Becoming Americans

by Donald Batchelor

  Stephen's uncle's dress was more old-fashioned than that of the undignified younger men. Some of them wore coats without waistcoats, unbuttoned and open from the neck down, full linen shirts hanging over the waistbands of their breeches. Their coats, like his Uncle John's, were pleated at the sides and stuck out, falling to the knees or a little below. There was no collar, the sleeves extended nearly to the wrists, and then were turned back. The cuffs were split halfway to the elbow, and held by buttons. All buttonholes were embroidered with silver and gold thread, or bound with kid or velvet. Uncle John wore a waistcoat. It fell to several inches higher than his coat. It was richly embroidered down the front and around the skirts; embroidery of running vines, interspersed with flowers. The pattern appeared around the pocket flaps and buttonholes. The buttons were enameled. Everyone's pockets were higher than on his father's old coat.

  Joseph Williams wore no waistcoat, but he was wearing a coat, at least. Some of the men wore merely their fine linen shirts with breeches. Some wore high-tongued, high-heeled shoes with buckles and the usual, squared toe. Two men sat in a corner, smoking on yard-long clay pipes, wearing banyans—a long loose robe that most people wore at night, but which some, bolder men wore about town in the sweltering days of summer.

  Stephen stared at the fancy men. The two in banyans wore no hot wigs or perukes, but had turbans covering their shaved heads. His father had done that once. Lice and other critters loved dirty wigs and hair. Another man entered, still wearing the leather spatterdashes that buckled down the side, fit close to the leg, and covered his shoes

  "You've a Ramillies wig!" Joseph said.

  The wig was plaited in a queue, and tied with ribbon at top and bottom.

  "It's cooler," John said as he embraced his brother. He placed a hand on his nephew's shoulder.

  "He looks like his mother, Joseph," John said of Stephen.

  "He acts like his mother's mother!" Joseph replied.

  Both men laughed aloud—a thing they rarely did—and Stephen wondered what had been said that was so funny.

  Before Joseph could fill the silence that followed, John added, "Catherine is about to be of an age where there can remain no trace of hope for more children. Can a man have bigger failure in his life, Brother, than to leave no issue?"

  "Is William not well?" Joseph asked.

  "He is well, for now. But so weak of nature. We spoil him."

  The talk turned to their plan for the next few weeks, as the boy looked out the wavy glass windows. There were almost no trees. It was like being on the ocean; the building were boats, but the ocean was all dirt. James had told him there weren't any trees left, but seeing all that dirt made Stephen thirsty.

  John and Joseph were leaving the next day for Middlesex County and Aunt Mary's plantation. She was weakening daily, and this would be Joseph's last visit with his great aunt, Mary Williams. How different she was from the Mary Williams, his wife.

  "The Williams name is already a known name in Virginia," John boasted.

  "And the Biggses," Joseph added.

  "The Wares are remembered kindly in Middlesex and Gloucester," John said, thinking of his mother.

  "We're a large, scattered family now, John," the younger brother said. "I think back, sometimes, to when I came to James Town with Pa. That was so long ago. There was Governor Berkeley and King Charles…. Pa had been here since the Commonwealth, and Grandpa since Charles the First! We've been here a long time, John. I don't feel like Sarah Alice is going home. Virginia is home."

  "And Carolina?" John asked, smirking. "Is Carolina home?"

  "I'd prefer England," Joseph said, in understated disgust.

  "Or, even, Scotland, I think you would add," John said.

  "Indeed!"

  "We are lucky, though, to still have ties in Bristol," John reminded his brother.

  "Our cousin, Edward. You've spoken of him. I know him not, but for that one transaction."

  "You shall, Brother. Cousin Edward is become burdened with tobacco. Since Queen Anne's War has stopped all trade with France and Spain, Flanders and the Baltic, piles of Virginia tobacco sit warehoused in England. But tar! The need is for tar! So far, Joseph, you've dealt in just the Indies trade, but now…now England has decided—is forced—to become independent of Sweden for its naval stores, and you are there! Even I, with Catherine's land. I could make my own fortune, and Aunt Mary's will be damned!"

