Chesapeake by James A. Michener
“Have you set forth to destroy your friends?” he exploded.
“I think we have,” Fithian said, and with this he lowered his voice, and the conversation left mercantile affairs in which he and Steed were threatened with heavy losses, and entered upon those questions which touch the soul. “What England should do right now, Simon—before summer—is say to the colonies with smiling good will, ‘Go your way, children. Grow strong and later on share your munificence with us.’ ”
Steed said nothing. The idea was so radical, so contrary to his own conclusions, that he could barely digest it. So Fithian continued, “If we do that, we shall bind you to us forever. You’ll bank in London, and buy your goods there, and send your sons to Oxford. Believe me, a union like that could be a powerful force in this world.”
“Do many think like you?” Steed asked.
“You would be sick to hear the idiots. They can’t visualize any future different from the past. I argue the future of Atlantic trade and they hear nothing. This fellow Burke argues the legal position and they don’t hear him either.”
“Is no concession possible?”
“They’d all be possible if men were sensible. We’ll make the trivial ones. But the substantial ones that could remake the world? Impossible.”
“So we planters will be driven back and back?”
“Yes. Because you’re visible.”
“It would be fearfully wrong if Parliament continued to abuse us merchants. We’re your link to sanity. We’re loyal to a man. We love England, but we’ll not be endlessly abused.”
And so the discussion continued, the Englishman advocating separation, the colonial renewing his allegiance. It ended when Fithian said abruptly, “Enough of this. You must come with me to Janney’s.”
“I’ve warned you. I won’t touch it.”
“But for your own sake, you must see the problem. Besides, I want to show Jane the Virginia shore.”
“Is she going?”
“Of course. I want her to know you. I want her to marry you.”
“You shock me.”
“She’s my baby sister. A precious, wonderful child. And we’ve been affiliated with the colonies for so many generations, I thought it time we made the bonds closer.”
“I’m Catholic.”
“We have an ample supply of Protestants in the other branches of the family.” He tapped Steed on the chest. “All of us need new blood, new ideas. And you need a wife.” Steed started to protest, but Fithian stopped him. “I sit in London and read letters from all over the world, and after a few years I build an image of the writers. And the image I have of you, Simon, is of a stolid, honest, unexciting calculator who is sometimes deeply moved by contemporary happenings, but dry of heart. Don’t miss life because you contemplated it only from a distance.”
The sail to the Rappahannock was a peaceful winter idyll: geese flew overhead in vast congregations and the sky was a lambent gray; occasionally some ship bound for Baltimore would appear through the soft haze, its nine sails barely filled, and after a while it would pass on. The weather was brisk, and each morning Jane Fithian’s cheeks were a bright English red, and she would apologize, “I’m sure I must look a perfect milkmaid.”
She was a witty girl, well able to participate in the learned discussions her brother conducted. “I think the king should send two armies to the colonies, one to march from New York north and the other from New York south. Then we’ll see what headstrong rebels are capable of.” She said such things to tease Simon, who was twenty-one years her senior, but she did not succeed.
“Your armies, my dear Miss Fithian, would never reach either Boston or Philadelphia. We’re not children, you know.”
“You’re barbarians, that’s what you are, and if we stopped our ships for even six months you’d perish ... for lack of food ... and ideas.”
“And if we stopped our ships for six months, Fithians would crumple ... for lack of money.”
“We’d be sillies, each of us, to act so stupidly,” she admitted, “and I’m sure we won’t.”
But when they reached the Janney plantation and she saw its sad condition, she was deeply agitated. “They seem such fools, all of them. Oh, Guy, if only we could stay here a year or two to straighten them out!” Her brother pointed out that the fault lay not only with the unfortunate Janneys but with the policy-makers in London. “I’m to blame, too, for extending them credit.”
Only Simon remained untouched by the swift fall in the Janney fortunes. “They’ve always been inept, and now fate in the form of ten-percent interest has overtaken them.”
