Prelude to Glory, Vol. 7

by Ron Carter

  “How’s Dora and the children?”

  Pettigrew smiled. “Good. She sends her greeting.”

  Matthew pursed his mouth for a moment. “Things have changed since last we all met here. Let me put all the pieces out and see where we are.”

  Caleb settled back in his chair, listening, waiting, eyes half closed, and Matthew began.

  “A friend—Eli Stroud—delivered a large sum of money for our use for about the next ten or twelve years.”

  Pettigrew straightened, eyes narrowed, scarcely breathing.

  Matthew went on. “We paid off the bank note. This company is debt-free.”

  Pettigrew started. “Altogether? No debts of any kind?”

  “None. We also have possession of the Jessica.”

  “How?” He turned to look at Caleb.

  Caleb looked back at him and raised a hand, palm flat toward Pettigrew. “Not me! I didn’t go get her. They paid the taxes. Both states. Virginia and Maryland.”

  Pettigrew’s head swiveled back to Matthew. “If I might ask, just how much money did Eli Stroud deliver?”

  “Just over twenty-eight thousand pounds British sterling.”

  Pettigrew’s face drew down. “How did he get it?”

  Matthew smiled. “Honestly. His wife’s estate.”

  Pettigrew exhaled in relief and made instant calculations. “If I remember, the bank note was sixteen thousand pounds. That leaves you with something over ten thousand pounds.”

  Matthew answered, “That’s why you’re here.” He turned to Billy. “What offers do we now have to carry cargo?”

  Billy spoke slowly. “Four. Good ones. Reputable merchants. Manufacture going to southern buyers, cotton and tobacco and indigo coming to northern buyers. Banks will finance it if we guarantee payment in the event a buyer defaults. If that happens, we pay, but we also own the cargo. We have secondary buyers who have guaranteed to take the merchandise at a fifteen percent discount if the primary buyer fails and we have to buy it. To cover that possibility we’ve added the usual four percent fee for carrying all cargo.”

  Pettigrew leaned forward, his deep-set eyes narrowed. “Right now, I doubt there’s a shipping company in Boston that can match it!”

  Billy nodded. “Today, right now, we have enough contracts to keep two of our ships working for at least six months. Within sixty days, it looks like we’ll have enough additional carriage business to keep all six ships working for at least the next nine months. Until early spring of next year.”

  Pettigrew was astonished. “Six? You’ll be the biggest carrying trade in Boston.”

  “Likely. Probably in Massachusetts.” Billy stopped for a moment. “Tom’s had more experience than most in these matters. He’s the one that put this all together over the past month.” He turned to Thomas Covington, round-shouldered, gray-haired, wizened with the hard-earned experience of a thousand shipping transactions.

  “What’s your opinion?”

  None doubted Covington. “It’s sound. It conforms to all accepted rules of the trade. If you’re careful, you’ll be profitable from the day you start. Within one year you’ll be established.”

  Pettigrew sat stock-still as his mind stretched to accept the truth of the unbelievable picture that had been thrust upon him in less than five minutes. “What did Eli Stroud want in exchange for the money? Does he own the company now?”

  “No,” Matthew answered. “We repay him in about twelve years. Right now the problem is finding crews to operate six ships.”

  Pettigrew came to an intense focus, waiting.

  “Can you get the captains and the crews to operate our ships? Two now, and four within the next two months?”

  For a moment Pettigrew reflected before he spoke directly to Matthew. “I thought you would be the one to do that.”

  Matthew shook his head. “We’ll come to that in a minute. Right now the question is, can you do it?”

  Pettigrew lowered his head and for several seconds studied the worn floorboards before he raised his eyes to Matthew. “Yes. I can.”

  “You will be the one to handle the crews and the ships. I’ll be here to back you up. You will be paid a salary, plus the usual percentage of profits if there are any. Is that agreeable?”

  “What salary?”

  “Whatever is fair. You can work that out with Tom. He knows such things.”

  “That’s agreeable.”

