Christian Cameron: Washington and Caesar

“That the counterfeiter needed to be brought to book no one here contends, ma’am. But the governor used methods that the House of Burgesses cannot condone without it impugning our stand on a larger issue, to wit, whether Americans can be taken out of our continent to England to be tried. This counterfeiter was in Pittsylvania County. The court there was competent to execute justice on him, but our governor chose to send a special sheriff and bring him to Williamsburg to justice.”

“And now he can no longer pass counterfeit five-pound notes that cause my steward to suspend business.” Martha smiled at him again, a happy smile that made it difficult for him to believe that he was being led to slaughter.

“But the legality places us awkwardly, ma’am. If the governor can write a warrant to take a man from his county to Williamsburg for trial, then the Admiralty in London can write a warrant for a smuggler to be taken from Boston to London for trial.”

“What of it? Are we not all English? Or is it your meaning that Americans will give their own a ‘fairer’ trial? Perhaps the smuggler will never be found guilty in Boston, Mr. Lee? Because if that’s your meaning, I can’t help but think that my steward is happier that this counterfeiter did not get a ‘fairer’ trial among his friends in Pittsylvania.”

Lee looked like a man who had just discovered a deep pit yawning at his feet. Arguments against the tyranny of the Crown were so popular in Virginia that he was not really ready to argue cases; he generally expected approbation in reply to any reasonable assault on the Government. Martha Washington, however, was of far too much consequence to ignore, and it struck him, then, that he could forfeit his standing either by offending her, as one of the richest landowners in the colony, or by losing the debate, which would not increase his stature with the House of Burgesses, to which her husband belonged, and to which he aspired.

Lee felt doubly ambushed in that Washington himself rarely spoke in the House, and was firmly a friend of liberty. It seemed astonishing that he should allow his wife to make such statements. He turned and looked at the tall colonel, who nodded gravely at him. He was actually expected to debate with her. Very well, then.

“Are you familiar, ma’am, with the Gaspee incident?”

“Perhaps you will help me understand it, Mr. Lee.”

If he heard the warning in her voice, he ignored it.

“In June of last year, a British armed cutter of that name, engaged in the suppression of the smuggling trade, ran herself aground in Narragansett Bay. A group of men boarded the cutter and burned her. An Admiralty court of inquiry was given jurisdiction over the case, and is understood to believe it has the right to send Americans to England for trial.”

“And this would be harmful because…” She drawled the last word as she had drawled his name, a deliberate provocation.

“They would never receive a fair trial in England! And an attack on the rights and privileges of any one colony are an attack on them all!” His voice was powerful, and declaimed well. The words were Jefferson’s, but he said them with complete conviction.

“But…” She smiled again, that happy smile that seemed to deny any possibility of open conflict. “But Mr. Lee, those men actually did burn that ship, did they not?”

The laughter was pained. Lee had the sympathy of the entire audience, many of whom had also labored under delusions about Martha’s native intelligence at one time or another. Washington simply looked absent, as if he refused to be a witness at another execution.

“The burning of the ship is not the issue,” he began, but she closed her fan with a snap that distracted him, and she stepped up close for the final assault.

“No, sir, it is not the issue, and you do the friends of liberty no service to pretend it is. The issue is that we smuggle because Great Britain chokes our own trade and won’t let us carry our own cargoes. That is the issue. And that they try to tax us beyond our ability to bear in prosperity, to pay her debts and ours from the Great War. That too is the issue. These are the issues, in trade, that will drive us to separate-that and the arrogance of our motherland, whose representative said at my own table that we are a race of cowards who could not stop five hundred of them from marching across our whole continent. That is the other issue. It is on these-trade, taxation, and the force of arms-that our arguments will rest. But not on the actions of law, or Dunmore’s taking of a counterfeiter.”

There was, quite spontaneously, a small round of applause, and Lee’s training as a gentleman triumphed over his adolescence. He not only avoided showing resentment, but smiled and bowed deeply.

“I hope you are always as passionately devoted to our cause as you are now, ma’am. You would be a devilish opponent in the House, and we’re lucky your husband does not speak more often, if he has trained you to this pitch of argument.”

Washington laughed aloud, a single bark that was completely different from his usual closed-mouthed laugh.

“Trained her? Trained her?” He barked again. “Perhaps, Mr. Lee, you now have a taste of why I’m so often silent.”

Mount Vernon, Virginia, November 1773

Queeny watched the new men come ashore from the plantation’s brig; West Indians didn’t hold much interest for her. They were usually so cowed by the comparative brutalities of Jamaica that Virginia seemed like paradise, and the Master bought only skilled men, tradesmen who were too old for her tastes. His field hands came only from America, as they were less apt to run.

She patted the sides of her cap of crisp white linen that she had made from one of Mistress’s cast-off shifts. The breeze was hard on caps, and Queeny was too vain to wear a straw bonnet like a field worker. She was tall and strong, but she had always been pretty enough to draw white eyes and clever enough to satisfy white mistresses. She had never done field work.

One of the new men was clearly young; he seemed to bounce with anticipation as the longboat came up to the plantation dock. He leapt from the thwart and helped moor the craft with a lithe agility that made her smile. The other blacks shuffled ashore, one kneeling to kiss the ground, one staring around him at the alien vegetation and neat brick buildings as if he had been delivered to another planet. The youngster looked left and right like a bird, his glance never stopping.

“You stick by me, Queeny, and we’ll have this lot sorted in no time.”

“As y’ say, Mista Bailey.”

A senior tenant farmer for the Washington and Custis farms, Bailey was in charge of the plantations while the Master was away in Williamsburg on business. Bailey was not a hard man, and had never offered her the least trouble, unlike the other senior tenant, whose hands never stopped. She often translated for Mr. Bailey.

Queeny was American born, but she had grown up on a plantation where most of the slaves spoke only African tongues. Her father and mother were upcountry Ebo, and she spoke almost all the coastal languages. It was a skill that made her valuable, and like her looks and easy manner, it kept her from the fields. Queeny followed him down the gravel path to the dock, a demure three paces behind.

“Captain Gibson.”

“Mr. Bailey.”

“A prosperous voyage?”

“Well enough, sir, well enough. I lost a spar in the roads of the Chesapeake, and the new customs officer in Jamaica led me a merry dance on our bills of lading, but all told, why, here we are.”

“I’m sure the colonel will be pleased. I see you got the slaves he asked for.”

“That I did. Jones here can tell you their trades, although this one, Red Scarf, is a gunsmith. He touched up the flints on my pistols, took the locks apart and put them together neat as neat. I wanted to try him.”