“A gift?” Richard was at sea.
“Yes, a gift. One I believe that you and Captain Truxtun and your entire ship’s complement will quickly come to appreciate. My gift—I should say, the gift of the Royal Navy for services rendered on His Majesty’s behalf—is ten carronades, delivered at cost to your Gosport Navy Yard in Virginia. Arrangements have already been finalized between my Navy Board and your Navy Department. My understanding is that they are being installed on board Constellation even as we speak. May you have occasion to use them. The French call these guns ‘devil guns,’ and for good reason. I must say, giving the French a good pasting at sea is one thing I’ll miss when I leave the service.”
Richard’s elation about receiving Hugh’s “gift” was superseded several weeks later when, just as he was preparing to book passage north to Saint Kitts, word came to the Cutler compound that USS Constitution had sailed into Carlisle Bay under a thirteen-gun salute.
Thirteen
Marie-Galante, French West Indies September–October 1799
RICHARD CUTLER lost no time getting to Bridgetown. John offered him a horse and carriage, but Richard did without the carriage. Not an equestrian by nature, and made skittish by a fall from a horse in England many years ago, he had learned to ride quite well under Katherine’s patient tutelage. Within an hour of receiving word of Constitution’s arrival, he had his horse munching feed in a stable on Front Street and the American frigate in sight.
She was anchored in Carlisle Bay on the periphery of the Windward Squadron. His first impression was what he had expected. She looked very much like Constellation, only longer—thirty feet longer, he recalled. Her hull was ink black, save for a band of white painted along her gun-port strake. Her beam was comparable to Constellation’s in width, but she carried a thousand tons heavier burthen, three dozen sails, and a sail plan exceeding 42,000 square feet. With those great clouds of white canvas now furled tight to their yards and booms, she looked a beauty for the ages as she lay out there beam-on to him. High above, on her three masts, pennants fluttered in the breeze alongside the Stars and Stripes.
A scan of the ships in the squadron and of the pedestrians lining the shore confirmed that many others, sailors and civilians alike, were equally drawn to the graceful lines and stark majesty of the pride of the U.S. Navy.
The immediate question was how to get out to her. The western half of Carlisle Bay housed the ships of the Windward Squadron. Access to those vessels was restricted to ships’ boats and to lighters commissioned by the navy yard to transport food and water to the squadron. For the moment, Richard could see no such boat tethered to the quays nearby or coming ashore from the ships. He thus had two choices: he could either wait for one to become available or hire a wherry at the commercial wharves on the eastern half of the harbor. He decided to wait. A wherryman would likely be challenged by a guard boat and ordered to turn back, and the wherryman, his fare already paid, would not likely object.
A half-hour elapsed before Richard noticed a jolly boat being swung out from Constitution and lowered into the water. Eight sailors clambered down the frigate’s side, followed by the coxswain. He was followed in turn by an individual Richard knew to be an officer, both by his uniform and by the distant squeal of pipes accompanying him off the ship. A sailor in the bow cast off the line, those positioned at the larboard side backed oars, and the jolly boat made for shore, her oars rising and dipping, rising and dipping, moving the boat forward in steady pulses.
Richard moved along the docks toward the point where the coxswain was aiming, an open space along a stone wharf not far away. As it approached, he strained to identify the officer sitting in the stern sheets, but he could not make out the man’s features even as the jolly boat bumped gently against the quay a few feet from him.
“Boat oars!” the coxswain cried out.
“Well done, Oates,” the officer said admiringly, his voice edged with a Highland burr. Gingerly he stepped onto the quay. To the coxswain he said, “Stand by. I shan’t be long, I shouldn’t think.” To the oarsmen he said, “You men are free to walk about. Just remember my warning. Stay close to the docks and steer clear of the taverns and doxies. I will have no man coming down with the pox.” He turned to go but stopped short before the tall blond man blocking his way. “Excuse me, sir, might I be of service?”
“Good morning, Lieutenant,” Richard said. “My name is Richard Cutler. I serve as first in USS Constellation, currently being refitted at the Gosport Shipyard. I am hoping that—”
“My God, sir!” the officer exclaimed. “You are Lieutenant Cutler?”
