Eagle's Cry

by David Nevin

  Underling he was, important for whom he represented, not for himself. A captain in the U.S. Army had a clear position, one widely respected too. He’d go back anytime, maybe soon if there was to be no expedition. He’d tell Mr. Jefferson he wasn’t cut out for this, damned fish out of water; he was going back where things were clear and men were men and a captaincy meant what it meant. He scraped mud from boot soles and walked into the big building, trying to look as if he belonged when he knew every fool could tell he was a rank outsider, adrift in the halls of Congress. He pulled a kerchief to wipe his boots, thought better of it and decided to find the Ways and Means chairman’s office on his own rather than humiliate himself by asking.

  His mood, therefore, was less than sunny when he found the ornate door. Inside a slender youth, delicate in look and manner, stood by a bookcase examining a volume.

  “Yes?” the high-pitched voice was rude and impatient.

  “I’m Captain Lewis. I have a message for the chairman from the president.”

  The youth tossed a hank of black hair out of his eyes. “Drop it on the desk,” he said, and went back to the book.

  “No,” Lewis said. “It’s for the chairman.”

  “Just leave it.” The youth gave him a glare. “He’ll see it in due time.”

  Lewis took a step forward, fists unconsciously doubling. “You seem hard of hearing. This is a message from the president of the United States and it’s not to lie around on some desk awaiting the pleasure of a skinny clerk! It’s to be put in Mr. Randolph’s hand and I’m to put it there.”

  That considerably exceeded his instructions, but by God, even errand boys must maintain some position. He took another step. The wretch dropped the book and stepped behind a desk. He picked up a paperweight to defend himself.

  “Get away from me!”

  The inner door opened and a slender man with an imperious eye appeared. He was emaciated, couldn’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds, but he radiated authority.

  “What the devil’s going on?”

  “I told him,” the clerk squealed. He glared at Lewis. “Mr. Randolph doesn’t like to be bothered. When he’s ready he asks for his messages.”

  Lewis ignored him. “I’m Captain Lewis,” he said to the chairman, “the president’s secretary.”

  “Oh, yes. The soldier. I rather distrust soldiers.”

  Lewis thought that not worth comment.

  “So you’ve brought army ways to Washington.”

  “Not necessarily, sir. But the president deemed the message important. It’s his position on repeal of the Judiciary Act.”

  “And he told you to come up on the Hill, browbeat my clerk, ram your way into my office, and slap me in the face with his message?”

  “Of course not, sir—”

  “Tell me, Captain, have you heard of the separation of powers? Tripartite government? Independence of each branch? Not the army way, granted, but then, this isn’t the army. Here the president rules the executive branch—not Congress or the courts. My goodness, when I see him next I’ll ask if he’s forgotten all that. He—and Mr. Madison—have already decided to keep that scoundrel of a Federalist clerk, Mr. Jacob Wagner, a hound of hell if ever one walked, keeping him against the express advice of the Congress. Now perhaps he expects to rule the Congress as well, sending his military clerk up here to abuse, threaten, demand, crash open doors, ignore all norms of gentlemanly conduct. Perhaps flying in the face of the Congress on the question of that arch picaroon has so emboldened him he now plans to rule the Congress through his ferocious soldier-clerk—”

  It was ridiculous, small-minded beyond belief. For an instant it was funny and he smiled, and then a tide of anger gripped his throat. But Mr. Randolph pounced.

  “You laugh, sir. You are amused. You find it a matter of comedy that the U.S. Congress should defend itself against the encroachments of the executive branch?”

  Lewis stepped forward. “Mr. Chairman, a message from the president of the United States.” He thrust the envelope forward and the chairman, startled, took it.

  “Good day, sir,” Lewis said, and left the office, fearing in another instant he would lose control.

  “Ah, Merry,” the president said when Lewis recounted the incident. “I take it you learned a lesson.” He smiled that gentle smile that Lewis had known since boyhood, kindly, almost sweet, and yet never lacking in authority. When he was with Mr. Jefferson all his angers seemed to flee, though an insistent voice in the back of his mind told him still that this was no place for a soldier.

  “I fear I did, sir.” They were standing on the circular balcony looking south; in the clear air he could see Alexandria bright in the distance, the river a glittering ribbon. The president put a hand on the marble balustrade.

  “Well, for the record, we’re far from the frontier. Force per se doesn’t work in politics. The army is behind you now, if only temporarily. But I suppose you understand.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “When Mr. Randolph speaks to me—and he will, at the first opportunity—I’ll tell him I gave you a hiding that made all he said seem mild. That should satisfy him as to lèse-majeste and at the same time irritate him, since he feels no one speaks with more force than he.”

