The Sot-Weed Factor

by John Barth

  [Here endeth the existing portion of the journal.]

  “ ’Dslife, what a place to end it!” Ebenezer cried when he had finished the manuscript, and hurried to find Burlingame. “Was there no more, Henry?”

  “Not another word, I swear’t, for I combed the town to find the rest.”

  “But marry, one must know how matters went—whether this hateful Smith made good his boasts, or thy poor ancestor lost his life.”

  “Ah well,” Burlingame replied, “this much we know, that both escaped, for Smith went on that same year to explore the Chesapeake, and Burlingame at least set down this narrative. What’s more, if I be not a bastard he must needs have got himself a wife in later years, for none is mentioned here. I’God, Eben, I cannot tell you how I yearn to know the rest!”

  “And I,” laughed Ebenezer, “for though belike she was no poet, this Pocahontas was twice the virgin I am!”

  To Ebenezer’s surprise, Burlingame blushed deeply. “That is not what I meant.”

  “I know full well you didn’t; ’tis your ancestry concerns you. Yet ’tis no vulgar curiosity, this other: the fall of virgins always is instructive, nor doth the world e’er weary of the tale. And the harder the fall, the better.”

  “Indeed?” Burlingame smiled, regaining his composure. “And prithee tell me, What lesson doth it teach?”

  “ ’Tis odd that I should be the teacher and you the pupil,” Ebenezer said, “yet I will own ’tis a subject close to my heart, and one to which I’ve given no small attention. My conclusion is, that mankind sees two morals in such tales: the fall of innocence, or the fall of pride. The first sort hath its archetype in Adam; the second in Satan. The first alone hath not the sting of tragedy, as hath the second: the virgin pure and simple, like Pocahontas, is neither good nor vicious for her hymen; she is only envied, as is Adam, by the fallen. They secretly rejoice to see her ravaged, as poor men smile to see a rich man robbed—e’en the virtuous fallen can feel for her no more than abstract pity. The second is the very stuff of drama, for the proud man oft excites our admiration; we live, as’t were, by proxy in his triumphs, and are cleansed and taught by proxy in his fall. When we heap obloquy on Satan, is’t not ourselves we scold, for that we secretly admire his Heavenly insurrection?”

  “That all seems sound,” said Burlingame. “It follows, doth it not, that when you profess abhorrence for the Captain, thou’rt but chastising yourself in like manner, or that part of you that wisheth him success?”

  “ ’Tis unequivocally the case,” Ebenezer agreed, “whene’er the critic’s of the number of the fallen. For myself, ’twere as if a maid should cheer her ravisher, or my Lord Baltimore support John Coode.”

  “I think that neither is impossible, but let it go. I will say now, thine own fall, when it comes, must needs be glorious, inasmuch as thou’rt both innocent and proud.”

  “Wherein lies my pride?” asked Ebenezer, clearly disconcerted by his friend’s observation.

  “In thy very innocence, which you raise above mere circumstance and make a special virtue. ’Tis a Christain reverence you bear it, I swear!”

  “Christian in a sense,” Ebenezer replied, “albeit your Christians—St. Paul excepted—pay scant reverence to chastity in men. ’Tis valued as a sign—nay, a double sign, for’t harketh back alike to Eve and Mary. Therein lies its difference from the cardinal virtues, which refer to naught beyond themselves: adultery’s a mortal sin, proscribed by God’s commandment—not so fornication, I believe.”

  “Then virginity’s a secondary virtue, is’t not, and less to be admired than faithfulness? I think not even More would gainsay that.”

  “But recall,” Ebenezer insisted, “I said ’twas only in a sense I share the Christians’ feeling. Methinks that mankind’s virtues are of two main sorts—”

  “Aye, that we learn in school,” said Burlingame, who seemed prepared to end the colloquy. “Instrumental if they lead us to some end, and terminal if we love them in themselves. ’Tis schoolmen’s cant.”