“I am.”
“Well, I’ll be snookered,” he declared, shaking his head in wonder. “This is a most extraordinary coincidence. You, sir, are the very man I was sent ashore to contact. Constitution”—he unnecessarily indicated the frigate at anchor—“is at your service. We were ordered to Bridgetown to convey you to Saint Kitts on our return cruise from the Leeward Antilles to the Santo Domingo Station.”
“My Lord. Truly?”
“Truly,” the officer laughed. He lifted his black fore-and-aft cocked hat. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Robert Hamilton, Constitution’ s second.”
Richard returned the salute. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Lieutenant,” he said. “Are you by chance related to Mr. Alexander Hamilton? I believe I have heard him mention your name.”
“I am, sir,” the handsome, dark-haired officer replied. “I am his cousin. On the Scottish side of the family.”
“I see. Well, congratulations on your appointment, Mr. Hamilton. Tell me, is Lieutenant Crabtree on board?”
“He is, sir. He has a slight ailment, else he’d be here in my stead. Nothing serious, I should think, and he seems to be well on a course to recovery. He is most anxious to see you.” Hamilton swept an arm toward the jolly boat bobbing up and down along the quay. “Shall we be off to the ship? I see no reason to linger here.”
“I’m all for that.”
The dirty looks and subdued mutters of the jolly boat’s crew as Richard settled into the stern sheets next to Hamilton suggested that they were not as “all for that” as the two officers.
As the boat pulled toward Constitution, Richard locked his gaze on the American frigate ahead, taking in the entire ship from her jaunty stern lines to the figurehead at her bow: a scroll, representing the Constitution, guarded on both sides by dragons. He recalled the day when he and his father and brother first approached the fully rigged Constellation in Baltimore Harbor. Just as he had back then, he felt a surge of pride that a vessel of such power and glory sailed under the flag of his country.
“Boat ahoy!” a youthful voice cried out from the frigate.
“Aye, aye!” the coxswain shouted up in reply, signifying that he had an officer on board.
With the jolly boat secured at Constitution’s larboard fore-chains, Richard, the higher-ranking officer, grabbed hold of the twin hand ropes and stepped onto and up the eleven steps built into the hull. At the entry port he saluted the quarterdeck as a hastily assembled party of ship’s boys piped him on board, followed by a second undulating shriek as Lieutenant Hamilton stepped onto the deck.
“This is Lieutenant Cutler, Mr. Sayres,” Hamilton said when the shriek was cut short by the boatswain. The young man he addressed appeared to be a midshipman serving as officer of the deck. “We shall go below to visit with the captain. Please pass word to Mr. Hull and Mr. Crabtree to join us.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
As the two lieutenants made their way down the broad wooden steps amidships onto the gun deck, Hamilton asked, “How do you find her, Mr. Cutler? Compared to Constellation.”
“Very much the same,” Richard replied, looking about. He stooped slightly when he reached the deck, his eyes sweeping along the array of glistening black 24-pounder guns mounted on blood-red trucks bowsed up one after another against the larboard and starboard bulwarks. He did not need to count them. Every officer in
the U.S. Navy knew what armament each of the newly built frigates carried. There would be twenty-six guns to his view on this deck, and four additional guns mounted in the captain’s day cabin aft, just as in Constellation. “I watched her being built in Boston,” he explained, adding, in a softer tone of confidentiality, “Lieutenant, is there anything you can tell me about Captain Nicholson before I meet with him?”
Hamilton gave him a startled look. “Dear me, Mr. Cutler, you have been on the beach, haven’t you. Captain Nicholson no longer commands this ship. He was relieved several months ago and assigned to shore duty.”
“Oh? Who’s in command now?”
Hamilton motioned toward a Marine sentry standing at attention before the door leading into the captain’s after cabin. “I suggest we see that you are properly introduced.”
The stone-faced Marine was dressed in a blue coat with scarlet trim, red cuffs, and a single white cross-belt, and blue trousers. His tall hat was trimmed in yellow and turned up on the left side with a leather cockade attached to it. At his side he gripped a finely polished sea-service musket.
