There was little for him to do during the three-day voyage—and little that he could do. His right arm remained wedded to his torso in a plaster cast, and he had strict orders from Dr. Balfour to keep the arm firmly bound until a physician on Barbados had examined his shoulder and found it sufficiently healed to remove the plaster. Balfour had assured Richard that while it would take many weeks for the clavicle to heal properly, it would heal completely if properly treated. In the meanwhile, he ordered Richard to follow a strict regimen of good food and easy living, and to keep his spirits high.
Balfour had smiled benignly at his patient when giving that order. And who in his right mind, Richard asked himself, would not smile when receiving it? October was seven months away, and he had been given leave by his captain, following a promotion to first lieutenant, to serve out his convalescence among family and friends on one of the most alluring islands in the West Indies. Nevertheless, at the outset of the cruise he had thought constantly about Constellation, among other reasons because she carried the letters he had written to Katherine and his father. In them he had summarized the facts of what had happened but included little of his feelings, for he was forced to dictate the letters to Roger Simms, the captain’s clerk. Captain Truxtun had promised to forward both letters to Boston as soon as Constellation arrived in Virginia. A third letter, to his cousins John and Robin Cutler, had been sent several weeks earlier to Barbados by ordinary mail packet.
As the three-day cruise wore on, the soporific effects of sun, sea, and tropical air coaxed his thoughts in other directions. A memory came often to mind, inspired, perhaps, by the irony it involved. In November 1781, a month after a British grenadier had shot him in the leg during the fighting at Yorktown, Richard had been transported from Virginia to Guadeloupe on a corvette sent ahead by Admiral de Grasse to announce the glorious victory to French naval headquarters. From Basse-Terre he had booked passage on board a Danish lugger bound for Barbados, and there on the docks of Bridgetown he was met by his wife in the company of her brother, Hugh Hardcastle. Richard and Katherine had difficulty reaching one another on the docks, for he struggled with a debilitating limp and she was heavy with child. But it was a reunion he would never forget.
Today, though, as the larboard hull of the packet bumped against that same quay on a splendid sunny morning in early March, Katherine was not there to greet him. Nor were his cousins. Only Caleb was there, dressed casually in an open ruffled shirt and knee-length trousers, his bleached brown hair tied back at the nape of his neck with a piece of string.
“You look the picture of health!” Richard exulted as he squeezed his brother’s right hand with his left. Despite their joy at seeing each other, they kept a safe distance apart in deference to Richard’s injury. “How long have you been here?”
“Two months,” Caleb replied. “I left Hingham the day after Christmas. I’ve been waiting here at the quays for two days. We knew from your letter when you planned to leave Saint Kitts, so we knew more or less when to expect you here. Our cousins can’t wait to see you.”
They began walking toward a carriage-and-four with an open front and the Cutler coat of arms on the side doors. Sunburned dockers bustled about them, loading and offloading hogsheads of sugar, molasses, and rum: the wellspring of untold fortunes for the island’s English planters, whose produce was meticulously examined by potential buyers and whose accounts were scrutinized by local tax collectors representing the Royal Exchequer in London. Here and there, standing out in sharp contrast to the shirtless, sweaty workers, gentler-born men sporting straw hats adorned with bright-colored linens strolled arm in arm with ladies dressed in the latest European fashions with parasols to shield them from the fierce equatorial sun and the view of the less genteel women who solicited sailors of every stripe and color and state of intoxication. It was a scene well choreographed in Richard’s mind, and one he cherished. He had been to Bridgetown many times since his first visit in 1774, and he always looked forward to being back amid the hot, crowded cobblestone streets and dark, shaded alleyways that encompassed the best and worst of the human condition. He was, in a sense, home.
“Well,” he ventured to Caleb, “how do you find Barbados?”
Caleb beamed. “It’s a paradise, a Garden of Eden compared to Boston. The women here are so beautiful—and so willing! I have no idea why that is, but I’ve never known anything like it.”
