“She’s showing us her heels, sir,” First Officer Bradford Morse, newly arrived on the quarterdeck, commented to Captain Humphreys.
“Showing us her guilt is what you mean, Mr. Morse,” Humphreys replied airily. “If she had no reason to run from us, why would she run? She knows who we are and what we’re about. So, by God, we shall accommodate her. Clap on all sail.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Boatswain Duggan issued the order, and twittering boatswain’s pipes sent sailors scurrying to their stations. On the lowest yards the main and fore courses fell into position and were sheeted home just as sugar-white topgallants sprouted above the three topsails, and royals sprouted above them. Barring the unforeseen, this race had only one possible outcome. A heavily laden merchant vessel was no match for a copper-bottomed warship that had set all plain sail to royals. Although in these light sea breezes it took nearly an hour to close the gap between the two vessels, it was evident to all concerned that the heavy cruiser would indeed close that gap before the snow could reach the safety that remained tauntingly within view. It was a question of mathematics as much as seamanship.
“Give her a hail, Mr. Morse,” Humphreys said when the British warship was even with the American vessel and fifty yards upwind of her. Leopard’s crew lowered her royals and topgallants and raised her main and fore courses to their yard to slow her and keep her abreast of Dolphin.
Morse picked up a speaking trumpet and demanded that the snow douse her trysail, square her main topsail, and heave to.
Seconds ticked by with no response from the snow. Morse repeated his demands and issued a stern warning of the consequences of not responding. Still nothing happened. Dolphin remained on course.
“Give her a warning shot,” Humphreys demanded, his dander rising.
Leopard’s larboard bow-chaser barked, and orange flame and white sparks vomited forth within a swirl of acrid smoke that the prevailing breeze carried toward the snow. The ball struck the sea ahead of the snow and sent up a plume of white water.
Dolphin sailed on, as if oblivious to the vision of terrible beauty hovering so close to starboard.
“My God!” Humphreys snarled. “That ship’s master either has balls of iron or he’s a bloody dunderhead. What on earth does he intend?”
“If I may, sir,” Morse said, his eyes fixed on the merchantman, “I believe he intends to ignore us. He’s calling our bluff. He’s betting that a British warship will not fire into an American merchant vessel.”
“I believe you are right, Mr. Morse,” Humphreys mused. “I believe you are right. The bastard’s playing a dangerous game. I shall have the larboard gun ports opened and the guns run out.”
“Aye, Captain,” Morse said and issued the order. “Larboard ports opened and guns run out, sir,” he confirmed moments later.
Humphreys considered the opportunity and the possible ramifications of pursuing that opportunity. As he saw it, both might and right were entirely on his side. He had strict orders from the admiral of the North American Station in Halifax to pursue and bring to justice British deserters from whatever hole they might be dragged out of. There was no question about the order, and no question that there were British deserters on Dolphin. Whitehall could not and would not tolerate desertion from a Royal Navy vessel, consequences be damned, and the most reliable safeguard against desertion was swift and ruthless punishment of those foolish enough to cross the line. If hapless bystanders were maimed or killed in the course of dispensing British justice, well, that was regrettable.
“Stand by, number two battery,” Humphreys said to his first officer.
“Aye, Captain,” Morse said before repeating the order to the deck officer and so on down the line.
Number two battery was located forward from amidships on the upper gun deck and consisted of four 12-pounder guns: guns 5 and 7 on the larboard side, and guns 6 and 8 on the starboard side. At the moment, the sights of the battery’s two larboard guns were trained level at Dolphin’s starboard hull. Midshipman Seth Cutler, the battery’s commanding officer, received the order to stand by from a younger midshipman acting as the captain’s messenger.
With a practiced eye, Seth checked the powder and shot within the two gleaming black muzzles. After informing the individual gun captains that he intended to take charge of firing the guns, he ordered each man in the two six-man gun crews to take position. When the next order was delivered a few minutes later by the same midshipman, Seth stepped aside to position himself between the two guns, ordered his gun crew to step back away from the recoil, and seized hold of the lanyard of gun 5.