  He turned, hip against the balustrade, and gazed at Lewis. “We are working tremendous change here,” he said, “quietly, ruffling as few feathers as possible. But this is truly a revolution, just as that of 1776. Make no mistake. The nation was moving to a centralized system of elitism, power in the hands of the few, the wealthy made part of the government, the common people cut out, dissent literally criminalized, hereditary aristocracy in the wings, monarchy itself looming in the future. You understand this?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He gazed at Lewis, thumb under his chin, forefinger on his lips, pensive, thoughtful. They were of equal height, eyes on a level. Then, as if taking a plunge, the president said, “Yet, you know, it’s deeper than any single nation, single society. I believe we are at the turning point of a vast transition in human society. We’re moving from highly centralized and tightly controlled monarchy to a broadly diffuse form of democracy, shifting power from a wealthy elite to a broad base of the common man. We did this, here in this country, with revolution followed by a Constitution that institutionalizes the rights of the common man. The French Revolution shook the world because at the crucial moment it symbolized and articulated all the glorious possibilities of human freedom in this new form. And in its outcome it illustrated with equal force the profound dangers of loss of control and chaos that are inherent in men governing themselves as opposed to naming a king whose function, after all, has been to control them when they couldn’t control themselves.”

  Lewis stood transfixed, thrilled by the depth of ideas. Once again Mr. Jefferson had led him into deeper waters than he’d ever experienced. He felt humbled.

  Mr. Jefferson smiled. “Given all that, such change and the changes we are making is noble work. Bigger than any of us. Never forget that. Now, we count on Mr. Randolph to move matters through Congress. We need him. We can’t do it all by ourselves. We’ve already offended him on the Wagner matter, but I think Mr. Madison is right on that. We can’t be blatantly throwing out men whose only sin was being part of the old. Same with your work in helping trim the army; we must be fair. Now, Mr. Randolph can be extreme—”

  “Yes, sir. I noticed.”

  The president chuckled. “But we do need him. We may lose him someday—we’re on a middle course and he rides out to the far edges—but let’s not do so casually. In short, let’s mind our manners on the Hill.”

  “Yes, sir.” Lewis thought he’d never felt quite so profoundly a horse’s ass.

  14

  WASHINGTON, FALL 1801

  Two nations were supremely important to the young United States—Britain and France. They were the world powers before whom all other nations trembled. They were locked in war and each struggled to bring other nations to its si
de. Those that neither side could coerce, both sides abused. It was the duty of the new secretary of state to try to retain shreds of national dignity in the midst of war.

  Britain and France. Madison decided to take them in order and invited each envoy to call. First came Edward Thornton, handsome young chap of thirty or so, the British charge. He entered the modest State Department offices with riding crop and gloves in hand, bowed, seated himself, and crossed his legs, polished boots reflecting a shimmer of light. He was gracious, relaxed, his blue eyes direct but mild, his mustache not quite military. Yet beneath a genial, even gentle surface there was a hardness. He would be a bad man in combat, Madison thought, surprising himself a little, and probably in the diplomatic wars as well.

  “Now,” the secretary said, “please understand that the attacks on Britain in the Democratic press do not express our policy.” He smiled. “The bark far exceeds our bite.”

  “Welcome news, Mr. Secretary,” Thornton said politely.

  “Next, I know you have been romanced by Federalist society.” No flicker of response in Thornton; the man was cool. “But you should understand that to place weight on what they tell you will sever you from reality.”

  Thornton bowed in his chair. “I stand admonished, sir.”

  “Now to the real issue. High as we place our relations with Great Britain, even higher do we place our own national honor. And that honor is sorely tested by the Royal Navy’s continued abuse of our trade and our ships.” He watched Thornton settle deeper in the chair. It was an old issue, and he had a hunch it would bring the United States to war with Britain someday, but he wanted that date as far off as possible.

  Claiming an arbitrary wartime right, Britain had fixed unilateral rules under which it already had seized American goods worth millions and doubtless would seize millions more. The United States built the best ships in the world—it was forest country; the choicest of timber was always available—and its seamen ranked with the best. It was a powerful trading nation—indeed, it already was the largest neutral shipper. Britain tried to bend that trade to its own use, and what it couldn’t bend it often seized.

  But even more arbitrary and outrageous, it stopped our ships on the high seas to board press gangs that simply kidnapped likely sailors to serve on its warships—pressing them into maritime slavery in a navy famous for its brutality.

  “They stop your ships to search for their own deserters. Surely that is their right, sir,” Thornton said.

  “But for every deserter recovered, they steal ten of our men. It’s clear they seize anyone they think they can use.”

  “And return them when an accidental seizure is reported.”

  Madison laughed. “Please. You have taken more than two thousand of our young seamen—scarcely a third have been returned—and that after they’ve given your navy years of the most brutal service.”

  “But surely, Mr. Madison, you understand, Great Britain is engaged in a war of great consequence with a mad tyrant—”

  Madison held up a hand. “Mr. Thornton! Kindly remember that it’s your war, not ours.”

  “Sir, with all respect, it should be the war of every man who loves democracy. Napoleon is a dictator.”

  “Be that as it may; studied neutrality is our policy. Certainly the president admired France in the past, but he has no illusions about its government today. But seizing our goods and kidnapping our men is not acceptable.”

  Thornton shifted uncomfortably on the hard chair. “But, sir,” he said, “you must know that I am without authority to negotiate on such matters.”

  Of course that was true, nor had Madison expected more. They parted courteously but not cordially. Madison stood by the window watching the young man mount a fine mare. The horse heard a noise in the street and snapped her head around, moving away from the man as she did so. With one foot in a stirrup he was forced to hop along on the other foot. He glanced over his shoulder, and Madison stepped back from the window so that the envoy might feel that this loss of dignity had gone unobserved.

