“The Spanish intendant has stopped our river traffic,” Monroe answered, “revoking our right of deposit. It’s a direct treaty violation. I suspect he was told to do this by Madrid on orders of Napoleon, who plans to force retrocession on Spain and to occupy the island.”
“There is on the globe one single spot,” said Jefferson grimly, “the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market.”
“You’re suggesting that France could soon become our enemy,” said Monroe. For Jeffersonians, Francophiles to a man for the past generation, that startling notion was a form of heresy.
“The day that France takes possession of New Orleans,” said Jefferson, “fixes the sentence. It seals the union of two nations who in conjunction can maintain exclusive possession of the ocean. From that moment, we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.”
Madison, Secretary of State but with little diplomatic experience, shook his head as if slapped. Monroe knew that Jefferson and his foreign minister must be aware that an alliance with Britain was not possible; that seafaring power rightly saw her former American Colonies as competition to her dominion of world commerce.
“Neither the government nor the nation of France has any remains of friendship for us,” Jefferson pressed, put in a bad mood by thinking about Napoleon. “On the contrary, an unfriendly spirit prevails in the most important individuals of the French government towards us.”
Monroe understood it was necessary to get that new Presidential mood across to the newspaper editors of the West. Madison, meanwhile, would hint to the French Minister that an alliance of America with Britain was not impossible. When word of that got to Talleyrand, that wily diplomatist would see through our bluff, of course—but perhaps Napoleon needed money to sustain his European conquests. Madison’s notion was to offer to buy New Orleans from France as soon as Napoleon snatched it away from Spain. Jefferson had confided to Monroe that he was even harboring the dream of buying not just New Orleans, but the entire Louisiana Territory halfway across the continent. That was one reason he had sent his secretary, Captain Lewis, off to explore it. Monroe supposed that the faithful secretary and Albemarle neighbor much preferred the rigors of opening a vast continent to the dirty business of paying hush money to a disgruntled newsmonger.
That, and the arrival of a tea tray, reminded Monroe of the domestic concern.
The tea service and cakes were brought in by the woman he recognized as the slave known as Sally Hemings. Jefferson graciously permitted her the use of a family name, uncommon in the slave culture. Her service was deft and graceful, her demeanor quiet and confident. Monroe judged the lovely woman to be about thirty and presumed that Jefferson took up with her in Paris when she was half that age. Was she aware that she was at the center of a storm? Not that Monroe could tell. Jefferson smiled his thanks at the cup of tea and declined the plate of cake, much as he would with any household slave; of course he did not introduce her. Madison took his tea and said, noncommittally, “Um.” Monroe, who had routinely said “Thank you, Sally” in the same situation scores of times over the years, chose to incline his head slightly and limit himself to “Thank you.”
What the likes of Callender would never understand, he knew, was what the gentlemen of Virginia, and especially their ladies, would see as the real scandal at Monticello. Forget the uproar in the North about the hypocrisy of the man who wrote “all men are created equal” using a slave woman for his sexual pleasure, and the Yankees’ foolish fears of mixing races. The problem to the propertied voters of Virginia was not that Jefferson was using an attractive slave as a bed wench; every planter considered that to be the plain right of a property owner, and the ensuing impregnation was seen as an enjoyable way of adding to the stock.
On the contrary, the shocking part of Jefferson’s behavior to the ownership class, and particularly to its wives, was the permanence and apparent mutual affection of the arrangement at Monticello. Jefferson was treating Sally almost as a wife, not merely a slave, conferring a dignified status on her that surely contributed to dangerous pride in others. To wealthy Virginians, the most galling detail in Callender’s account was the way the supposed oldest offspring, “Young Tom,” had been acting like a member of the master’s recognized bloodline, lording it over the other slaves around the estate. That was why it was so important he not be found.