It was his opinion that Fithians should foreclose, take control of the vast lands, and sell them cheaply to some better managers.
“We can’t do that,” the Englishman protested. “Because if we forced Janney’s into bankruptcy, we’d have to follow with at least nineteen others. What would be the result? Panic in Virginia. And Fithians with more plantations than it could supervise.”
“What shall you do?” Steed asked.
Guy Fithian, spiritual and legal representative of many English businessmen, lowered his head, rubbed his chin and said, “Pray. That’s what we’ll do, pray.”
“For what?”
“Well, my first prayer has been that I could find someone like you to manage Janney’s. And the nineteen others. To tide us over the period before the war starts.” At the mention of war, Simon winced. “And next I’d pray that after the war the free colonies will honor their debts.”
“Don’t speak as if war were inevitable,” Steed said,
“It is,” Fithian said quietly.
And after they had inspected a batch of plantations tottering on abysses which the owners barely comprehended, Jane asked her brother, “Can’t we do something?”
“As I said before, we can pray.”
“So the war I spoke of in jest is to be a reality?”
“I think so,” her brother said.
The visits to the grand plantations were like a dream: slowly the sloop would climb the rivers; slaves would be waiting at the wharves to catch the lines; ahead would stretch the impeccable lawn; off-to one side would stand the slave quarters; and in the midst of all would rise the mortgaged mansion, sometimes with columns gleaming in the wintry sun. The reception was invariably generous, with fine drinks and small talk of London, but in the eyes of the owners there would be a quiet terror in the presence of this factor who owned the place.
Guy Fithian was not a destroyer; he was there to see if some reign of reason could be installed to save both the ostensible owners and himself, but there was never a rational plan. “The slaves have to be fed, Mr. Fithian. Tobacco is sure to recover. We don’t know how to raise corn or wheat. There’s been some talk of growing apples, but only for cider. And each month our debts seem to grow heavier.”
Yet it was these good people, so sorely abused by London, who most enthusiastically supported England and the king. “There will never be rebellion here. In Richmond and Williamsburg there has been talk. Jefferson isn’t reliable and Patrick Henry is a born troublemaker of no substance whatever. No, sir, Virginia stands fast with the king.”
“That’s more than I would do,” Fithian told Steed as they prepared for the sail back to Devon. Steed did not respond, and Fithian, in an abrupt change of subject, asked, “And what of Jane?”
“In these uncertain times ...”
“That’s when you must get your personal affairs in order. Do you intend marrying her?”
“Good heavens!”
“Simon, for the past six weeks we’ve been visiting people unable to make decisions. Don’t become like them in your old age.”
The mention of age was unfortunate; it gave Simon an excuse. “After all, I’m forty-three and she’s only twenty-two. I’m old enough—”
“A splendid excuse,” Guy snapped. “And I can think of a dozen others. And none apply.”
“Why not?” Simon asked almost petulantly; he did not like bei
“Because we live in an age of tension. Everything’s uncertain, and at such times wise men attend to basics ... like marriage.”
Steed said, “I’ll think about it on the sail home.” And when the island loomed far to the east, hiding in river mists, Guy called him to the rear of the sloop and asked, “What’s the decision?” and Steed said hesitantly, “I might as well,” and Guy shouted, “Jane, come here!” and when she joined them, red-cheeked and lively, her brother said, “Simon wants to marry you,” and she kissed Steed and poked him in the ribs and said, “You didn’t have to propose. I was going to do it when we reached the island.”
Steed was relieved that a major decision had been reached so painlessly; the more he had seen of Jane in the Virginia mansions the more he had grown to love her. She was a crisp, enticing young woman, with a strong mind and a lively interest in the Fithian enterprises. He was sure that she could have married a younger man—several in Virginia had seemed eager to propose—and was flattered that she had chosen him. “You could have brought order into any of those plantations,” he told her as they walked up the path from the wharf. “I want you to manage this one.” But in obedience to some deep sense of propriety she said, “I didn’t come to manage. I came to love.”