  “Do you need any money now?”

  Pettigrew shook his head. “No. But could I ask why you’re not the one handling the ships and crews?”

  Matthew shifted in his chair. “I spent some time with Thomas Jefferson. He showed me maps of new states that are being considered, reaching west to the Mississippi River. He talked about changes in our laws and in the government—changes that will take the country in a whole new direction. He advised me—nearly ordered me—to become part of what he called a Committee of Correspondence.”

  Pettigrew interrupted. “A government committee?”

  “No. Volunteer citizens.”

  “To do what?”

  “Learn what’s happening in each state. What’s going right, and what’s going wrong. Exchange ideas. Experiences. Wake people up to the hard fact that changes must come, or the United States is doomed.”

  Pettigrew leaned back in surprise. “That’s a pretty strong statement.”

  “Yes, it is. The question is, is it true? Jefferson and Madison and other leaders think so.”

  “You intend mixing into all that somewhere?”

  “Yes. If Jefferson and the others are right, there’s little sense to building a shipping company that could be lost in ten or fifteen years when the United States dissolves and the disputes between them come to shooting.”

  Pettigrew’s forehead wrinkled. “The leaders think that could happen?”

  Matthew nodded. “It’s already begun. And I don’t intend spending my life building something that will be lost when it happens. I intend doing what I can to avoid that, and Jefferson suggests that survival of a united country will likely come down to waking up the citizenry to the fact they must change or lose it all.”

  Matthew stopped and gave Pettigrew a little time, then went on. “To do that we’re trying to find out if Boston has a Committee of Correspondence, and we’re contacting other states and cities with the same question.” He gestured to Caleb. “He’s had experience in a newspaper office, and writing. Does well with both. He’s agreed to handle the printing and the mail.”

  Pettigrew glanced at the printing press, then back at Matthew and asked, “Who are you contacting?”

  “Leaders who should know what’s going on in their states. They should have names and addresses.” Matthew turned to Caleb. “Got a copy of the letter?”

  Caleb quickly went to the printing press and returned with a paper, laid it before Matthew, and took his seat. Matthew scanned it and slid it across the desk to Pettigrew. “We distributed this last week.”

  Pettigrew sat back in his chair and read the curt document carefully, thoughtfully, and realized he had never seen one like it. For the first time in his memory, he was looking at an attempt to reach beyond the strata of society that had always held the power of government and affairs, to the mainstream of lesser-known citizens, who did the work and paid the bills that held society and the country together.

  “Which leaders? Which members of Congress?”

  “Most of them. And the governors. George Washington also.”

  Pettigrew stared in amazement. “Any answers?”

  “Too soon for answers.”

  Matthew changed directions. “Our ships will carry messages sometimes, depending on need and whether we have a ship going the right direction. You will be involved in that.”

  Pettigrew fell silent for a moment. “If all this comes together, will this office be big enough?”

  Billy answered. “No. We’ve been looking for more space. There are two possibilities right now. Others may be coming. We’
ll handle it.”

  Pettigrew took a moment to put it all together, then suddenly chuckled. “I would never have believed all this. Within days of losing it all, and now you can’t see the end of it. Getting into the committee business. Letters to congressmen and governors, and General Washington.” He shook his head in wonderment. “Hard to believe.”

  “Sometimes I can’t believe it myself.” Matthew sobered. “We’ve got to remember, this isn’t going to be easy. Many of the men who are looking so far ahead have a vision different than the others. There’ll be conflicts. Troubles. We’ve got to keep our heads clear if we hope to find a way through it all.”

  Pettigrew leaned forward. “What conflicts?”

  “Two I know of already. One’s slavery. The other is fear of powerful government.”

  Caleb stirred and said quietly, “I’ll have a bit to say about slavery.”

  Matthew turned to him with the clear image in his memory of the sick, soul-wrenching stench and sight of the dead and dying in the three feet of filth in the hold of the Dutch ship Helga, and of sixty-six black bodies floating face down in the Atlantic, off the Virginia coast. He said a single word to Caleb.