It was a lucky thing, Monroe thought, that the contumelious Scot referred to Jefferson’s quadroon concubine as a “luscious wench” and an “African Venus.” That suggested that the female house servant was merely a delicious morsel to be regularly ravished—rather than the respected, long-time mate that Monroe, Madison and other nearby plantation owners knew her to be.
After the gentle Sally withdrew, Monroe observed obliquely that the President must be under great strain from matters other than the challenge at New Orleans.
“With the aid of a lying renegade from republicanism,” Jefferson said bitterly, “the Federalists have opened all their sluices of calumny. Every decent man among them revolts at Callender’s filth.”
Monroe looked at Madison, who nodded in relief; the use of “lying” by the President was direct refutation of the charge that Sally was a concubine and that Monticello was overrun by Jefferson’s miscegenated offspring. A filthy lie it was and would be so branded, though the denial was never to come directly from the President. So long as it was forthrightly scorned and could never be proven true, Monroe concluded, it did not matter how widely it was believed.
“Those among them not so decent,” Monroe told Jefferson, “will try to take advantage of the libels. Politically—”
The President waved that away, certain of his support among the people. “There cannot be a doubt,” Jefferson insisted, “that were a Presidential election to come this day, the Federalists would have but three New England States, and only about half a dozen votes from Maryland and North Carolina.” He was confident that the public would rally to him against the gossips. “Federalist bitterness increases with their desperation. They are trying slanders now which nothing could prompt but a gall which blinds their judgments as well as their consciences.”
“How shall we respond?’ Madison asked. Monroe was certain that the Secretary of State believed that the best response to calumny, even when true, was silence.
“I shall take no other revenge,” Jefferson vowed from the sofa, true to form, “than by a steady pursuit of economy and peace, to sink Federalism into an abyss from which there shall be no resurrection.”
“Here, here!” Monroe applauded the political piety coating Jefferson’s admirable determination to destroy the opposition. Provided that Callender kept stressing the purely sexual nature of the relationship, republicans from established families in the South would direct their umbrage at the disloyal ranting of immigrant radical writers. The egalitarian views of these alien imports like Cobbett and now Callender had always been an embarrassment to the wellborn of the South. Jefferson properly could take the high road of prosperity and peace to sink his political opponents; other Jeffersonians, organized by dedicated republicans like Beckley and Monroe’s man Hay, would use more direct means to protect a great man from defamation by the detestable foreigners.
Jefferson added a few choice words for the press. “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.”
“Still, the people must be informed,” Madison put in. Monroe rolled his eyes; the man must have been reading his own amendments.
“The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them,” Jefferson shot back. “He who knows nothing is nearer to truth than the man whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”
Monroe was glad to see the President’s views maturing in office; Callender’s dirty work, too painful not to be true, had its effect on Jefferson, who had
previously been all too prone to defend the liberty of the press. “I’ll take my leave and wish you well in the capital,” Monroe said. “Be careful about riding in the fog, with your catarrh.”
He rose and examined a few of the miniature portraits on the wall of the tearoom. Two were of Jefferson, brought back from Paris, and a grouped trio was of Revolutionary War generals: Gates, Dearborn and Clinton. He tapped the frame on the portrait of George Clinton, now “the Old Incumbent,” nine-time Governor of New York. “Think about him for Vice President,” he said, despite knowing that Jefferson had little regard for the man. Clinton would block Burr in New York and be too old to get in the way of Madison or himself as Jefferson’s successor.
Walking his two closest aides to the door, the President returned to the subject of the difficulty of dealing with foreign potentates like George III and Napoleon. “Sometimes accident gives us a place in history for which nature has not prepared us by corresponding endowments,” Jefferson observed. “It is the duty of those about us carefully to veil from the public eye the weaknesses, and still more, the vices of our character.”
Monroe chose to take that wise observation to apply not to Virginians but to King George III. He bade his fellow Virginians farewell and waited on the porch, with its distinctive pillars introducing an architecture that never seemed to get finished, for the young slave to bring his horse. He recalled that Jefferson had assured them months ago that nothing in his past could cause embarrassment; presumably he meant that the stories about Sally would never reach the public eye. What more damage could the vicious Scot do?