  The dying Mary Williams had made her last will and testament. John was a witness, but was not named as a beneficiary. Her son Thomas had finally drunk himself to death two years earlier, and the estate would be going to an unknown nephew in England, just as it had come to her from an unknown uncle. For all these years John and Catherine Williams had worked for the aunt, hoping and expecting to be rewarded at her death. John finally realized that he'd already received his rewards. Those rewards had been in high wage, in living arrangements, and in status. With the job of manager, John had assumed status as a relative of the vestryman, John Williams. But John's social standing was only temporary, he found out. He was just another paid worker, and Catherine was, in fact, only the wife of a nephew-by-marriage. His son, William, was of no consequence to the old woman.

  John had swallowed his bitterness, but was still determined to have his own fortune. He regretted having sold his acreage at Deep Creek to Joseph, but dared not admit it. He regretted the foolish debt that had necessitated the sale. He would still succeed.

  "Tar to England? I sent some there years ago, but there was no profit," Joseph began.

  "There is now, Brother," John said, and the talk turned to business details.

  Stephen looked out the window, only half-listening to the men. He liked the smell of tar, but he liked the smell of the swamp, most of all. This place was too dry, even though he could smell the rivers and the creeks off in the distance.

  Stephen hadn't wanted to come on this trip to see Williamsburgh. He just wanted to be alone with his father for a while. But, ever since they'd stepped off the boat, his father had been talking to other people. And tonight there'd be a crowd, he'd heard his uncle say.

  The plan had been to stay for Reverend Blair's sermon the next Sunday, but Aunt Mary's condition was deteriorating, Uncle John said, and Aunt Sarah Alice's fiancé was called back to England, immediately. Major Dorsey had presented his report on the militia to Governor Spotswood, but was needed, now, for the war.

  Tomorrow, Stephen was going to be left alone with Aunt Sarah Alice for a carriage ride down to Hampton. The Harrison's boat was taking her to join Captain Dorsey in Bath Town, Carolina. Stephen didn't want to be alone with her for that long. She smelled too strongly sweet, and she looked at him strangely. He knew he didn't like her, and that she probably didn't like him, either.

  Sarah Alice sat by a sunny window, that afternoon, making tiny stitches in her bedclothes. She was sick about missing the church services she'd planned as her final appearance. The next day, she'd be riding to Hampton with that child. At Hampton, her Uncle Thomas Biggs had a boat that would take the boy to Deep Creek. Sarah Alice would sail directly from Hampton to Carolina and the village on Matencomack Creek in Chowan County, just across from the Scuppernong River home of her mother. After a short visit there, she and her mother would take the nearby overland road to Bath, accompanied by her favorite brother, Edward, and his wife. It was exhausting, just in thought, but it would be worth it. In Bath, they would all join Richard and his wife and daughters. Her handsome Major Dorsey would come to Bath when he'd completed his assignment in Charles Town. From there, the two would sail to England with a cargo of foul-smelling tar. There'd be no protection of a convoy, such as ships sailing from the Chesapeake had, but no matter. She'd be safe with Major Dorsey.

  Stephen ate dinner that night in the cooking room with two Harrison girls. They were just little children and had no interest in him, so he listened through the door to the adults and watched the cook kneading tomorrow's bread. There were so many servants, here; so many slave
s. He wondered who these people were, to have so much. Even Stephen had been served from a pewter charger.

  He heard two men by the opened door finishing a conversation as they returned from the outhouse.

  "Blair fancies himself a Richelieu," one said.

  "Got rid of Governor Nicholson, right enough. That, after getting him here in the first place! King maker, he is," the other one finished.

