“Boat ahoy!” a junior midshipman chirped from the weather deck of Constellation.
“Flag,” the coxswain in the gig called out. Instinctively he held up four fingers, four being the number of side boys required by ceremony to pipe a flag officer on board ship.
When the gig bumped gently against the larboard hull of the American frigate, the British officer seized hold of two ropes leading upward between steps built into the frigate’s side. At the entry port he was met by Lt. Andrew Sterrett, standing at attention.
“Welcome aboard, Captain,” he said, having recognized the British officer’s rank by the gold-tasseled epaulet on each shoulder. “Please accept my apologies for not having a side party prepared in your honor. We were not expecting a visitor this early in the day.”
The officer returned the salute. “Be at your ease, Lieutenant,” he insisted. “I am not here in any sort of official capacity. I have come to visit a fellow officer of yours whom I believe to be on board.”
“Oh?” Sterrett remarked, hiding his relief. “Which officer, Captain?”
“Richard Cutler. He is your second, is he not?”
“He is, sir. Are you an acquaintance of Lieutenant Cutler?”
“I daresay I am. Otherwise I would not be here at this moment, would I?”
Sterrett flushed red, although the British captain’s smile removed the sting. “Well then, Captain, I am doubly honored to meet you.” He bowed slightly. “I am Lt. Andrew Sterrett, sir, at your service. I am Constellation’s third. I shall have Lieutenant Cutler summoned on deck right away.”
“That is considerate of you, Lieutenant, but might I request permission to go below? I realize my request is somewhat irregular, but I would ever so much enjoy a look about your ship. She is the envy of every sailor in my squadron.”
“I am pleased to hear it, Captain,” Sterrett said, puffing up a bit in pride. He glanced at John Dent. “Please see the captain below to the wardroom.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Dent, saluting. “If you will follow me, Captain,” he added with a note of self-importance.
Down below in the wardroom, American commissioned and senior warrant officers were lounging about the dining table or in front of their cubicles. When the British officer entered, everyone snapped to. Except for one, who came slowly to his feet, his mouth slack-jawed.
“Hugh? Is that you? Is it possible?”
“Good morning, Richard,” the officer said cheerfully. He doffed his hat, slid it under his left armpit, and said, with a bow to the wardroom at large, “And a good morning to you gentlemen. Pray forgive me for intruding upon your breakfast. I’m afraid I could not restrain myself. On behalf of His Britannic Majesty King George III, I welcome you to Port Royal. Now please carry on with whatever you were doing. Pay me no mind.”
Such a command was impossible to obey. Wardroom officers continued to stand at attention, their eyes shifting from the British captain to the American lieutenant. After an awkward pause, Richard found his bearings.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I introduce you to Capt. Hugh Hardcastle of His Majesty’s Ship Redoubtable. Captain, may we offer you some coffee or tea? Some breakfast, perhaps?”
“Thank you, no, Lieutenant. Nor, alas, can I remain aboard for any length of time. Might I thus trouble you to arrange a brief word with your Captain Truxtun? And, if possible, a quick tour of the ship? As I indicated topside to Lieutenant Sterrett, this frigate has every British sailor in port gawking. When I departed my own ship a short while ago, every member of my crew on duty was at the rail—and not to see me off, I assure you.”
Richard grinned. “Yes, of course. Mr. Dent, please inform the captain that Captain Hardcastle will pay him a visit in . . . shall we say, half an hour?”
Hardcastle nodded his acquiescence.
“Damn, Hugh, it’s good to see you,” Richard enthused a few minutes later when he and Hugh Hardcastle were alone in the cockpit on the orlop deck. They were seated on two apothecary chests, the deckhead above being too low to accommodate their six-foot frames. Directly forward they could hear muffled chatter coming from the midshipmen’s mess, an occasional giggle or two, then a loud belch. A raucous fart brought a more enthusiastic round of high-pitched giggles, followed by a very distinct and harshly plaintive, “Good Christ, Harry!” Within the hour the dank, unventilated cockpit would become man-eating hot. For the moment, though, it was bearable, and one of the few places on the ship affording privacy.
“I had no idea you were here in Jamaica,” Richard said. “I thought you were still attached to the Windward Squadron.”
