Christian Cameron: Washington and Caesar

Off to his right, Hamilton was visibly shaking his head. Lafayette had turned his face away, and a member of the Continental Congress from South Carolina was smiling broadly.

Carleton looked stunned, but then he smiled slightly. Washington longed to wipe that cold smile right off his face. The man represented the sort of British officer he had always disliked. His arrogance seemed unbreachable.

“If the blacks are not returned with an accounting of their former stations and owners, a like number of British and German prisoners of war will be kept until such time as this requirement is met.”

Carleton shook his head and whispered to his secretary. His secretary laughed aloud.

“How do you answer this requirement?”

Carleton looked at his snowy white shirt cuffs for a moment and then spoke very quietly.

“Any arrangement outside of those guaranteed by the Treaty of Paris lies beyond my powers. I must communicate with my Government.”

“That could take months!” cried the member of Congress.

“I cannot help that,” said Carleton, coldly. “I am not the one, I think, who seeks to change the treaty.”

The rest of the issues drew even less response. Most of them were very minor, and Washington knew that most of them had been arranged as a pretext to force the British commander to come up the river to visit them and to vex him. The slaves were the main issue. He himself no longer took the same view of slavery with which he had started the war, and he saw in Lafayette’s indignation a certain reflection of his own feelings in using prisoners of war as negotiating tools for the return of slaves. Lafayette would call it a blot on the escutcheon of liberty, and half the staff would agree.

Washington nodded to himself, and paused near the door of the house in which they had met to put on his greatcoat and take up his hat and gloves. Carleton was quite close, only a few feet away, and Washington looked at him curiously.

Carleton had left America in 1776 with his reputation untarnished. He beat every Continental army to march into Canada, and he routed the army that Washington sent in ’76, chasing it all the way back into New York. Now he was back to oversee the turning over of British North America, less Canada, to the fledgling United States.

Carleton had his own greatcoat on and he turned, his eyes suddenly widening a fraction as he took in Washington’s proximity.

“I’ll endeavor to have my answers for your masters,” he said. Washington recoiled. Carleton smiled coldly.

“If you want them, though, don’t expect me to go through this process again. You can come and see me,” Carleton went on.

“May I remind you, sir, that you are the defeated party? And that I expect to summon you if I require your presence?” Washington didn’t believe such things, but he was stung by the taunt of “masters”.

“General Washington, you and I recognize that you have no more than three thousand men here. I still have fifteen thousand in New York.” The cold voice sank a little further, to a hiss. “Your French friends have all gone home. If you wish to reopen the dance, I will be most happy to oblige.” He put his hat on with an air, collected his secretary, and was gone, escorted only by some of Washington’s light horse.

“You intend to stay?” Caesar was incredulous. Jim Somerset was sitting at a table in the Moor’s Head with Sally at his side. “You are going to marry?”

“With your permission, Sergeant,” said Jim, looking mild.

Many comments about their relative ages and Sally’s past life came to mind, but Jim had known Sally exactly as long as he had, and there seemed little enough to say. The war had grown Jim up smartly, and he was now almost as tall as Caesar, though still skinny as a rail. And Sally probably only had five or six years on him. It might be enough to harm, or to help, and it wasn’t his place to say.

Sally looked at him defiantly. “I have a good sum of money to start us with. We were going to buy a house.”

“You’ll be taken as slaves!”

Jim shook his head. “I don’ think so, Sergeant. Bludner owned Sally, an’ we know he’s dead. Ol’ Mr. Gordon owned me hisself, an’ I saw you kill him. So I reckon no slave-taker will show up with a claim on us.”

Caesar nodded slowly. “I expect you have a point there, although you’ll always have to worry.”

“That’s what it’s like to be African in this country, Caesar,” said Jim with a smile. “You worry. Lot of folks is stayin’, though. We won’ be the only folks of color.”

Caesar nodded, took a sheet of paper from his map case and began to write them a certificate showing his approval of their marriage.

“Captain Martin has to sign this,” he said.

They both nodded. Sally smiled slowly, and looked at him under her lashes.

“I thought you might get him to sign,” she said.

“Corporal Somerset, why don’t you fetch us some wine?” Jim sprang up to go to the little bar where spirits were served, and Caesar glared at Sally.

“What are you at?”

“I want to stay. They goin’ to build a whole new country here. An’ I want to stay with folks I don’ know so well, and start over. You and the Guides might go to Jamaica, or England, or Canada, but I don’t want to be with the Guides. They think they know me.”

“And Virgil?”

“Virgil is a good man, an’ he’ll find himself a woman that suits him. I don’t, an’ I ain’t.” She tossed her head.

Caesar just nodded. He had heard Virgil plan for Sally on many an evening. “He thinks he just has to get it right, you know. Just say the right thing, or know you better.”

“He thinks he knows me, but I’ll tell you, Jim knows me better than any of you.” She was more wistful than defiant.

“And you won’t go whoring on Jim?”

“You think whorin’ comes natural, Caesar? It don’t.” She glared at him. “I haven’t since the major left, now have I?”

They both sat in thought for a moment, remembering Major Stewart, now serving in Gibraltar and married to Miss McLean. He had left Sally a wealthy woman. She had benefited from the change, but Caesar was still suspicious of her. And on another level, he knew he’d miss her and Jim. It was all of a piece; the world he had known since he left the swamp was falling apart. Jim came back with wine, and he looked away, his eyes suddenly filling with tears.

“I’ll get Captain Martin to sign.”

Jim sat and shook his head. “They say at the bar that the Congress is demanding that all the blacks in New York be returned.” He shook his head in disgust. “Them rebels really think they won. How come they never won when I was around?”

Caesar spread his hands on the table and shook his head.

“They took General Burgoyne, and they took Cornwallis at Yorktown, and the Government lost the will to fight. But they won’t give us all back.”

“They traded the Indians away fast enough.”

“Stow that talk, Corporal.” Caesar glared at Jim. But a finger of ice touched his spine, and he sat up.

“And what can General Carleton do?” asked Jim. “He’s got orders from London not to make trouble.”

“Government has no money,” said Caesar, quietly.

“Neither does the rebel Congress, but they jus’ print it.” Jim propped his chin on a long bony hand. “I read them pamphlets, Sergeant. I do understand.”

Caesar changed the subject.

“Polly will miss ya, Sally,” said Caesar.

“Oh, we can write. An’ I’ll miss her, an’ your little one. But I want a life, Caesar. An’ not as Sally at Mother Abbott’s. Sally Somerset has a nice free ring to it.”

“You’ll tell her?”