He recalled a threat that Hamilton had made years before to reveal an episode casting obloquy on Jefferson. But Callender would be the last person in the world to have contact with the New York politician whose political future he had ruined. What other attacks were likely? The charge that Jefferson had been a coward in the Revolution had been made and had not stuck. The imputation of atheism was one the Virginians would have to live with but was a matter of the mind and could never be proven by the fanatical preachers. Financial chicanery? Jefferson had property in land and slaves but no money to speak of. Perhaps this accusation of an African harem was the last stone in the scandalmonger’s sling.
The stable boy brought his bay horse around and handed the Governor the reins. Monroe mounted and spurred the animal across the field toward home. The alert, fine-looking boy bore no special resemblance to Jefferson, the Governor decided, other than the light skin. And the red hair. And the self-assured, languid way of carrying himself.
Chapter 41
December 20, 1802
RICHMOND
Maria heard the shouts outfide and threw open the front door of Dr. Mathew’s house. Staggering up the path was James, head pitched forward, bleeding all over his jacket, supported by his partner Henry Pace.
“George Hay, the bastard,” grunted Pace, easing Callender onto the couch in the doctor’s dispensary. “Barged in to Darmstadt’s store and bludgeoned James over the head four, five times before I could get to him.”
“Hat,” James seemed to say, mouth filled with blood. Maria sent a slave to fetch the doctor. She wet a towel and gently dabbed at the Scot’s injured skull and face.
“I couldn’t find a cart so we had to limp all the way here,” said Pace, looking on glumly. “Nobody would help. Thought he was drunk again, some said as much. The coward Hay, he just came up behind him where he was trying to find the translation of a document in Dutch, and damn near knocked his head off, yellin’ all the time, ‘Dusky Sally! Dusky Sally!’ Like to have killed him unless one of our devils got to him in time.”
“What are you trying to say, James? Just whisper to me.” She leaned close to the battered ear.
“Hat,” he whispered hoarsely.
“It’s this hat,” Pace explained, showing her the hat stuffed in his kit. “It’s stiff and heavy, and he wears it all the time, in the stores, even at the type table. Proud of it, he is. Saved his life when the bludgeon hit him, I think. Stayed on for two or three of the blows at least.” He handed to Maria the blood-soaked headgear that had served as a helmet. She had given him the hat as a present on his birthday in November because she didn’t want to see him hatless in the cold. She could hardly see it through her hot tears.
“You can go now, Mr. Pace. Here’s Dr. Mathew now. We’ll take care of him.”
“Mayor,” Callender said urgently to Pace.
“I’ll go to the Mayor’s office now to get an order binding over Hay to keep the peace,” the partner told her. “Mayor Foster’s not a republican, thank God. He won’t worry about Hay’s courting Governor Monroe’s daughter.” He looked dubiously at the editor, groggy but not from grog. “I don’t suppose you will be able to write about this for the next issue. I’ll try my hand at it.”
She could feel James start up in protest, wince in pain and then sag against the doctor. “You’d better wait until he can write it, Mr. Pace.”
Her employer dipped the towel in the reddened water in the basin and dribbled it over his emergency patient’s head. “That’s a nasty crack you have there, young man,” Mathew said. “Breathe deep. Don’t talk.”
James continued to try to talk. He seemed to her more confused than angry at this latest outrage. This time she was the one who felt the surge of fury.
December 22, 1802
RICHMOND
“You’re not going to believe this,” Pace told Callender, whose head was still wrapped in a large bandage, sitting up in bed in his room, “but Hay is counter-suing us. He’s got a Jefferson judge in Henrico County to cite us for being ‘evidently common libelers of all the best and greatest men in our country.’ ”
“That’s a compliment.”
Pace wasn’t so sure. “You have to put up a surety of fifty dollars that you won’t attack Hay in revenge.”