Richard returned his smile. “I have a pretty good idea why, and I believe I’m looking at it. So. Making up for lost time, are we?”
“Day and night, I’m hard at it. Though as you’ll hear soon enough, Cousin John does not approve of my social life. How long have you been in that sling?”
“A few weeks.”
“How much longer will you be in it?”
“A few weeks more.”
“Of all the rotten luck. It will certainly hamper your technique.”
Richard’s smile broadened. Not since childhood had he seen his brother this relaxed and happy.
“Whatever sorry excuse I may once have had for a ‘technique’ went by the boards years ago, Caleb. And less the pity. I’m content to leave the rutting and sinning to you younger fellows. And when I next see him I shall ask Father Robert to say a prayer for your soul.” He had no doubt that the Reverend Mr. Robert Edsen, the Anglican priest of the local parish attended by the Cutler family on Sunday mornings, would pray mightily indeed.
They arrived at the carriage without a lull in their lively conversation. A liveried servant sitting stiffly on the driver’s bench held the reins.
“That will not be necessary,” Caleb announced grandly. “I have given the matter considerable thought and find that I quite agree with what Reverend Gay used to preach to us in Hingham. God wants us to honor him, does he not? And the miracles of his creation? Well, I figure that’s exactly what I’m doing. What better way to honor my Creator than by worshiping that which he created from the rib of Adam?” He opened the door to the carriage, saw his brother inside and tossed in Richard’s seabag, then climbed in on the opposite side.
“That’s a rationalization if ever I’ve heard one,” Richard quipped.
“That’s because,” Caleb quipped back, “I have learned at the feet of the master.” He thumped twice on the side of the door and the carriage lurched forward.
Their route wound along Front Street, the main thoroughfare of Bridgetown, an appealing avenue lined with cream-white stucco buildings capped with red-tile roofs. On their right, a flotilla of commercial vessels nested next to one another on the quays and at anchor farther out in the harbor. Ahead, high above the terminus of Front Street on the eastern edge of Carlisle Bay, on a hill exposed to the brisk northeasterly trades, stood the majestic facade of Government House, the official residence of the royal governor, set amid clusters of royal palms and lush shrubbery. Beneath it, Fort George held sway over the ships of the Windward Squadron riding at anchor farther below in the harbor. The squadron comprised mostly sloops of war, miniature frigates that relied more on speed and maneuverability to subdue their prey than on the weight or number of their guns. Richard searched in vain for the squadron’s flagship, HMS Redoubtable. That Hugh Hardcastle was away at sea disappointed him, and not just on a personal level. Since leaving Saint-Domingue in December he had heard precious little about Toussaint L’Ouverture and the War of Knives.
The carriage veered off the cobblestones onto a well-maintained dirt road leading into the interior. Away from the confusion and smells of Front Street, the air sweeping over them carried the delicious scents of tropical flowers. The countryside that now surrounded them was thick with ten-foot stalks of green sugarcane waving in the breeze as far as the eye could see on the gently rising slopes. Here and there a stately plantation house emerged into view, nestled within shade trees and luxuriant undergrowth. Bare-chested men with glossy black skin were processing the newly harvested cane beneath the vanes of tall wooden windmills turning in the breeze. If ships and shipping defined
the backbone of a West Indian economy, the rich sugar harbored within this seemingly endless green sea was its marrow.
“Who’s here?” Richard asked as the carriage bumped gently along.
“Everyone’s here,” Caleb replied. “Cynthia and Joseph returned from England a week after I arrived. The big news is that early last month Julia gave birth to a baby boy. His name is Peter.”
“Do say! I had supper with Captain Hardcastle in Jamaica, and he told me Julia was expecting. Mother and son are doing well?”