  “Nay,” said Ebenezer, “that is not what I meant; those terms bear little meaning to the Christian, I believe, who on the one hand hopes by all his virtues to reach Heaven, and yet will swear that virtue is its own reward. What I meant was, that sundry virtues are—I might say plain, for want of proper language, and some significant. Among the first are honesty in speech and deed, fidelity, respect for mother and father, charity, and the like; the second head’s comprised of things like eating fish on Friday, resting on the Sabbath, and coming virgin to the grave or marriage bed, whiche’er the case may be; they all mean naught when taken by themselves, like the strokes and scribbles we call writing—their virtue lies in what they stand for. Now the first, whether so designed or not, are matters of public policy, and thus apply to prudent men, be they heathens or believers. The second have small relevance to prudence, being but signs, and differ from faith to faith. The first are social, the second religious; the first are guides lor life, the second forms of ceremony; the first practical, the second mysterious or poetic—”

  “I grasp the principle,” Burlingame said.

  “Well then,” Ebenezer declared, “it follows that this second sort are purer, after a fashion, and in this way not inferior at all, but the reverse.”

  “La, you have the heart of a Scholastic,” Burlingame said disgustedly. “I see no purity in ’em, save that all the sense is filtered out—the residue is nonsense.”

  “As you wish, Henry—I do not mean to argue Christianity but only my virginity, which if senseless is to me not therefore nonsense, but essence. ’Tis but a sign as with the Christians, that I grant, yet it pointeth not to Eden or to Bethlehem, but to my soul. I prize it not as a virtue, but as the very emblem of my self, and when I call me virgin and poet ’tis not more boast than who should say I’m male and English. Prithee chide me no more on’t, and let us end this discourse that pleaseth you so little.”

  “Nonetheless,” Burlingame declared, “ ’twill be a fall worth watching when you stumble.”

  “I do not mean to fall.”

  Burlingame shrugged. “What climber doth? ’Tis but the more likely in your case, for that you travel as’t were asleep—thy friend McEvoy was no dullard there, albeit a callous fellow. Yet haply the fall will open your eyes.”

  “I would have thought thee more my friend, Henry, but on this head thou’rt brusque as erst in London, when I went with Anna to St. Giles. Have you forgot that day in Cambridge, the pass wherein you found me? Or that malady whereof I spoke but yesterday, that I was wont to suffer in the winehouse? Think you I’d not rejoice,” he went on, growing more aroused, “to be in sooth a climber, that stumbling would move men to fear and pity? I do not climb, but merely walk a road, and stumbling ne’er shall fall a mighty fall, but only cease to walk, or drift a wayless ship on every current, or haply just moss over like a stone. I see nor spectacle nor instruction in such a fall.”

  Burlingame made no more of the matter and apologized to Ebenezer for his curtness. Nonetheless he remained out of sorts, as did the poet, for some hours afterwards, and in fact it was not until a short time before they arrived in Plymouth that they entirely regained their spirits, and Burlingame, at Ebenezer’s request, took up again the tale of his adventures, which he’d left at his discovery of the fragmentary journal.

  7

  Burlingame’s Tale Concluded; the Travelers Arrive at Plymouth

  “THAT PORTION OF the Privie Journall that you read,” said Burlingame, “so far from cooling the ardor of my quest, did but enflame it the more, as you might imagine, inasmuch as it said There was a Henry Burlingame, yet told me neither that he e’er had progeny, nor that among his children was my father. There was one ground for hope and speculation: namely, that Captain John Smith set out that very summer to explore the Chesapeake, wherein near half a century later I was found floating. Yet nowhere in his Historie doth he mention Burlingame, nor is that poor wight listed with the party. I searched the ancient pap
ers of the colony and asked the length and breadth of Jamestown, but no word more could I find on the matter. I made bold to enquire of Nicholson himself whether he knew aught of other records in the Dominion. And he replied he had been there so short time he scarce knew where the privy was, but added, there was a grievous dearth of paper in the provinces, and ’twas no uncommon thing for officers of the government to ransack older records for paper writ on but the recto, to the end they might employ the verso for themselves. He himself deplored this practice, for he is a man devoted to the cause of learning, but he said there was no cure for’t till the provinces erected their own paper mills.

