Bernard looked at young George. “Will you relieve us of our ignorance? What was this ‘case’?”
“On the face of it, Uncle Bernard, it could have been construed as yet another example of the common tendency of Massachusetts court judgments in favor of colonial lumber millmen accused of trespassing on private land and cutting what they found there.”
“Yes,” said Nicolaus. “Those liberal courts were one of the attractions of the region for our father. And we have endured Surveyors General of His Majesty’s Woods, those damnable wretches, for more than sixty-five years. It is right that they suffer in the courts.” He gave a small whinny.
“And how does this dispute you mention differ?”
George looked at Judge Bluzzard.
The judge refilled his glass of rum. “It started, as many of our problems do, in London — think of the massive land grants to Mason and Gorges.” He swallowed.
“To the point, in 1730 the Crown granted a five-year mast procurement license to Ralph Gulston, a Turkey merchant, one of those swarthy fellows who trade with the Levant. The license allowed him to enter any Maine lands belonging to the Crown in 1691— id est, public land — and cut mast pines for the Royal Navy.” He nodded at George.
George set out the case of trespass, which hinged on the date of 1691, when the land in question belonged to the Crown. “After some delay, Gulston hired a colonial logger, William Leighton, to cut the pines for him. And through the winter of 1733–34 Leighton cut them and dragged them out. No one objected. However, in the passage of years since 1691, title to the land had passed to an American, John Frost, of Berwick, Maine. The Royal Surveyor General chose to ignore Frost’s title. When spring came in 1734, John Frost, waving his legal title, sued Leighton for trespass.”
“I think I know how this must end,” said Bernard. “But continue.”
“Yes. The court — no surprise — found for Frost.”
“By God, I now recall the hubbub,” said Jan. “Leighton stupidly paid the judgment, did he not?”
“He did,” said George, “but—” He extended his hand as though announcing the kingpin fact on which all turned. “On the other side of the ocean when Gulston heard, he began to turn his monstrous wheels. He had the King’s ear. In due time a royal order arrived in Boston.”
Judge Bluzzard, smiling like a wolf, took up the tale.
“It was not until June of 1738 that the hearing on the motion came before the court. Everyone was astonished when the court declared it had no authority to execute that royal order. The court’s attitude was that its authority was to set out laws and hold courts for events that occurred only within the province. They claimed they had no power to enforce what they referred to as ‘a foreign judgment.’ It was the same as if they had declared an intention to disobey that royal order. Do you see? It was the same as if they had said, ‘The King is a foreigner and he is nothing to do with us.’ It was a triumph for the independent American spirit.”
“Sir!” cried Jan, as if to warn of agents who might have heard this traitorous remark.
Bernard closed the discussion by bringing them back to the simpler question of how they should choose sides — England or France. “We may ask ourselves what Father would do.”
“Hardly difficult. He threw in his lot with the English when he left New France.”
“Father did not reckon on the growing discontent of the colonies with each other and with England as Franklin’s severed snake shows. Today our situation is rather different.”
“I agree,” said Jan. “There is increasing murmuration that the colonies should join together and flout England. We already do so flout when it comes to timber and shipbuilding, to smuggling and molasses. The constant promulgation of punitive acts and taxes do threaten our region’s livelihood. If we were not the creature of England we would thrive greatly.”
Bernard smiled. “As businessmen must we not maintain cordial relations with all parties? The French, the English and the colonials both south and north — and the Wentworths?”
“Yea,” said Jan. “We must remain cordial with all factions, including the English, and often test the direction of the wind. And stay aware of new Acts. The Crown seems as determined to shackle us as we are to evade the bonds.”
“Hear, hear,” said Pickering. The rum bottle made its rounds.
Bernard came up to them holding his wife’s blue woolen cloak. “It is time,” he said gently, and they slid out the door.
Young Piet was wrapping up in his own cloak when his cousin George came over to him. He spoke sotto voce. “Cousin, shall we meet again? I must leave for Carolina in three days’ time. I wish us to be friends as one day we will work together for the company. I feel we — and Sedley — represent the young blood of the family. Do you know the Wolf’s Den tavern?” George was twenty-six and Piet a year younger.
“Well enough. Do you prefer it to the Bear Tavern or the Turkie Cock?”
“I do — quiet and less chance of a drunken hubbub. Let us meet there tomorrow evening.” They touched hands and young Piet went out into the fresh night with its sweet odor of woodsmoke and the not-distant evergreen forest.
34. the thing in the trunk
The Wolf’s Den was a quiet and pleasant tavern with half a dozen small tables, and a commodious fireplace at one end of the room. The place was empty except for the pockmarked innkeeper, busy decanting a keg into bottles. The two cousins went to the smallest table near the fireplace. Both ordered hot peppered rum, for it was a cold and windless night that promised a hard frost. Piet stretched out his hands to the dying fire.
“I relish a good fire. In Europe and England I am always cold with their stingy little twig arrangements in fireplaces the size of soup bowls. Only here do we drive the cold away with a proper blaze. This one needs replenishing.”
The innkeeper, overhearing, said, “We were to lay a new back log this morning, but one of the men was detained. He is here now.” He held up a finger indicating a short wait. Within minutes four men, one of them a colossus crowned with dirty white hair, all redolent of fresh air and tree bark, came into the room. The innkeeper came to their table. “You gentlemen may wish to move to a more distant table to avoid the commotion. Robert Kemball, who is necessary to the task, has only now arrived.” That would be the big man, thought Piet.
The door opened and through it came a bolt of cold air and the men lurching under the weight of a monstrous green beech log eight feet long and two feet in diameter. They got it into the great fireplace with grunts and swaying and shoving, with remarks on its hundredweights. The innkeeper rushed forward with an iron bar to lever the great log to the back. Then came a hemlock forestick of considerable dimension, and the innkeeper heaped ashes onto the fresh wood to slow combustion. A boy brought in a basket of pitch pine splinters and in a minute or two a young blaze filled the room with heat and dancing light. The innkeeper gave each of the men a glass of rum and a coin, slapped Robert Kemball on a shoulder like an ox rump. He looked at Piet and George, asking if they would return to their original table with a questioning gesture of his arm. But now the fire was too hot to sit near and they stayed where they were.
“Ah,” said George Pickering Duke, swigging his toddy and patting his red lips. Piet, as angular as tree branches, nodded and smiled. They were quiet for a long time, enjoying the fire’s warmth and the hot spirit.
“I wonder we have not met like this before,” said George, who saw his cousins rarely. “Neither you nor Sedley. But one day, not too distant, you and I will make the decisions for the company of what should be done and what not done.”
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