“Firing!” he shouted and yanked hard on the lanyard. An explosion of gunpowder thundered across the gun deck. Seth wheeled around and repeated the process with gun 7. A second explosion sent another shudder along the 120-foot deck that was instantly reinforced by the harsh rumble of a gun carriage rocketing inboard until checked by its breeching ropes. Then, all was quiet except for the distant cries of stricken men in a stricken vessel.
Seth Cutler stepped up to a gun port and peered out at Dolphin lying slightly astern. One round shot had punched a sizable gash in her mainmast and had sprung a mainstay. Judging by the snow’s haphazard movements, Seth deemed it likely that the second shot had damaged her steering mechanism.
Leopard had heaved to, and Seth could overhear orders from the deck above to lower the ship’s launch and make ready a detachment of Marines. Lieutenant Larkin was to command the boarding party, and Seth could only imagine, not without a sting of empathy, the expression on the face of Seaman Cates and his three shipmates as Larkin boarded the snow to make the arrests. Just two nights earlier they had all been friends on the walk from a Baltimore public house to Dolphin. Now those four sailors and perhaps others were destined for London to appear before an Admiralty court. It was a foregone conclusion that they would be found guilty: the U.S. merchant fleet had become a haven for British tars running from the harsh realities of the Royal Navy toward the higher pay, better food, and greater leniency normally found in American merchantmen. British courts of law, however, recognized neither the right of expatriation nor the principle of sailors’ rights. To their mind, a British sailor born in Great Britain or to British parents remained British to his grave regardless of where he lived, whose flag he sailed under, or what naturalization papers he might possess. “Once an Englishman, always an Englishman,” was Whitehall’s view, and British courts of law concurred—notwithstanding the simple fact that nearly the entire population of the United States fell within the purview of that statement. Better if Cates had died quickly from a round shot, Seth thought to himself as the launch was lowered away, than the slow death he would suffer kicking and gagging at the end of a rope strung up over a lower foremast yard.
Regardless of his personal feelings, Seth recognized that the law was the law, pure and simple. As a warrant officer in the Royal Navy soon to take his lieutenant’s exam, Seth Cutler was sworn to uphold British law and to defend the honor, sanctity, and dignity of His Majesty’s empire. He would not waver from that oath.
Nine
Boston, Massachusetts
April 1807
“RICHARD? Are you with us?”
The words were a distant echo barely penetrating the nightmare that had all but consumed Richard for nearly a week. Had duty not compelled his presence on Long Wharf, he would not have left her. Only his responsibility to his blood and bond had dragged him away. “Sorry, Jack,” he said with a forced laugh. “I took a side trip, there. I’m back now.” He shifted in his chair, aware of Jack Endicott’s eyes upon him. The concern in those eyes was mirrored in those of Caleb Cutler, Agreen Crabtree, George Hunt, Hugh Hardcastle, and Richard’s two sons, Will and Jamie. But he would offer no further explanation—neither to them nor to anyone else. Katherine had sworn him to secrecy. She had begged him to remain silent, and he would honor her plea.
“You’re quite certain all is well?” Endicott persisted.
�
�Quite certain. Please continue. You were saying what about our agent in Washington?”
Endicott smiled wryly. “I introduced the subject of Mr. Shaw a few minutes ago, Richard. Perhaps I should start again from the beginning. This time around, I would appreciate everyone’s full attention. The matter at hand is of considerable importance to us all.”
“You have my attention,” Richard said, unable to keep an edge from his voice.