  “It seemed to me quite likely my Journall had suffered this fate, inasmuch as ’twas writ on a good grade of English paper, and the author had employed the recto only. I despaired of e’er discovering the rest, and in the fall of 1690 went with Captain Hill to London. Our intention was to litigate to clear the charges of seditious speech against him, and if possible to undo Colonel Coode and his companions. The moment was propitious, for Coode himself and Kenelm Cheseldyne, his speaker, had also sailed for London and would not have their bullies to defend ’em. I so arranged matters that a number of his enemies appeared in England that same season, and I thought that if we filed a host of depositions against him, we could thereby either work his ruin or at least detain him whilst we plotted farther. To this end I made a secret trip to Maryland ere we sailed, with the design of slipping privily into St. Mary’s City and stealing the criminal records of Coode’s courts, or bribing them stolen, for no clearer proof could be of his corruption. Howbeit, the man anticipated my plan, as oft he doth: I learned that he and Cheseldyne had carried off the records with ’em.

  “In any case we set our plot in motion. No sooner did we dock at London in November than the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations subpoenaed Coode to confront Lord Baltimore before them, to answer that worthy’s charges against him. At the same time Colonel Henry Coursey, of Kent County, petitioned against Coode and Cheseldyne, as did John Lillingstone, the rector of St. Paul’s Parish in Talbot County, and ten other souls, all known Protestants—for ’twas Coode’s chief defense for his rebellion that he was putting down the barbarous Papists. Finally Hill made his own petition, and even our friend Captain Burford of the Abraham & Francis, who had helped us flee to Nicholson and whose ship the rogues had lately crossed on, deposed in Plymouth that Coode had in his presence damned Lord Baltimore and vowed to spend the revenues embezzled from the Province.

  “For a time it seemed we had him dead to rights, but he is a damned resourceful devil and had a perfect shield for our assaults. The year before, just prior to the rebellion, a wight named John Payne, who collected His Majesty’s customs on the Patuxent River, had been shot to death either aboard or near a pleasure-sloop belonging to Major Nicholas Sewall, and Coode had rigged a charge of willful murther against Sewall and four others on the sloop. Nick Sewall was Deputy Governor of Maryland before the rebellion, but more than that, he is Charles Calvert’s nephew, the son of Lady Baltimore herself. The rebels had him hostage in St. Mary’s, and at any time could turn him over to the court of Neamiah Blackistone, Coode’s crony, who would hang him certain. Thus our hands were tied and our plot squelched, the more for that we had not the criminal records for evidence. The Lords Commissioners cleared Captain Hill in December, and Colonel Henry Darnall too, Lord Baltimore’s agent, who’d been charged with treasonable speech and inciting the Choptico Indians to slaughter Protestants on the Eastern Shore; but Coode they could not touch, or haply would not, at Lord Baltimore’s behest.

  “I saw no farther usefulness for myself with Captain Hill; he was free to go back to the Severn, and had no more taste for politics. But my interest in John Coode had near replaced my former quest, which seemed a cul-de-sac. The man intrigued me with his cunning and his boldness, his shifting roles as minister and priest, and most of all his motives: he seemed to have no wish for office, and held no post save in the St. Mary’s County militia; he plundered more for sport than avarice, and would risk all to make a clever move. The fellow loved intrigue itself, I swear, and would unseat a governor for amusement! At length I vowed to match my wits with his, and to that end offered my services to Lord Baltimore as a sort of agent-at-large in the Maryland business. The Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations were kindly disposed towards Baltimore at this time, for they knew full well John Coode was a rascal and King William had no more right than you or I to seize the Province. Therefore when time had come to name a royal governor, they gave milord some say in his selection, and he picked the great dunderhead Sir Lionel Copley, who could not tell a knave from a saint. Now I had caught a rumor that Coode was privy to the Governor’s ear, and for simple spite had told him that Francis Nicholson of Virginia was being groomed to take his place, ere Copley had e’en left London. He said this, I was certain, merely to cause friction ’twixt the governors, for he had no love for Nicholson and wanted a weak executive in Maryland who would leave his own hands free. This strategy of his gave me my own, which was to suggest to Baltimore that he should in fact have Nicholson commissioned lieutenant governor of Maryland, since word had it he was to be replaced in Jamestown by none other than Sir Edmund Andros himself; and farther, that he should then name Andros commander-in-chief of the Province, with power to take command in the event of Nicholson’s death and Copley’s absence. ’Twas a fantastical arrangement, inasmuch as Copley mistrusted Nicholson, Nicholson disliked Andros, and Coode loathed ’em all! My object was, to so mismatch them that their rule would be a farce, to the end that haply someday William might return the reins of government to Baltimore.