  “Primus?”

  “Yes. And that Dutch ship two years ago, Helga. And Stenman.”

  Pettigrew wondered, but did not ask. He stood. “Do you want me to start gathering two crews now?”

  “Yes. Billy or Tom can show you the dates and ports and cargo that we have to start with.”

  “Good.”

  Matthew stood. “This conference is over. You men go ahead. Caleb and I have a few things to finish for the next letter.”

  Pettigrew hesitated for one second. “Dora isn’t going to believe all this.”

  Matthew smiled. “Kathleen doesn’t believe it yet.”

  Caleb rocked onto his feet and said, “Might want to wait to count the profits. Things have a way of going their own direction. Most shipwrecks are not part of anyone’s plan.”

  Notes

  The identification in this chapter by Matthew of the two heaviest problems facing the United States in 1784 were correctly stated as the issue of slavery and of the need for a powerful central government (Bernstein, Are We to Be a Nation?, pp. 5, 161–71).

  Boston

  September 1784

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  * * *

  They came in an ancient, empty, battered farmwagon drawn by two old brown mares, clattering onto the Boston waterfront in the morning sun of a warm, late-summer day. Four bearded men in threadbare clothing and worn-out shoes, with hands too big and hard from lifelong toil with plow and pitchfork and scythe, faces burned by summer suns and winter snows and set like death, paying no attention to the dock laborers who slowed and stopped to stare.

  The driver hauled back on the lines and growled his “hoooo” to the horses, then wound the leathers around the brake pole and the four of them climbed down. They hung half-empty nose bags on the horses before they entered the office with the sign DUNSON & WEEMS SHIPPING above the door, gave their eyes a moment to adjust, and stood waiting at the counter.

  At the sound of the door opening, Matthew rose from his desk and walked to the counter, a question in his eyes at what were plainly four inland farmers in the office of a Boston harbor shipping company at a time they should have been at home in the beginning days of harvesting their all-important crops. Billy raised his head at his desk to listen, but did not rise. In the far left corner, Caleb stopped working with the printing press and reached for a dirty rag to wipe his hands while he watched.

  “Is there something I can do for you?” Matthew inquired.

  A lean, wiry man just shorter than Matthew, with deep-set eyes that glowed with intensity, answered.

  “We’re looking for Dunson. Matthew Dunson.”

  “I’m Matthew Dunson.”

  The man offered his hand. “I’m Nathan Tredwell. From Springfield. Glad to make your acquaintance.”

  Matthew shook the sinewy grip, and felt the strength. “I am happy to know you, sir.” He waited while the man gestured to those beside him.

  “This is Hosea Abrams, and this is Thomas Marsing, and this is Ezekiel Ottoman.”

  Matthew shook their hands in turn, nodded his greeting, and turned back to Tredwell, waiting.

  “Are you the Matthew Dunson who sent a letter to Springfield about a committee?”

  “The Committee of Correspondence? Yes. I did.”

  “That’s why we’re here. Things is happening over that way. Bad things. We don’t know what to do about it, and a lot of us who’s been hurt held a meeting and decided four of us ought to come tell you. Maybe you can do something.”

  Billy leaned back in his chair, not missing a word. Caleb stood silent, unmoving.

  Matthew asked, “You own land over there? Farms?”

  “Yes. Well, all except Thomas. Looks like he’s about to lose his.”

  Matthew glanced at Thomas Marsing. The man’s eyes were flat, emotionless, and the expression on his face did not change.

  Matthew turned back to Tredwell. “Is that what brought you here?”

  “That and more.” He took a breath and began a recital in the brief, spare way of men whose lives have demanded toil, not words.

  “Three weeks ago the sheriff come to Ezekiel and took the last hundredweight of flax he had, to collect a debt. Fifteen days ago the sheriff come to Hosea and took his sow and pigs. Meat for the winter. Gone.”

  Matthew interrupted. “To collect a debt?”