“I am. Admiral Hyde summoned me here two months ago on special orders. For reasons you will better understand when we meet with him this afternoon.” He withdrew a linen handkerchief from a coat pocket and dabbed at beads of sweat popping up in his thick, blondish-brown hair. He still wore it clipped short around the edges, exactly as he had when he and Richard had first met back in ’80 when Richard and Katherine had taken up residence in the Cutler compound on Barbados. Although eighteen years had since passed, Hugh Hardcastle remained every bit the handsome man of grace, wit, and charm whom Richard had so admired back then.
“No doubt you have a host of questions for me,” Hugh said as he returned the handkerchief to its pocket. “As I have for you, and we have no time now to ask them. This evening we will, I hope. Please dine with me in Kingston. I will arrange for a table at a favorite spot of mine, as well as a carriage to get us there and back. What do you say to that?”
“Of course, Hugh. I can’t imagine anything I’d rather do. Subject, of course, to my captain’s approval.”
“I have no doubt that you shall have your captain’s approval. Now, time is getting on and we should set about our tour. I suggest we start off by stirring things up in the midshipmen’s mess.”
THE ROYAL MARINE SENTRY stationed before the admiral’s quarters banged the bronze-plated butt of his musket smartly on the deck and fired a crisp salute as Captain Hardcastle and his party approached the captain’s suite from the entry port located directly ahead amidships.
Hugh Hardcastle returned the salute. “Captain Truxtun and Lieutenant Cutler of the American frigate Constellation to see Admiral Hyde,” he said.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The Marine pivoted sharply, opened the door ajar, and repeated Hugh Hardcastle’s words verbatim. A voice on the inside acknowledged. Footsteps faded aft, then returned. “Please show Captain Truxtun and Lieutenant Cutler in,” the voice stated.
The sentry swung the door open to reveal a liveried servant resplendent in the impeccable fashion of the English aristocracy, from his ruffled linen neck stock to his brocade coat and vest, down past a pair of spotless white breeches and stockings to his silver-buckled shoes. He bowed low before them. As he did so, Richard caught the pungent scent of a perfumed wig, its color as pure white as the servant’s breeches.
“If you will follow me, please,” the servant directed.
Following last in line behind his captain, Richard tried to keep himself from gawking at an opulence he had never before witnessed on board a ship. In other English warships of his acquaintance, one entered the captain’s day cabin first and his private quarters second, and then only at the captain’s invitation. Here, the design was different in a space three to four times the equivalent space on board Constellation. By the mizzenmast, which according to Richard’s visual calculation from the cutter on the way over was near the break of the quarterdeck and poop deck above, was the admiral’s sleeping cabin, followed by a pantry and dining cabin—in area roughly equivalent to Captain Truxtun’s entire day cabin—and finally the admiral’s day cabin in the very stern of the ship, a sizable space well lighted by rows of stern windows and two layers of quarter-gallery glass that wrapped around from the stern to the quarter on each side. The entire deck within the admiral’s suite was spread with a thick white-on-black diamond-patterned rug, and the elegant furnishings seemed more in keeping with a st
ylish English country manor than a vessel of war. Directly above under the poop deck, Richard assumed, one would find a similar if slightly less spacious configuration to accommodate the ship’s captain.
At the jalousie doorway leading into the day cabin, the liveried servant announced the names of the visitors. As the man stepped aside to allow them to enter, Sir Hyde Parker, Vice Admiral of the Red and Commander in Chief of the West India Station, rose to his feet beside a long writing desk set off to the larboard side between two gleaming black 24-pounder guns. He had been dictating correspondence to his clerk, a scrawny, mouselike man who appeared almost embarrassingly diminutive beside the elegant gentleman in the perfect-fitting gold embroidery of a full-dress British admiral’s uniform.
“That will be all, Seaver, thank you,” the admiral said. The clerk gathered up his papers and slipped unobtrusively from the cabin.
“Welcome, gentlemen,” Hyde greeted his guests cordially. He motioned to an area on the starboard side where a cluster of blue-on-white wingback chairs and a sofa had been arranged in a circle, each piece of furniture with a long-legged, delicate side table placed within easy reach. Before the sofa a middle-aged sea officer stood waiting. The gilt linings on his full-dress coat were only a shade less resplendent than the admiral’s. The U.S. Navy might resemble the Royal Navy in many ways, Richard thought to himself as he watched the pleasantries unfold, but certainly not in the majesty of its uniforms.