“Yes, very, though I must say I’m grateful to be lodging with John and Cynthia in their house, rather than with Robin and Julia. It’s where you’ll be too, in the West Room. I stayed there when I first arrived but got the boot after John received your letter. It’s your room, he told me, and you have priority. I worried that for my perceived sins he would banish me to Robin’s house. Glory be to God, he didn’t. The only guest room Robin has available is a cubicle next to Peter’s room. Peter cries all night and keeps everybody awake, especially Anna, his nurse. One look at her in the morning and you know that’s a fate you don’t want to share.”
As Caleb spoke, fond memories welled within Richard. The West Room was where he and Katherine had lived and loved after their arrival in Barbados in 1780, three months after their wedding in England, and he had stayed there during every visit since. Its glass windows opened on three sides to pleasing views of well-cultivated gardens and admitted the heady scents of begonias, hibiscus, ginger lilies, and other tropical flowers. To westward, not far away beyond an expanse of green fields, white sandy beaches and warm turquoise-blue water beckoned.
What of Joseph?” he inquired. “Did the doctors in London find out what’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing of consequence, I’m afraid. He’s such a nice, gentle boy, Richard. He’s intelligent too, though it takes a while to realize just how intelligent. He has a real knack for numbers, but not much interest in other things. I’ve grown quite fond of him, and he seems to enjoy being with me—if ‘enjoy’ is ever the right word to use in relation to him. It tears me apart to see him so distant, so removed from everyone and everything around him. I wish to God there was something I could do for him.”
“It seems that you are doing something for him, Caleb. You’re being a good uncle. I suppose it’s all anyone can do, beyond prayer.” He grieved for young Joseph Cutler while at the same time giving silent thanks that his own children were so healthy and loving.
“Tell me about the war, Richard. The Gazette reports the British side of things, but not so much the American.”
“I’ll be happy to, Caleb. But first, what news from Hingham? How were Katherine and the children when you left? And how is Father? Letters have been rare down here.”
“Everyone was fine when I left. Father has more aches and pains these days, but as he likes to say, growing old is not for the fainthearted. Katherine and Lizzy are busy planning their trip to England. They’re quite excited about it. So are your children. I assume you know all about Captain Hardcastle’s wedding, since you said in your letter that you had dinner with him in Kingston.”
“Yes. In fact, Hugh and I devised the idea to tie his wedding to Katherine’s visit.”
“As I suspected. On another subject, when we have time I’ll tell you about Father’s plans for Cutler & Sons. I’ve told the gist to John and Robin, though everything remains tentative. Father will want your opinions, of course.... Oh, here’s something that might surprise you: Constitution was in Bridgetown for much of December, in consort with United States. Robin told me it was her third extended layover here since August. From what people are saying about these ships, I wish I had been here to see them. But if the past is any indication of the future, Constitution will be returning soon.”
“Constitution? Here in Barbados? How very odd. Do you know why?”
“You’re the naval officer, Richard. I was hoping you could tell me. During her last visit, Agee stayed with John and Robin overnight.”
“And he gave no reason why he was here?”
“Robin sensed that Agee didn’t want to talk about it, and he didn’t press him. ‘Goodwill visits and coordinating patrols’ was all Agee offered as an official explanation.”
Something troubling stirred in Richard. He recalled the three days that Constellation had stood off and on the French base at Basse-Terre and Captain Truxtun’s frustration at not finding any American warships on patrol there. At least now he understood where Constitution and United States were during that time. But for the life of him he could not understand why these two frigates so vital to the American cause were so far off station in an area of the Caribbean that these days was locked up safe under British control. John Barry of United States and Samuel Nicholson of Constitution were, respectively, the two top-ranking captains in the U.S. Navy. Surely there was justification for what they had done. But goodwill visits? Coordinating patrols? That made no sense.
“Ah, Richard? Your mind’s wandering. You were going to tell me about the war.”
“So I was. Sorry.”