  “Yes. Last week he come to take my oxen. Both of ’em. Without oxen I can’t work my land. Plow and plant and harvest. Can’t do it without the oxen.”

  “Did the sheriff take them?”

  “No, sir, he didn’t. I stood him off.”

  “How?”

  “Musket.”

  “Shooting?”

  “No. Just had it in my hand. Same musket I carried in the war. Hosea and Thomas and Ezekiel and me, we was all in the war. We was at Saratoga, and down at Yorktown. We still got our muskets, but that’s all we ever got out of four years with the Continentals.”

  “Has the sheriff come back to arrest you?”

  “No. But he said he was. He’s not a bad man. He knows he ought not be doing all this, but he says the law’s the law, and he’s got no choice, and he’s right. He knows he takes my oxen, I lose the farm. So far he’s stayed away to give me a chance. That’s why we come here.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Come with us. Come on to Springfield. See what we’re facing.”

  “What are you facing?”

  It was clear that it pained Tredwell to recite it all. “When we was mustered out of the army, we was given paper that said we would get paid. We went back to our families and started working our farms, and we waited like they said, but we didn’t get paid nothing. We didn’t have money to buy seed to get started, so we got an agreement with the merchants that we could pay for the seed with crops. That was fair.”

  He stopped to lick dry lips and order his thoughts. “Then the big merchants said we couldn’t do that any more. We had to pay in gold or silver because they had to pay their debts to banks in Boston and New York and England and Holland in gold and silver. We didn’t have it. We had a written promise, and we had paper money from both Congress and the state of Massachusetts that turned out to be worthless, but no gold or silver. We told them we could only pay with crops, and that was our agreement, but they went to the politicians and got the laws changed.”

  Caleb walked quietly to the end of the counter and stood still, not interrupting.

  Tredwell continued. “Most of us over near Springfield is farmers, and it wasn’t long before we found out that we was all having the same trouble. Couldn’t pay the debts we had to take on while we was away doing the fighting. We couldn’t pay, and we wouldn’t leave, so the merchants started hiring lawyers. We was forced to go to court. None of us could hire lawyers because we had no way to pay. We went
to court alone, but the judges wouldn’t listen to us. They kept foreclosing on the farms and ordering the sheriff to come take our livestock and property, and there was nothing we could do.”

  The three men around Tredwell moved their feet on the floor, and their hands on the counter, and then settled as Tredwell went on.

  “We sent two men over to the legislature here in Boston for help. The politicians in the legislature talked good and was quick to say we was right, and promised us everything we was askin’, but we real quick found out the legislature is owned by rich merchants and lawyers. Matter of fact, half them politicians is the very rich merchants and lawyers that’s taken away our farms and property. Our two men come real close to throwin’ a few of ’em out into the street.”

  Tredwell stopped once more to gather his thoughts. “We all got five, six kids. We cleared the land where we live. We own those farms. We earned ’em. We left them for the women and kids to take care of the best they could while we went to fight for the United States while most of them lawyers and politicians stayed home. We’re the ones that faced the British army to save this country, and now we’re home findin’ out our own politicians are taking away what little we have left. They’re getting fat on what they’re stealing from us! It isn’t right!” His fist hit the counter top and everyone jumped. “By the Almighty, it isn’t right.”

  Matthew waited for a moment to let Tredwell settle. “You think I can help?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m here. You sent that letter to Springfield, and it was passed around. I read it. It sounded like you was not a politician or a lawyer, and that you might have an interest in what’s right and what’s wrong.”

  Matthew nodded. “Has anyone organized a committee over there? Appointed someone to speak for you?”

  “Yes. Us.” His eyes narrowed. “Meanin’ no offense, our first question is whether or not you favor the politicians and lawyers. If you do, we’re wasting your time and ours. So, sir, we’d be beholden if you’d tell us truly.”

  Matthew spoke quietly as he pointed. “This is my brother, Caleb. This is my business partner, Billy Weems. We were all three in battles, including Yorktown. All we want is to see this country become what we fought for.”