“Very well, then. Here is the situation.” Endicott cleared his throat. “The Royal Navy has closed European ports to American shipping—unless we first trade through a British port and pay a substantial levy on the goods we are intending to ship elsewhere. Unless we do what those meddling jackanapes tell us to do—meaning we do not attempt to trade directly with nations on the Continent—we run a considerable risk of having our merchantmen intercepted at sea, their cargoes confiscated, and our sailors impressed into the Royal Navy—even those who can substantiate American citizenship. That is bad enough, but thanks to our government’s bungling efforts in dealing with England, we now run those same risks even if we are intending to trade through a British port. Mr. Hunt, if you would, please tell us how many of our merchantmen have been intercepted during the past twelve months?”
George Hunt made a show of consulting his notes, although he knew the tally by heart. “By the British, nine C&E vessels, Mr. Endicott,” Hunt quoted as if from Scripture, “and seven Cutler & Sons vessels. According to our agent in London, five of these vessels are currently being detained in England. We have yet to be informed of their disposition. Two other vessels are being detained on the Continent by the French: one in Lorient, the other in Rotterdam. One other C&E vessel remains unaccounted for. We calculate her last position to be somewhere between Ceylon and Madagascar. She put in to Calcutta as prescribed, but not to Cape Town—at least not at the time of our last report from there. She may have been taken by pirates, although that is not likely, given her armament. We fear she may have gone down with all hands in a storm.”
“Damn it all!” Endicott exploded. “Where is the profit in any of that? What future is there in that? If we cannot rely on our Orient trade to save us, we are indeed in dire straits.” His shrill voice revealed little concern for the sailors in his employ who were presumed lost at sea somewhere in the Indian Ocean. “The net result, gentlemen, is this: every time one of our vessels puts to sea, we stand to lose both the ship and her cargo, or at best to turn a profit that hardly justifies the business risks.” He held up a hand to forestall comments. “Yes, I realize there have always been risks in this business. But because of events in Europe these risks have never been greater than they are today.”
He huffed on with hardly a pause. “Napoléon has clearly made good on his promise to seize any American ship that dares to obey these British orders in council. This he can do, of course, only when an American ship sails into a port controlled by the French. Apart from French privateers operating on this side of the Atlantic, the French and Spanish navies have not posed much of a threat since Trafalgar. The British have what’s left of those navies blockaded in Toulon, Brest, and Cádiz.
“So it’s the British who control the sea lanes and it’s the British to whom we are most vulnerable and with whom our government must parley. And parley it must,” he insisted. “England is not our enemy. Quite the opposite. If we are to survive, we must view England as our ally. I need not remind you gentlemen that the vast majority of our country’s exports either go to Britain or through Britain. And most of our imports come from Britain. So for all intents and purposes, without British trade and succor American merchants are rudderless—and in dire peril of financial ruin.”
Everyone present—everyone along Long Wharf and along every wharf on the Eastern Seaboard—had heard such statements before. Endicott, Richard understood, was simply offering a preamble to the real reason he and Caleb Cutler had summoned the principals of Cutler & Sons and C&E Enterprises to the countinghouse this morning. He waited for Endicott to continue.
“It’s becoming nigh impossible,” Endicott said in a voice laced with indignation, “for an honest merchant to make an honest profit—or any profit, for that matter—because of what other countries are doing to us and because of what our government is not doing for us. And we haven’t yet mentioned the catastrophic effects of the sky-high insurance rates on our cargoes. As Mr. Hunt will attest, those rates are bleeding our coffers dry. And there can be no doubt that they will only go higher in the weeks and months ahead.”
George Hunt nodded grimly.
“So, my friends,” Endicott summed up, “here is where we stand: the vast profits you and I and other New England shipping families have earned in recent years are in serious danger of going by the boards. When war broke out in Europe after the Peace of Amiens, we seized the initiative. We increased exports to Europe tenfold. The Danes, the Russians, the Dutch, the Neapolitans: everyone in Europe was eager to buy what we had to sell, regardless of where our cargoes originated and regardless of the price we charged. As a result, the United States has become the largest neutral carrier of goods in the world, despite the best efforts by the British and the French to cripple the competition and to destroy the principle of free trade we Americans hold so dear. These past few years, however . . .” He shook his head and then continued woefully, “Gentlemen, when all is said and done, despite the challenges and threats we have had to endure, I fear we may look back on these past few years as our glory years.”