  Would Thornton be wise enough to pay less attention to Federalists who revered his nation despite the abuse it meted out to its erstwhile colonies, Alexander Hamilton calling its system the best in the world and urging the United States to emulate it? Erstwhile colonies … that was it. The British had never forgiven us, less for turning on them, than for whipping them when they tried to do something about it. For years they had refused to honor the treaties ending the war, holding onto those forts up around the Great Lakes and arming and supplying Indians for attacks on settlers. In this and other ways they’d abused us with a peculiar air of contempt, as if it were somehow personal.

  But stealing goods from our ships on slender pretext of legality and kidnapping sailors into brutal bondage, these were the actions of the powerful against the weak. What made it even more difficult and irksome was the simple reality that what was so important to us was but a pinprick to the great nations locked in war. They paid us almost no attention except when moved to use us. Our envoys waited months for audiences that rarely produced the courtesy of a direct response. Of course, Madison must protest, bluster, threaten—but he knew British hostility was not likely to ease.

  He watched Thornton’s mare—God, that was a good-looking horse—turn onto Pennsylvania Avenue and break into a canter at a touch of the spurs. Sooner or later, he thought, we’ll have to fight them … .

  France, in Madison’s estimation, should be easier. We were friends, sealed in writing by the new treaty that had solved the problems of the last few years, problems that Madison felt were largely caused by Federalist desires to take Britain’s side in the brutal war. French arrogance and the greed of the strange little foreign secretary—imagine Monsieur Talleyrand demanding a bribe before he would even receive our envoys. Britain might abuse us, but it didn’t demand bribes.

  But when Talleyrand saw he couldn’t get away with such effrontery and the United States was ready to join Britain he switched to an improved tune and the friendship with France that never should have been in question was quickly restored, John Adams having the courage to fly in his party’s face.

  Louis Pichon, the recently arrived envoy from Paris, was in some indefinable way a more modest man than Mr. Thornton. He appeared at the appointed time, suit impeccable, linen fresh, buckles on his shoes gleaming, hair in a neat queue, all quite beyond fault. But his features were nondescript, his eyes pale neutral in color, his manner very quiet. Yet it was Pichon whom the French government had sent to Berlin to let young Mr. Adams know that tomfoolery was over and the French wanted peace. A note from John Quincy Adams had so informed Madison, startling him profoundly. It explained so much about President Adams’s turnabout. He’d been willing to defy his party because he knew he could trust the latest overture: It came from his son.

  Pichon clearly had to be taken seriously, but that made it the more important to get things straight. Madison said firmly, “You must understand, my dear sir, that while Democrats have been friends of France, our policy remains one of total neutrality. In short, we will take no sides in your conflict with Britain, and we will permit no trespasses—specifically, French privateers will not be permitted to operate from our ports.”

  Pichon looked chastened. “We have always thought of Mr. Jefferson as our friend,” he said tentatively.

  “We are the best of friends—but within that framework.”

  In fact, Tom had clung longer than most to the rapt faith that the revolution in France represented a new glory of human freedom and possibility, but the Terror, the clattering guillotine, the slide into military dictatorship long since had quenched his enthusiasm for France as it stood today.

  Pichon cleared his throat. “Sir,” he said, “it is on that profound base of friendship that Monsieur Talleyrand counts on the United States to assist it in dealing with that evil rebel, Toussaint L’Ouverture.”

  “Ah, yes,” Madison said. “Santo Domingo.” He was surprised. Things on the Caribb
ean island of Hispaniola had seemed quiet. Toussaint was a political and military genius who had risen to lead his fellow black slaves in a wild revolution that had proved unstoppable. He had seized Haiti, the east end of the island, then swept across the Spanish end, Santo Domingo, ejecting all European troops and establishing an apparently benign rule over a half-million blacks, fifty thousand whites, and a like number of mulattos, the nativeborn long since having been killed or absorbed. The world expected quick retaliation, but Napoleon had had his hands full smashing the Second Coalition and dismembering the Holy Roman Empire; meanwhile Toussaint declared himself a loyal Frenchman and the island still a French colony. So Napoleon had named him captain general of the French army to command Santo Domingo.

  Well, well—Pichon seemed to be saying that Toussaint’s affection for France was not reciprocated after all. He had said he considered himself Napoleon’s brother since they both had come to power in the same way. Perhaps that had not been well received in Paris.

  “What do you have in mind, Mr. Pichon?”

  “We intend to starve him out. We want the United States to cease all trade with him. He can’t survive without food supplies and manufactured goods. Soon his people would turn on this black tyrant and welcome the return of honest French governance.”

  That was preposterous enough to endanger Madison’s composure, but he managed a quiet response. “Well, Mr. Pichon, we have developed regular trade relations with Santo Domingo. You can see we can’t abrogate them without cause.”

  “But, Mr. Secretary, they’re blacks. Niggers. Slaves! In revolt against their masters. Surely, sir, that gives pause for reflection in your own southern states, in Virginia itself.”