“Never.” Callender started to shake his head but quickly stopped.
“I’m to put up twenty dollars, because the complaint says I’m ‘more insignificant, being totally destitute of talents.’ ”
That drew a rueful smile. “The word ‘totally’ is too strong.”
“You’re a kind man, James.” Pace took some bills out of the drawer. “I’m going to pay the twenty. One of us has to stay here and put out the paper.”
Callender struck him as profoundly discouraged, but the habit of defiance had not abandoned the Scot. “I’ll never pay. Let them put me in jail for contempt.”
“They’ll do that, James. They’re serious and they have the Governor behind them and the President behind him. None of them want to see any more articles by you.” Pace had scheduled the next issue to come out the day before Christmas, and it included a good run of merchant’s advertising. “This is not a good time to be shut down, James.”
“When I’m in jail, put a black border around the front page,” Callender told his partner. “Make it read ‘From My Old Quarters in Richmond Jail.’ That will show the republicans up for a pack of hypocrites.”
Despite his aching head, he took up a quill and wrote the story in advance. “That such a paper as the Recorder should long be suffered to exist, in the centre of riot, of assassination, and of despotism, is what no rational being can be supposed to expect.”
Pace, reading over his shoulder, found that attitude distressing; was Callender thinking of quitting?
“If the torch of the press is not extinguished in the blood of its editors,” Callender wrote, “as it almost has been, we shall probably find it advisable to seek an asylum somewhere else. We shall attempt publication and look for protection in some happy corner of America, where the phantom of justice does not flutter upon the knots of a club, or the lock of a pistol.”
Pace took the pages and read them in dismay. “This is the sort of thing Cobbett wrote when he ran back to England.”
“I know how he felt, the royalist wretch.”
“But we’re adding twenty subscribers a week. At that rate we’ll match the ci
rculation of his Porcupine someday.”
“I’ll be straight with you, Henry. I don’t want to go to jail again. You don’t know what it’s like to be in the dungeon with blacks singing to split your ears, or to face a mob outside led by the hotspur kin of Monroe and Jefferson.”
“Then put up the fifty dollars.”
He thought about it, at least, before saying “Never. I’ll rot in that hell first.”
January 5, 1803
RICHMOND
Monroe was surprised that Callender chose jail. He was irritated that the blackguard could generate sympathy for himself by publishing a black-bordered edition the day before Christmas, with its four extra pages of advertising. Even Duane in the Aurora, whose excessive attack on Callender for killing his wife with a loathsome disease had probably driven him to reveal “Luscious Sally,” could not stomach the re-jailing of the man who had suffered for the Sedition Act. “The press has indeed been prostituted to the basest purposes by Callender,” that editor wrote, “but the method taken to correct the evil will have the contrary effect.”
The Governor was concluding his term of office. President Jefferson needed him to go to France as special envoy to head off Napoleon’s designs on New Orleans. If that mission failed, the Federalists would call for war to defend the Mississippi trade and political power would flow back to them. These were great matters of state that would affect the nation for decades to come; why, then, did he have to concern himself with the beating and suing and jailing of one miserable newsmonger?
Because, he reminded himself, he had seen the effect of Callender’s martyrdom on the stupid Federalists two years before. Monroe was determined that the same technique of suffering behind bars not be used against the republicans now. On one of his final orders as Governor, a new bench of magistrates had met on January 4 in Henrico County, reversed the previous judgment and dismissed the charges against Callender. They left the $500 bond in force against his assailant, which the public viewed as only fair, since Hay had been the man with the bludgeon. Monroe’s daughter carried on about penalizing her suitor, and his wife sided with her forcefully. But Beckley had told Monroe’s acolyte to intimidate Callender only privately, not to assault him in public. The idea had been to teach him a lesson that would make the editor think twice about continuing his campaign of lies, not to make a martyr out of him. Monroe thought his prospective son-in-law Hay was a hotheaded fool.
Scandalmonger: A Novel Page 41