Moments of silence ensued before Richard, accustomed to Endicott’s flair for the dramatic, spoke up: “And your point is, Jack?”
Endicott studied him. “My point, Richard,” he said softly, “is that today our situation is quite different from what it was yesterday. You have studied the books. You have seen our financial position. Not so much glory, eh? Gives you pause, does it not? Well, listen carefully, my friend—listen carefully, all of you—because what I am about to tell you will make all that seem petty. If what Bruce Shaw,” referring to the company’s agent in Washington, “is telling us is true—and we have every reason to trust his word—the sum total of what we have experienced in recent months will seem like child’s play in comparison to what is coming. Like a summer walk on a Cape Cod beach.”
Endicott’s pause for effect was hardly necessary.
“Is Mr. Shaw predicting war?” Will asked incredulously. He could imagine no other possibility given the ominous tones of his father-in-law’s words.
Endicott shook his head. “Mr. Shaw is not predicting anything, Will,” he said. “His commission is to report the facts of what he has witnessed in Washington either with his own eyes and ears or through the eyes and ears of those in positions of power whom he trusts, and who trust him in return. This sort of information is what we pay him for—rather handsomely, I might add. No,” he went on, “I am the one doing the predicting here. And what I am predicting is indeed war. But it will not be the sort of war you are imagining. This war will not be fought against Great Britain or France or any other country. No, this war will be fought against ourselves—more precisely, it will be fought against our own government.”
Silence fell like a guillotine on the chamber. Richard glanced at Agreen—who as senior ship’s master in the Cutler & Sons merchant fleet had both a personal and a financial stake in these proceedings—and then at Hugh Hardcastle, whose perspectives on English maritime law and Royal Navy operations had already proven invaluable to the family businesses. Hardcastle was also a man who was not afraid to speak his mind whatever the ramifications. For that attribute alone his counsel was widely respected, if not always appreciated.
Richard’s gaze drifted back to Endicott. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Jack. Who is making war on our government?”
“In a sense, people like us. Please hear me out,” Endicott said. “What I am saying is simply a summation of the inevitable consequence of what Mr. Shaw reported to me and Caleb yesterday in a special communiqué from Washingt
on.”
“And that communiqué states . . .?”
“That communiqué states that Mr. Jefferson, with Mr. Madison’s ardent support, intends to respond to what he perceives as atrocities against American maritime rights by imposing a worldwide trade embargo. Such an embargo, I need not tell you, would effectively close down American commerce overseas, and even to Canada.” He looked about the room, pleased to have the rapt attention of everyone present.
“Yes, I see those words have made an impression on you. I’m glad they have. Now you better understand the gravity of our situation and the reason we are gathered here today. Should Congress ever approve such an embargo, even our China trade will be affected. And there, my friends, is where we make our real profit. I lost no time writing Mr. Van der Heyden at our office in Java to inform him of the situation. I can only imagine his reaction when he receives my letter. Any businessman with a sound mind would be appalled by this.”
The men seated in the room remained silent until Agreen Crabtree asked the obvious question: “Why in God’s holy name would Jefferson do such a thing? It’ll cripple the economy.”
“The president’s reasoning is quite simple,” Endicott replied, “as, unfortunately, are many of the thoughts that pass through his brain. It seems that Mr. Jefferson and his secretary of state adhere to the principle of economic coercion. If the United States stops trade with Europe and with European colonies, he believes, then the powers-that-be—in England, France, and elsewhere—will buckle under to our demands for free trade and an end to impressment. Jefferson actually believes that they will allow such demands to be rammed down their throats.”
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