For the next quarter-hour, as the carriage rumbled along the hard dirt road at a comfortable pace, Richard relayed vignettes from his life at sea, emphasizing the points he assumed would be of most interest to Caleb: the design of Constellation, her performance under sail, the composition of her crew, how he injured his shoulder. Ordnance and battle tactics interested Caleb less, which is why Richard suspected early on that their father was right about Caleb. His brother was as tried and true a sailor as any man afloat, but he was more at home in a merchant fleet than a naval squadron.
A FEW MINUTES PAST NOON, the carriage juddered to a stop within a pleasant compound shaded by mahogany and tamarind trees towering over colorful exotic plants. Two substantial one-story houses and a number of smaller outbuildings graced the compound. They were arranged in an oblong circle, with the plantation houses on the north and south arcs and the pebbled drive running through it east to west. Both houses were constructed of coral stone and brick. The windward side of each was built in a semicircle designed to resist hurricane winds.
Northward beyond the circle, in an area less stately yet still pleasing to the eye, were cottages housing the plantation administrators: the agent and his family, the overseer of slaves, and the boatswain, the man who managed the multistep processes of sugar and rum production. Farther on were the slave quarters: simple dwellings of wood and stone that nonetheless bespoke a certain pride, plotted as they were in tidy rows. Each dwelling abutted a cultivated area that yielded a variety of vegetables and fruits to the individual slave families, the members of which, as a rule, were never separated or sold away from one another. A long-standing principle of Cutler slave ownership dictated that Africans and Creoles held in bondage were afforded a degree of self-sufficiency and self-respect. It was a policy neither replicated nor much appreciated by other English planters. Nonetheless, Robin and John were convinced that it was the reason why, year after year, Cutler sugar production outpaced that of its neighbors.
The clop of hooves entering the compound alerted those waiting inside. Julia Cutler was first out the door, smiling broadly as she strode toward the carriage. Once Richard had stepped down, she took him joyfully though carefully into her arms.
“My dear, dear Richard,” she exulted, her rosy skin aglow in the noonday sun and her tongue alive with Scottish brogue. She gave him a happy buss on each cheek. “How absolutely wonderful to see you!” She kissed him again, on the lips, laughed a delighted laugh, and then embraced him again as hard as she dared.
Richard hugged her back with his good arm. Julia had been a favorite of his since those sun-drenched days when he and Katherine had stayed with her and Robin on what had then been a second Cutler plantation on the island of Tobago. The family had sold that plantation in March 1782, after the island fell to the French, and had invested the proceeds of the sale in rum production on its larger holding on Barbados. During that visit Julia and
Katherine had become the closest of friends, sharing as they did a common birthright, similar dispositions, and a passion for horseback riding.
Cynthia came up to greet him next, though in a more dignified fashion and with less fanfare. She looked thinner than he remembered—perhaps, he thought, from the stress of the long voyage to England and the disappointing results of that voyage.
John and Robin held back until Robin’s three older children had added their own mix of greetings. Seth, the oldest at thirteen, had inherited his mother’s ruddy complexion, his father’s tall and wiry build, and his family’s love of the sea. “He’ll make a fine ship’s master one day,” Richard had often remarked, and that same thought occurred to him today as he felt the boy’s firm grasp, Seth holding his gaze with an unusual confidence of self that had inspired Richard’s observation in the first place. Richard then turned his attention to Seth’s sister, Mary, a demure, red-haired lass of eleven who swept a low, graceful curtsy before him, and finally to her brother Benjamin, a lad of six who alone among his siblings possessed the square jaw, bright blue eyes, and yellow hair that defined the seeds of the Cutler family tree.
“Peter’s inside, asleep,” Julia informed him. “You’ll meet him later. Caleb told you about him?”
“He did, Julia, first thing. Congratulations to you and Robin. And to little Peter, for having such a lovely and loving mother.”
“And here’s Joseph,” Cynthia remarked. She beckoned with her right hand for a boy in the shadows to come forward. He did so, reluctantly. “Come and greet your Uncle Richard from America, Joseph,” she urged with forced gaiety.
The Power and the Glory Page 22