But beyond such practical considerations, which were English in nature, Steed also felt drawn to Jane sexually, and was neither reluctant nor embarrassed to express this longing, a fact he attributed to his French inheritance. Jane became increasingly desirable when they went to bed in the large square room once occupied in bitter loneliness by Rosalind Janney Steed, and one night when low flames spiraled in the bedroom fireplace she said, “You thought your life had ended, didn’t you, Simon? But it was just preparing to begin,” and she laughed.
While Simon Steed had been absent in Virginia, conducting his reticent courtship, Teach Turlock fumed in Jail, and to every prisoner who shared his cell he spoke veiled treason—“Maybe we got to drive the fat rector out of Maryland. This land stealing.” He suggested that judges were thieves, too, and whenever any Englishman was mentioned, even the king, he spoke harshly.
Some of his fellow prisoners, aware of the way his thoughts were tending, tried to mollify him by arguing against his excesses, but he rejected their counsel. “The time is comin’ ...” he said, and told those close to him that when he got out of jail, Englishmen had better watch out.
The jailer got a taste of his hardening attitude when papers were delivered for Turlock to sign; they transferred title to eighty acres to the Rector of Wrentham, but when Teach understood this he refused to make his mark—“No rector takes my land.”
“But the court says you must sign,” the jailer said patiently as the clerk nodded.
“To hell with the court.”
The two officials gasped, for such language was not used in Patamoke. The law in such cases was precise: for speaking disrespectfully of any court, imprisonment; for a second offense, branding the tongue with a flaming iron; for a third offense, hanging.
“Say nothing of his blasphemy to the justices,” the jailer pleaded when he and the clerk were alone. “He’s a crazy man who loves his land.”
But of course the justices had to be told that Turlock had refused to sign, and they became angry. Two appeared in prison to warn him of the jeopardy in which he was placing himself, but he sat grim-lipped and dirty, his hands tucked beneath his bottom lest he be tempted to take the quill. “We can prolong your sentence. Or take your sloop,” they warned.
But he was obdurate, and. neither cajolery nor threats induced him to accept the pen, so the justices retired, and shortly thereafter he was informed that his sentence had been doubled; he must remain in jail till April.
He began to laugh at the justices, at the rector and at himself. He realized that things had gone sadly wrong and there wasn’t much he could do about it. At this point he could have been saved from rebellion; a single conciliatory gesture would have mollified him. Instead his wife visited the jail with news that the surveyors had marked off the eighty acres—“Not swampy land toward the creek. Best land. With the big trees.”
Surprisingly, he did not rage or become abusive. After his wife left he merely sat on his stool, benumbed, churning inwardly, so that one of the prisoners said, “When they take a piece of his land they take a piece of his guts.” When two justices appeared, accompanied by the constable, bearing documents for him to sign, he allowed them to pinion him, and hold his right arm, and force his fingers to draw the sprawling X’s which took away his land. But later, when the justices reviewed all that had happened, they remembered that during the enforced signing Turlock had studied with animal fierceness the two documents—“He couldn’t read but he was memorizing how the papers looked.”
On April 6, 1773, he was released and on April 7 the rectory at Wrentham was ransacked. At first the fat clergyman could not ascertain what had been stolen, for his candlesticks and silverware seemed to be intact, and it was several days before he realized that his title to the eighty acres at the marsh was missing; when he was satisfied that this was the case, he summoned his slaves and directed them to get him to Patamoke as expeditiously as possible. Huffing and puffing, he informed the justices that Turlock’s title had been stolen, and when the justices said, “We’ll have the clerk draw you a copy,” they found that theirs was gone too.
“It was Turlock!” the clerk remembered. “He was here the day after he was released from jail. Asked to see the deed he had signed.”
“You know he couldn’t read.”