  “Milord approved the plan, once I had explained it, and, seeing farther I had the confidence both of Andros and of Nicholson, he gave me the post I wished, with one stipulation only, that it be confidential. Nicholson and Andros were commissioned in 1692, and the instant Coode heard it he took fright: he well knew Copley was too thick to see the evidence of his mischief and too weak to harm him if he saw’t, and Andros would have work enough in Virginia to absorb him; but Nicholson’s neither dull nor weak and knew Coode already for a rascal. Posthaste he wrote instructions to an agent in St. Mary’s, to steal the Journal of the 1691 Assembly and destroy it, for there was writ the full tale of his government for all to see. I heard from friends one Benjamin Ricaud had joined the fleet, and knowing him as Coode’s messenger, straightway set out after. ’Twas my good luck he boarded the ship Bailey, for her master, Peregrine Browne of Cecil County, was a friend of Hill’s and Baltimore’s, and I knew him well. Moreover, a number of our men were there as well. Between us we contrived to search Ricaud’s effects and intercept the letter, which I passed along to Baltimore.

  “I resolved at once to sail for Maryland and prevailed on Baltimore to let me go on the very ship with Copley. We had one powerful ally in the government, Sir Thomas Lawrence, who as His Majesty’s Secretary to the Province had access to every stamp and paper. ’Twas my design to have him steal the Assembly Journal ere it was destroyed and smuggle it to Nicholson, who would in turn then fetch it here to London for our use. I was the more eager to lay hands on’t, for that in that document my separate goals seemed fused: the search for my father and the search for ways to put down Coode were now the selfsame search!”

  “How is that?” asked Ebenezer, who had heard the foregoing in wordless amazement. “I do not grasp your meaning in the least.”

  “ ’Twas that note we intercepted,” Burlingame replied. “We did not know its import at first sight, for’t said no more than Abington: Such smutt as Capt John Smiths book were best fed to the fire. ‘Abington’ we knew was Andrew Abington, a fellow in St. Mary’s that Coode had given the post of Collector for the Patuxent after John Payne’s murther; but we could not comprehend the rest. At length I bribed Ricaud outright, who was a shifty fellow, and he told us ‘John Smiths Book’ signified the Journal of the 1691 Assembly, for that ’twas writ on the back of an old manuscr
ipt of some sort. For aught I knew it might be but a draft of the Historie I’d read in print, but nonetheless I could scarce contain my joy at hearing of it and prayed it might make mention of my namesake. Nor was this the end of my good fortune, for the note itself was writ on aged paper, not unlike that of the Privie Journall in Jamestown, and I learned from Ricaud that Coode had traveled often in Virginia and had kin there, and that after the rebellion he’d given Cheseldyne and Blackistone a batch of old papers filched from Jamestown to use in the Assembly and the St. Mary’s court. For aught I knew, the rest of the Privie Journall might be filed somewhere in Maryland!

  “As soon as I arrived in St. Mary’s City I made myself known to Sir Thomas Lawrence and laid open Lord Baltimore’s strategy. He was to steal the Assembly Journal and pass it on to Nicholson, who would find excuse at once to visit London. In addition I meant to discredit as many as possible of Coode’s associates, and to that end persuaded Lawrence to lure them into corruption. Colonel Henry Jowles, for instance, was a member of the Governor’s Council and a colonel of militia: we made it easy for him to line his pockets with illegal fees as clerk of Calvert County. Baltimore’s friend Charles Carroll, a Papist lawyer in St. Mary’s, did the same with Neamiah Blackistone, Coode’s own brother-in-law, that was president of the Council and Copley’s right-hand man. And the grandest gadfly of ’em all was Edward Randolph, His Majesty’s Royal Surveyor, who loved to bait and slander poor old Copley, and spoke openly in favor of King James. Finally we terrified the lot of ’em with stories that the French and the Naked Indians of Canada were making ready for a general slaughter. In June, not a month after we landed, Copley was already complaining of Randolph to the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations; in July Lawrence filched the Journal, but Nicholson whisked it off to London ere I could lay eyes upon it. In October we exposed Colonel Jowles, who was turned out as colonel, councilman, and clerk. In December Copley again complained of Randolph, and swore to the Lords Commissioners that Nicholson was on some sinister errand in London—which letter greatly pleased us, for we meant to use it to advantage when Nicholson himself was governor.