“Lieutenant Cutler to see Captain Talbot,” Hamilton informed him.
The Marine sentry snapped a salute, wheeled about, and rapped on the door. He opened it when bidden and announced the visitors. Hearing acknowledgment from inside, he swung the door open and stepped aside.
At the mention of the name “Talbot” an image formed in Richard’s mind of a man with whom he had served during the war in Old Mill Prison in Plymouth, England. Despite a ten-year difference in age, they had become close friends during their time in prison. Richard was a former midshipman in Ranger and Silas Talbot was a noted privateer captain and major in the Continental army. Such was Talbot’s natural charisma that he quickly became the unanimous choice to serve as leader of the American prisoners, all of whom were captured seamen viewed by the British not as prisoners of war but as traitors deserving a traitor’s death. Despite that sword of Damocles hanging over him, and a prison keeper who had no love for Americans, Talbot was able to negotiate better terms and conditions for his countrymen before engineering a daring plan that allowed most of the commissioned and warrant officers to escape from Old Mill and return to the war.
When the cabin door swung open, there he was, approaching Richard with a broad smile. Although twenty years had passed since they had last seen each other, Talbot carried his age well. He had gained little weight, his hair was only slightly grayer and flecked in white, and he had the same wide, sturdy cheekbones, the same thin nose with a crook at the end, and the same bright blue-gray eyes that shone either as welcoming beacons of light or as signal fires of danger, depending on whom he was approaching. He was dressed casually in buff breeches, light blue ruffled shirt, and a white linen neck stock. His blue undress coat, identical in design and trappings with the one Captain Truxtun wore, was draped over the back of a chair behind his desk.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he exclaimed happily, “if it’s not Richard Cutler, here in my cabin. I must say, you lost no time in finding us.” He returned Richard’s salute, then grasped his shoulders and gave him a jubilant smile.
“Good to see you, Captain. It’s been too many years.”
“Indeed it has, Lieutenant. How are you? I must say you look fit as a fiddle.”
“As do you, sir.”
“Yes, well, shipboard fare does tend to keep one trim.” He patted his waistline. “Those land snails we lived on at Old Mill were haute cuisine compared to what my steward serves me most days.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir,” Richard said, recalling the snails’ bitter taste that more than once made him vomit.
“As are my dinner guests.” He placed hands on hips. “So. Some years ago the world press announced that you had struck your colors and married that English lass you kept mooning over in prison. Katherine, wasn’t it?”
“You have an excellent memory, Captain.”
“Actually, I have a wretched memory. It’s just hard to forget a name carped out from a baying hound every night for a whole bloody year. One favor that bastard Cowdry”—referring to the prison keeper at Old Mill—“would not grant me, no matter how hard I pressed, was a transfer to the French barracks for one night. One bloody night was all I asked.”
Richard grinned. “Katherine and I have three children now, sir. We live in Hingham.”
“Yes, thank you. I am quite well versed in your comings and goings, compliments of Mr. Crabtree, who, as you will not be surprised to learn since you had the good sense to employ him, I find to be an excellent sea officer. He has been under the weather, poor fellow, though he’s feeling better now. He’ll be joining us shortly. It will be like old times, having the three of us together again. I was delighted to receive orders to return to station via Bridgetown and transport you back to Saint Kitts. We intend to weigh anchor just as soon as we’re provisioned. And on our cruise northward we might just cause a bit of mischief.”
Curious as to Talbot’s meaning, Richard was about to ask when there came a rap on the door. Two officers were announced and entered the day cabin. One man Richard knew by reputation. The other he knew by heart.
“I believe you have met Mr. Crabtree,” Talbot said good-naturedly. “This other gentleman is Mr. Isaac Hull, my first. Mr. Hull, I introduce you to Mr. Richard Cutler, Constellation’s first.”
“Welcome on board, Mr. Cutler,” Hull said as they shook hands.