“Gentlemen,” Hyde said, addressing the two Americans, “I have the honor of introducing you to Sir Archibald Mason, captain of this ship.” The men bowed low to one another. “Before we set about our business,” Hyde continued, “might I offer you something to sip?”
“Coffee would be most welcome, Admiral,” Truxtun said.
“Coffee for me as well, sir,” Richard said, taking his cue from his commanding officer.
“I’m sorry, gentlemen, but coffee will simply not do for this occasion. May I recommend a glass of sherry? It’s from Jerez de la Frontera and I can vouch for its quality. You accept? Excellent. Julian, make it so,” he instructed a second liveried servant who immediately set about pouring out portions of sherry from a square-sided cut-glass decanter. “Please, gentlemen, sit down. Make yourselves comfortable.
“Well, Captain Truxtun,” he went on in grand fashion when everyone was settled. “I believe congratulations are in order.”
“Congratulations? Why so, Admiral?”
“You will be pleased to learn that your Navy has taken its first prize: a French privateer by the name of Croyable, twelve guns. She has entered your service and has been renamed Retaliation. A rather fitting name, what?”
“Who took her?” Truxtun inquired immediately. “And where?” Although his interest had clearly been piqued, he kept his tone subdued.
Hyde consulted the documents he had brought from his writing desk. “Captain Stephen Decatur, off the coast of New Jersey. Near Egg Harbor, it says here.”
What Hyde was consulting, Richard had no doubt, was a British intelligence report.
“I know Captain Decatur,” Truxtun said. “He commands the sloop of war Delaware and has a son of the same name serving as a midshipman aboard United States. Admiral, if I may, it’s critical for me to understand the circumstances of this engagement. Can you tell me if there was provocation? Did the French fire first?”
Hyde waited until the steward had finished placing a glass of sherry and a small pink napkin upon each of the mahogany side tables.
“That I don’t know, Captain,” he said before adding, to ease Truxtun’s look of disappointment, “but it matters naught in any event.” Truxtun’s eyes narrowed as Hyde’s toothy smile broadened. “I bring you good tidings, Captain,” he went on. “In early July, just as you were making ready to sail from Baltimore, your Congress declared your former treaty with France null and void. And that’s not all. It also declared that the American Navy”—he glanced down to read verbatim from his notes—“is hereby authorized to engage any armed French vessel found within the jurisdictional limits of the United States—please listen carefully, Captain, here’s the critical ruling—or elsewhere on the high seas. Elsewhere on the high seas, gentlemen,” he repeated with a triumphant smile. “You understand the implication of those words, do you not? They are tantamount to a declaration of war.” Hyde raised his glass. “So, gentlemen, here’s to victory against our common enemy. Welcome to the good fight.”
“Here, here,” Captain Mason chimed in.
After the officers had consummated the toast, Truxtun glanced to his left. “Well, Mr. Cutler,” he said, “it seems we have received the orders we’ve been hoping for.”
“It would seem so, sir.”
“I assume you have confirmation of that authorization?” Truxtun inquired of Hyde.
“Right here on my lap, Captain. Right here on my lap. Along with several personal messages sent to you from your Mr. Stoddert. By reputation he is a man of few words, though it would seem he is somewhat more prolific with the pen. These are rather thick documents. The seals are not broken, as you can see for yourself. I have not read them.” He handed over the smooth leather dispatch packet. “By all means, take whatever time you require to verify whatever you wish. I shall not take offense.”
“That will not be necessary, Admiral.” Truxtun set the packet down against a leg of his chair. “Is there anything else you can tell me about the affairs of my country?” His tone carried more than a hint of irony.
Hyde deferred that question to Queen’s captain, who nodded and began to speak. Sir Archibald Mason’s voice, to Richard’s ear, seemed even more aristocratic than that of Admiral Hyde, if such a thing were possible.
“Are you aware, Captain Truxtun, of the Sedition Act passed by your Congress last month?”