  Stephen had no idea what the men were saying, but he knew that they weren't friends of his Aunt Sarah Alice's Commissary Blair. He was suddenly curious as to what adults talked about in a city. At home they talked about things he usually understood. When the girls were taken away to bed, he stood by the door to the dining room, out of the candlelight, listening in the dark.

  "And ignorant Old Fewox actually took the tea and ate it!" he heard his father saying. The other men in the room laughed.

  "He's such an embarrassment for our mother. Her grandparents were the Wares, Mister Harrison. I'm sure you knew them. Our Aunt—Mary Williams— says Colonel Harrison knew them," John rushed.

  "Illustrious family." An old man's voice was heard. "Done in by the King's advisors after Bacon's Rebellion. Mistake. A big mistake, they made, not seeing to it that justice was given the brave and steadfast men who championed Governor Berkeley! You two men would be comfortable and respected, now, had the Ware's and John Williams not been cheated of…."

  Another man interrupted with repeated coughs.

  The old man could be heard gulping his wine, then sputtering, "Not that you aren't…. My sister-in-law, your sister…. Fine woman. Your family are fine people. Yes, fine people!"

  "Thank you, Sir." Stephen's Uncle John was speaking. "That's kind of you to say."

  "I'm about to construct a mill," Joseph Williams blurted.

  Stephen frowned. He'd heard nothing about a mill before.

  "Much of your family is in Carolina, I understand," another voice said. It was one of the men who'd been speaking outside.

  "Our mother, a sister, and two brothers, Sir," Uncle John said, apologetically.

  "That's the frontier, now, they claim," his father said. "Thousands of acres of good land. It grows anything. And tar. Now the Empire needs tar."

  "And from which port will this great commerce depart? Have they a Norfolk Town? And through which shifting, shallow inlet will this great tonnage pass?" The man from outside was speaking. Stephen decided that he did not like this man. These city people were not very likable.

  "They have Bath Town, now," Uncle John said. "It's only fifty mile westward of their best inlet, that at Ocracoke."

  "John Lawson?" the old man asked. "Have you met Carolina's John Lawson?"

  John and Joseph Williams had not.

  "An entertaining and vigorous man, this Lawson. Passed through here earlier this year with a disheveled and demoralized group of de Graffenried's colonists. Bound for Bath County, after a most perilous voyage. Then set upon by French privateers as they finally entered the James!" The old man laughed.

  "I'm sorry. Indeed, I'm sorry to laugh at their plight, but theirs was a sorry collection of faces to behold." He laughed again. "Huguenots and Calvinists. A pitiful settlement they'll make in Lawson's wilderness. He gave me a copy of his new book. Most interesting and most deceiving. It presents Carolina as the land of milk and honey, and its Indians as wholesome, innocent savages to be loved and treated with respect. Lawson says we English have treated them worse than they've treated us!"

  "I could almost believe it of those Carolina woodsmen." The man Stephen didn't like spoke again, warming the old man to his favorite subject.

  "Rogues and runaways and rebels!" the old man said. "A rabble. Since the beginning, they've been a rabble. Rebellious. Ignoring the King's levies of duties. Taking runaways. Sheltering pirates! And for ten years they've squabbled over religion to the total destruction of government and stability. The mighty Church of England against the rabble. And yet, the Church…. Who represents the Church? Glover and Cary both keep jumping the fence. First for the Church, then allied with dissenters. And then they switch. It's more complicated than a chess match."

  Another voice offered, "From my observations, it's simply a matter of who's to govern. Their Assembly isn't allowing equal representation to those new areas south of the Albemarle Sound. There is always another side, Colonel, to an argument. I think you'd be upset were Surry County not allowed it's proper representation in the Burgesses."

  "Impossible!" the old man boomed.

  "They've not the advantage we have in Virginia, Colonel," Uncle John said. "They've no Commissary Blair to right the situation. To lead them. They've yet to have but that one scandalous and disgraceful rogue of a priest, Daniel Brett, who was withdrawn. Are we to blame them for that neglect by the Bishop of London? We have nieces who are not baptized, and not for wont of our brothers' desires, be assured. It is a fearful thought."

