pointed to the Raleigh with his riding crop. “That place seems to be very popular. What is happening here?”

The gentleman looked up at the stranger. “Well, sir, you could say that the Raleigh there is the other Capitol chamber for our burgesses. You see, the Governor dissolved the House not an hour ago over some matter that displeased him, and that’s where those fellows usually go to meet again when they’re in a funk. Third time in as many years, I believe.”

“I see. Thank you, sir.” The stranger abruptly smiled when he recognized one of the faces among the burgesses. He suppressed a compulsion to hail that man, permitting himself only a chuckle. He turned to his companion. “Well, let us find lodging, Lieutenant. The day grows old, and we must see some of this town, and rest before we present ourselves to Lord Dunmore tomorrow.”

Captain Roger Tallmadge and Lieutenant William Manners reined their mounts around and rode back down the boulevard. After several inquiries, they eventually found lodging in the establishment of Gabriel Maupin, a tavern and hostelry on the corner of Market Square. Two burgesses who elected not to join their colleagues at the Raleigh Tavern had
claimed their riding chairs and mounts and departed for home. No one who observed the newcomers knew that they were serving officers in His Majesty’s forces, for they wore civilian clothes and did not identify themselves or state their business in town.

In the course of the debates in the Apollo Room, Hugh asserted, and many former burgesses nodded in agreement with him, that “the colonies may exist in harmony as separate nations, if you will allow it, and perhaps combat Parliament’s encroachments on our liberty with the general congress under consideration here, united temporarily under one
ad hoc
political affiliation.” A boycott of East India tea was also debated, as well as what other British goods should be banned from importation and use until the Boston Port Act and other abuses had been repealed.

During a break in the debates, Hugh and Jefferson again talked privately outside, in the rear of the tavern, both wanting to escape for a while the stifling atmosphere inside and breathe the fresh spring air. Jefferson shared his thoughts on a paper he was planning to write on the complaints of the colonies addressed to the mother country, “absent our usual expressions of servility — I know you will appreciate that aspect of it — in the event a convention is decided on. A summary view of matters that outlines the salients of our arguments and explains our resistance to Crown depredations.”

Hugh also confessed a plan to pen another pamphlet. “When one thinks hard on it, the requirement by the Board of Trade and Privy Council of a suspending clause in all our legislation was not so niggling a matter as we were want to think. It was simply an overture, if you will, a precursor to a summary suspension of all our rights. It is no surprise to me that the Crown has never relinquished or relaxed the requirement. Its refusal to surrender that rule should have been a warning.”

Jefferson nodded in agreement, then sighed. “So many things are clearer in hindsight.”

“Yes. And now we must acquire the strict habit of foresight.”

“Are so many men capable of that habit?” wondered Jefferson.

“I know of one or two,” Hugh answered. He was thinking of his friend, Jack Frake.

* * *

The next morning, in the Palace, Captain Tallmadge and Lieutenant Manners
were made to wait before being granted an audience with the Governor. The captain eventually presented his commission to Captain Edward Foy, Dunmore’s personal secretary, who appeared about an hour after they announced themselves to the footman who admitted them. He queried Foy about yesterday’s parade of burgesses. Foy replied brusquely and unconvincingly that he was ignorant of the cause, and left to report the presence of the visitors to His Excellency.

The two officers resigned themselves to another hour of inactivity, and decided to amuse themselves by identifying the many kinds of muskets that decorated the ceiling and walls of the marble-floored foyer, and so were startled when Foy returned almost immediately and escorted them from the Palace to the Governor’s offices in the annex next door. Foy asked the lieutenant to wait in another room while he escorted Tallmadge upstairs to the Governor’s office.

“From the War Office?” blurted Dunmore contemptuously after the introductions had been made and drinks poured. “Rather premature of the
member for Plymouth
, I would say, to begin assessing native strengths! And, pessimistic, I might add!” His rancor was reserved for William Wildman, Irish Viscount Barrington, Secretary-at-War since 1765. Irish peers could not sit in the House of Lords, but could hold seats in the Commons. He handed back over his desk Tallmadge’s commission, which was signed by the Earl of Rochford, Secretary of State for the Southern Department, and Lord Barrington.

Taking it and resuming his seat before the Governor’s desk, Tallmadge replied, “General Gage’s reports to His Majesty, the Privy Council and the Board of Trade have moved the ministry to seek a better grasp of the situation here, and to better appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of the militia. I understand that on Lord Barrington’s recommendation, the government are preparing for worst contingencies, your lordship.” After a pause, he added, “I will submit my report to General Gage in Boston, and a copy to Lord Barrington, as well.”

“Well, better they all worried about those devils the Shawnees and Ottawas, and I would commend them for the foresight if they had! The filthy beasts are about to burst upon the settlers in the west! I felt obliged to take action on my own initiative.” He paused to smile in confidence. “I have taken steps to claim that western part of Pennsylvania occupied by the proprietors of that sorry colony to the north. I have even arranged to appoint a governor of it. Of course, the Shawnees and Ottawas will dispute
the annexation, and no doubt the Pennsylvanians.” He chuckled. “Well, if His Majesty and the Council can redraw the boundaries of Quebec clear down the Mississippi, they can settle our differences with Pennsylvania by ceding Virginia what it lawfully claims, and redraw those lines, as well!”