“Sedition Act? No, I am not. I am aware of the Alien Act,” referring to an act of Congress passed during the height of anti-French hysteria. At its core, that legislation granted the president the right to deport anyone deemed dangerous to the United States.
“Oh, yes, that one,” Mason sniffed. “I say, I wish our Parliament had the decency to pass a law along those lines. We could sweep the land clean, eh? Send the frogs and the dagos back to where they belong, to make do in their own bloody ponds—those who manage to keep their wits about them. Not to mention their heads.” Admiral Hyde and Hugh Hardcastle echoed his cultured titter, as, after a pause, did the Americans. “Well, it seems,” he went on once the jollity had run its course, “that the party of John Adams seeks to deny citizens the right to criticize their government, no matter what the devil that government may decide to do. My God, what a concept! I must say, you chaps in the dominions are rather ingenious once you have your own ship. Our Whigs have much to learn from your Federalists.” He stated that last sentence emphatically, without a trace of humor.
“We have much to learn from each other,” Truxtun declared diplomatically. “Please accept my government’s gratitude for the support Great Britain has given the United States in this matter, particularly as it regards our mercantile trade. French raids against our shipping are beginning to fall off, and we have you to thank for that. We also thank you for the use of your naval base on Saint Kitts, where we are bound next.”
“Which we can legally do,” Mason interjected, “only because the United States and France are not officially at war, and because the United States and Great Britain are not officially allied against France.” He said this straight-faced, although the twinkle in his eye conveyed his opinion that the legal underpinnings of all this mattered naught.
“Yes, quite right, Captain,” Truxtun said, playing along. “Thank you for clarifying that point. In Saint Kitts we will be joining with American naval vessels soon to depart from Portsmouth. Five of our merchantmen shall accompany us there. The others, I presume, may remain in Kingston until safe passage can be arranged to other British ports?”
Admiral Hyde made a small gesture, a signal to the servant to dispense ano
ther round of spirits. “They are most welcome to remain here for as long as they wish, Captain. They are, after all, providing a most critical service to His Majesty’s colonies in the West Indies.” Hyde shifted his not-inconsiderable weight. “Now then, if I may, I’d like to move on to the main topic we are here to discuss.” For the first time that afternoon, Hyde looked directly at Richard Cutler. “I am assuming, Lieutenant, that your captain has informed you of circumstances on Saint-Domingue?”
“He has, Admiral.”
“Might I trouble you for a summary of your understanding?”
Richard did so as best he could.
“Well done, Lieutenant,” Hyde said at its conclusion. “You certainly seem to have a grasp of the situation. Anything more to add, Captain?”
Truxtun shook his head. “Mr. Cutler has correctly summarized what I told him. My understanding is, however, that you have something more to add.”
“Yes, quite.” Hyde coughed delicately into a fist. “For starters, and what may come as a surprise to you, Mr. Cutler—I trust a pleasant one—you will not be alone in meeting with Toussaint L’Ouverture on Saint-Domingue. Captain Hardcastle will be accompanying you to represent British interests.”
Richard cast a sideways glance at his brother-in-law, who nodded slightly in reply.
“I am most pleased to hear it, Admiral. I hold Captain Hardcastle in the highest personal and professional esteem.”
“As indeed he holds you, Lieutenant. It was he who recommended you for this mission. He was quite adamant about it, I must say. His endorsement carried considerable weight, given his own experience with these islands. Plus, my father holds him in high regard,” Hyde concluded, as though that fact alone should be enough to decide the issue.
“Your mission is a critical one. Success means denying France the one naval base it retains in the Greater Antilles: Cap de Môle. Do you know of it? Ah, since you do, you can appreciate why denying France that base is the number-one concern of their lordships of the Admiralty. Their number-one concern thereby becomes my number-one concern. And success will bring us additional advantages.” He held up a finger. “Coming to terms with Toussaint means reopening trade with Saint-Domingue, trade that will benefit both our countries.” He held up a second finger. “Success also mitigates, if not eliminates, the threat of Negro uprisings on British-held islands and in the United States. I doubt Mr. Jefferson and his fellow slave owners suffer any delusions about the gravity of that threat.
The Power and the Glory Page 14