“I forgot. I was called away ...” His voice trailed off as he tried to recall that day, and then he understood the trick that had been played on him. “It was Mrs. Turlock! She came to the other door. Asked if her husband was here.”
“And you didn’t ascertain whether the deed was returned to the files?”
“Who steals deeds?”
Obviously Turlock did, so the justices ordered duplicates to be drawn, but when the constable went to the marshes to inform Teach that the court had fined him twenty additional acres for burglary, and that these must be added to the rector’s holding, he flew into a rage so violent that any prospect of getting him to mark the transfer was futile. “I was lucky to escape with my life,” the constable reported, so the justices took it upon themselves to sign the deed, and Turlock was cheated of another portion of his land.
In fury he retreated to his sloop, black and near the end of her days: her back was hogged; her sails were torn; her bottom was riddled with worm; but Turlock had learned to sail her with surprising skill and had even taken her to Barbados for contraband rum and to Sal Tortuga for salt.
The sloop merited a crew of ten, but often she sailed with only two, for Turlock could stay awake for days on end, or mostly awake, keeping his old wreck afloat. On his present trip he carried a crew of eighteen, for he had in mind much more than a smuggling trip to Barbados. At night he slipped out of the marsh, down past Devon and into the broad reaches of the Chesapeake, where he proposed to stay for some time.
A vessel of quite different character was following the same plan. Lieutenant Copperdam, of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, had for some months been dominating the Massachusetts coast and had apprehended various American craft attempting to evade customs. It was his habit to board the vessel, confiscate its contraband, and send the sailors off to London in chains. This high-handed behavior had so infuriated the citizens of Massachusetts that Copperdam had decided to test his fortune in the Chesapeake.
The first colonial vessel he spied was a broken-down, hog-backed sloop limping along with every sign of running contraband. At first Copperdam considered letting her pass, for in that condition it could not be carrying much, but since there was nothing else on the horizon, he moved in for an easy capture.
However, as he closed in on the derelict, its sides opened suddenly and six cannon flashed out. Fire was withheld, and Copperdam saw to his astonishment that the enemy intended board
And then a miracle happened! Instead of capturing the English vessel and arresting its crew, the invaders merely ransacked it for anything of value and sailed boisterously out into the Atlantic. Lieutenant Copperdam, in reporting his humiliating experience to the English authorities in New York, said, “It was like wrestling a porcupine barehanded. They said she carried a crew of only eighteen. Seemed more like eight hundred.” When they asked about her captain, he said, “Bearded, barefooted, filthy, and never said a word.”
And as he was reporting, another English ship came into New York with a similar tale. “A black sloop which seemed about to sink hailed us, emptied our hold and sailed away.”
“Was the captain barefooted, heavy beard?”
“The same.”
When this description circulated about the Chesapeake, knowing sailors realized that Teach Turlock had declared private war against the English, and they speculated on how soon that war would become general. Plantation owners, appalled at the possibility of an open breach with England, growled, “What’s the damn fool done? Issue his own letters of marque and reprisal? He ought to be hanged.” But one dark night the black sloop came creeping into the Choptank, and before dawn the local watermen had taken off her booty, stepped her masts and hidden her within the marsh. Turlock was their champion.
As the year 1773 drew to a close, Levin Paxmore worked fourteen and fifteen hours a day. The transom of the building vessel had already been carved and painted—Whisper—and the keelson had been fastened to the keel. The two huge masts had been shaped—square to octagon to circle—and the steps into which they would ultimately be fitted had been carpentered. But the planking was far behind schedule. The reason was an old one: cutting pine boards to the right thickness, shaping them to the intricate flow of the schooner’s silhouette, and matching a larboard plank to one already cut for the starboard were both time-consuming and difficult. There was a limit to what sawyers could do in a day, and a ship of this size expended timber at a rate of something like six times that of the smaller boats Paxmore had been accustomed to build.