James Nelson: The Blackbirder

It had been a long and uneventful sail. From Whydah they had made their way due south, then east, leaving the Niger River Delta to larboard and fetching Kalabari. They anchored off the beach and hired grumetes to carry the people ashore, those people whom James had rescued from slavery within the bounds of Chesapeake Bay, who had fought their way back across the Atlantic, who had been so terribly betrayed.

It was James’s wish that they be carried to Kalabari, and Marlowe was happy to do it. They were not there three hours before the people were ashore and the Elizabeth Galley won her anchor again and left the Dark Continent astern.

For nearly two months Thomas had been dreaming of his reunion with Elizabeth, and she did not disappoint. Not in the matter of her enthusiasm at seeing him again, or in the matter of the feast of fresh food and physical comfort she provided, not in any regard did she disappoint.

The home that Marlowe returned to was little changed from the one he had left, save for the big empty place that King James had occupied. But the rest of the people were there, living in their quarters behind the big house, tending the fields and the gardens. Lucy, long convinced that James would not return alive, listened to the tale and accepted it with a stoicism unusual for her.

True to their promise, George and the others had kept a regular watch on the house, had come to speak with Elizabeth after her return, and once the news of Dunmore’s shameful departure had been well known, the people returned. No one in the tidewater had ever said a thing. Persecuting them was Dunmore’s obsession, and no one wished to be a part of that, now that Dunmore was gone and Marlowe had returned.

And so Thomas Marlowe and Francis Bickerstaff were not quite certain what they were in for, three days later, when they donned their finest clothing, strapped on their gentlemanly swords, took up their gold-headed walking sticks, and drove in Marlowe’s carriage to the Wren Building and the office of Governor Nicholson.

“Marlowe, dear Marlowe! And Francis Bickerstaff, pray, come in, come in, be seated! A glass of wine with you? Good, good!” Nicholson did not seem put out at all by them, did not seem hostile in any way. Quite the opposite, really.

“Thank you, Governor.” Marlowe settled in a chair, the same he had occupied at their last and quite different interview, and accepted the delicate crystal glass. It seemed so fragile, insubstantial in his hand, after the heavy glassware and pewter mugs he had been using for months, vessels designed to endure rough treatment at sea.

“So, you’ve had a successful cruise, I’ll wager? We’ve seen no prizes sent in here; I do hope you have not been entirely without luck.”

Marlowe cleared his throat, glanced at Bickerstaff, who gave him a cocked eyebrow. “We have been entirely without a letter of marque and reprisal, as you will recall, Governor. We were sent out to hunt down those people who killed the crew of the slave ship. In that, we have been successful. We chased King James to Whydah, on the Slave Coast, and saw him dead.”

“Well, excellent, excellent. Good job. I don’t recall now why you had no letter of marque. Well, no matter, there is one for you now, if you wish. To your health, sir!”

And that was it. No further inquiry. Marlowe did not mention the raid on the slave factory. He did not mention the one hundred and fifty-odd captives they had freed and carried off to Kalabari.

He said nothing of the French merchantman that they had sailed to Lisbon and sold, along with the cargo of booty, for more money than the governor would see in all his tenure in the Colonies.

He did not mention the surviving members of the Northumberland’s crew-Cato, Quash, Good Boy, and Joshua-who had been smuggled back to Marlowe House in the middle of the night and had resumed their place among the people there.

Instead he simply thanked the governor for his courtesy and sipped the wine and inquired as to how things had been in Virginia during their absence. Twenty minutes later the interview was done.

It was a perfect afternoon through which they drove back to Marlowe House. The sky was a rich blue, like a blue jay’s plumage, not an anemic robin’s egg. A cool breeze flowed in through the carriage window as if trying to comfort the occupants. For a long time they said nothing, just watched the green fields and the stands of trees pass by.

“There will be no crop this year,” Bickerstaff observed at last. “With your people in exile all this time the tobacco has gone to ruin.”

“No matter. Our pirating has got us enough money to survive and keep out of debt and pay the people as well.”

“It is unfortunate for me that you use your ill-gotten gains in so honorable a way as paying your poor people for their labor. It makes the moral position that much more ambiguous.”

At that Marlowe smiled. “Moral position? Do you still look for such a thing? Frederick Dunmore had the moral position, ask anyone, until he snuck away like a thief in the night. We chased poor James clear across the Atlantic in support of the moral position, and now there is no one gives a tinker’s damn that we did.”

“There is such a thing as right and wrong, Thomas, the evil of such men as Frederick Dunmore notwithstanding. I will never cease to try to make you understand that.”

Thomas Marlowe leaned forward, put a gloved hand on his friend’s knee. “And I shall always love you for that, Francis. And I look forward to your constant company. Because, you see, when I think on men such as Frederick Dunmore and King James, and the fact that we were made to hunt the one in support of the other, when I think of how Dunmore has been discredited now for running like a rabbit and James lies dead and forgotten, on how a simple piece of paper separates the privateer from the pirate, when I think on all those things, then I realize that trying to make me understand something like absolute right and wrong will be, I assure you, a lifetime’s occupation.”