Richard knew a little about this lean, attractive, clearly well-bred officer about ten years younger than he. Hull hailed from Connecticut and in recent years had been the master of several merchant vessels. One of these, Richard recalled, had been seized by a French privateer off the coast of Cuba with loss of American lives. What first struck him about Hull physically was the wavy black hair that framed his clean-shaven face, and the long sideburns that inched down to his lower jaw and curved inward toward his chin. His eyes, too, were jet black, and set close together under thick, bushy eyebrows. Richard also recalled that Hull’s naval career had been launched with more than a gentle push from his uncle, Continental army hero William Hull, a close friend of Samuel Nicholson.
“Thank you, Mr. Hull. I am delighted to be on board.”
Richard’s gaze shifted to Agreen Crabtree standing by the closed door next to Hamilton. When their eyes met, Agreen gave him a weak grin.
Talbot observed the exchange. “Well, Mr. Cutler,” he said, “now that you have met my commissioned officers, may we invite you to join us for supper this evening here in my cabin? Mr. Davenport, the ship’s master, will be joining us. In the event you wish to sleep on board, we shall have a cabin prepared for you. In the meantime, I suggest that you and Mr. Crabtree spend some time at your ease.” He stepped back toward his desk, a signal for his officers to take their leave. “Until this evening, gentlemen. And Mr. Cutler, you have my word that the land snails we have in store for us are at least halfway edible.”
“Where to, Agee?” Richard asked moments later when they were alone on the gun deck. “How does a brace of fresh air sound?”
“Almost as good as seein’ you again, Richard.”
Richard slowed his steps to follow Agee up the ladder leading to the weather deck. Topside, sailors in casual, loose-fitting garb and low-crowned black hats worked about them, swinging ropes up and over the lower yardarms to hoist provisions from lighters up onto the deck, then down the wide rectangular hatch onto the gun deck. From there they would be lowered further below to storage under the orlop. Other sailors were lowering away the remaining ship’s boats—a long boat, two whaleboats, two cutters, the captain’s gig, and a punt—and tying them up astern of the frigate to keep them clear of the on loading. Richard and Agreen returned the sailors’ two-fingered salutes and walked forward past the foremast to the forepeak, near the entrance to the head, which at the moment was unoccupied. There, where the massive bowsprit and jib boom extended out from the forecastle seemingly into eternity, they could speak in
private.
“My Lord, Agee,” Richard marveled as he gazed down the 204-foot length of the flush deck, then upward the same distance to the foremast truck and the mile upon mile of standing and running rigging dedicated to that spar alone. “What an amazing ship she is. I’ve never seen one like her.”
Agreen followed Richard’s gaze upward. “Nor had I, Richard.”
“How are you?” Richard asked, with concern, when their eyes came level. “What is it you have? Or had. You don’t look any worse than you normally do.”
Agreen chuckled softly. “Thanks for the compliment. Truth is, I don’t know what I have. Neither does the surgeon. Whatever it is, it’s takin’ its sweet time gettin’ the hell out of me. We know what it’s not, and that’s the yellow fever. If I had that, I’d be ashore in quarantine quicker than a doxy after a dollar.”
“How are Lizzy and Zeke? Have you heard from them?”
“Not since we left Santo Domingo. Since then we’ve been cruisin’ the Spanish Main, chasin’ privateers and pirates. And we’ve had some success doin’ it. Took several prizes and sank three of the bastards. If I know Lizzy, there’ll be letters for me when we return t’ station, though Lord knows when she may have written them. She an’ Katherine are bound for England with the children, so neither of us will be hearin’ from them for a spell.”
“No, we won’t.” Richard leaned back against the bow. He folded his arms on his chest and studied his friend for several moments. “Agee, I must ask you something.”
“I thought you might.”
“When Nicholson was captain of this ship, what was he doing here in Barbados all those times? And why was he relieved of duty?”
Agreen gave him a brief nod, as if to acknowledge that he had indeed been expecting those questions. He turned to gaze out to where a Royal Navy sloop of war rode at anchor. Two brown pelicans glided low over the water’s surface between the two ships, their broad wings fully outstretched, their eyes searching for schools of baitfish darting about under the floating patches of yellow Sargasso weed. He edged closer to Richard but spoke as if to the sloop.
The Power and the Glory Page 25