  "Indeed, Williams," the old man said. "There are some few people of your mother's quality in Carolina, and I sympathize with their problems, but why would a priest choose to live among such wanton deviltry?"

  "Duty," Uncle John said. "It has been attention to duty—from men like yourself—that has brought Virginia to the present pace of development and civilization. We hope our brother will provide that attention to duty for Carolina."

  "Let us hope so, my friend, but I'm afraid progress will attend in Carolina until the Queen claims the colony for her own. Proprietary government! Another folly of our earlier monarchs."

  Stephen went out the back door. He needed to see a tree.

  Chapter Sixteen

  As the carriage rumbled on towards Hampton, Sarah Alice played at her needlework, looked out the windows at the passing countryside, and tried to ignore the boy sitting across from her. He was irreverent and disrespectful; his mother's son.

  Stephen felt no more warmth towards his powdered and painted aunt. He was thankful for the silence. He was glad to be away from the formality of Williamsburgh and the Harrisons, their hosts for the night. He'd slept very little, and soon drifted off in the rocking carriage, to be awakened by the loud and angry voice of his aunt. He looked out the coach window and saw that they'd arrived at the docks in Hampton, and that Aunt Sarah Alice was talking—yelling—to a sailor.

  "I'm sorry ma'am, but they's the captain's orders. He's not sailing out the Chesapeake without an armed vessel as escort. There be Spanish ships to the south, and French ones to the north. Privateers and pirates, everywhere."

  "Colonel Harrison will have his hide!" she yelled. "Take me to the captain," she demanded.

  "Sorry, ma'am, that's part of this orders. The captain's not to be bothered. He says you might take the Biggs shallop with the boy back over to Norfolk. You can make overland transport from there to Bath."

  "To Deep Creek? How does the captain know of that arrangement for my nephew? Does Mister Harrison know of this change in plans? Overland? From Deep Creek to Bath!" She was incredulous.

  "The captain wouldn't dare make changes without…."

  Then Sarah Alice realized that the Harrisons considered her gone, no longer their responsibility and burden.

  "Wait until Major Dorsey reports this to his friend, Governor Spotswood!"

  But when would that be, she realized? They were leaving for England. That is, if she survived to Bath!

  "Thomas!"

  Stephen saw his father's uncle, Thomas Biggs, approaching the carriage.

  "My dear Sarah Alice," Uncle Thomas said to his niece. A niece who was only six years younger than he.

  "Thomas Biggs? Dear Thomas, what have they done to me? How can I manage all of this?" She pointed expansively to her trunks of dresses. "How can this reach Bath—how can I survive to Bath? Over ship to shore, through swamp…. I can't think, Thomas. But, I must reach Bath!"

  "Dearest, pampered flower. Thee will survive, thy goods will survive, and thee will have wonderful stories to tell thy major. And anyway, thee needn't think. There is no time for
thinking. We were only waiting for thy arrival to sail to Deep Creek."

  "To Deep Creek," she said, despondent.

  "It gives me pleasure to transport thee, Cousin. Thee art special cargo, Mistress Harrison. I shall take thee directly to Deep Creek, and Joseph's man will transport thee to Great Bridge and down the Carolina Road. Thy brother, Edward, will meet thee in Currituck. We must hurry, Alice. Even with a full moon, I never liked navigating Deep Creek at night."

  Sarah Alice Harrison was speechless. She was returning to the home she'd left as a bride at age fifteen. An embarrassing hovel, as she remembered it, compared to the homes she'd grown accustomed to. And then she started! She would be guest of the awful "swamp woman," the mother of this rude boy!

  The mid-afternoon sun slapped her with its reflections in the lapping waves. There was nothing she could do. She climbed back into the coach and watched her things being transferred to Thomas's boat, trying to adjust to the situation, but becoming increasingly angry with her duplicitous father-in-law.