Last Refuge of Scoundrels

by Paul Lussier

  So was she an enemy of her country, then? Or a friend? This was the question roiling in my mind even as I knew that the answer depended on which story, in the end, proved true: the story about the war with England or the story about the war for truth.

  Finishing her tale, she proclaimed: “So now to the business at hand, to making war.” Because, she decided, war would be the road, the vehicle, for Revolution.

  “Without independence from England, the Revolution won’t be worth a damn,” she asserted in her own inimitable way. “And since war is the only way we’re gonna make that necessary first step of announcing our independence, I’m aiming to have you help me start a war.”

  I guzzled my entire ale, which I hadn’t touched while listening to her story, in one swallow. My head thought for sure she was a crazy woman, but my uncooperating heart had me uttering out loud, “Okay.”

  She went on to explain that although thoughts of Revolution had been voiced since the turn of the century by men and women like Ezekiel in every one of the thirteen colonies, they had never been acted upon in their own right. Rather, they’d popped up erratically, like the Stamp Act Riots and even the Boston Massacre.

  But, she insisted, it was the blockade of Boston that had brought her to the sad but inevitable conclusion that war would be required. As she saw it, the blockade wasn’t simply punishment or retaliation causing America suffering. It was more than that, a heaven-sent gift. For it was the blockade that had given her the idea to start a war.

  “Have you seen . . . did you go out to the Neck to actually watch the caravan?” she asked. Her eyes opened wide at the thought of the endless parade of supplies that the closing of the harbor had prompted our fellow colonists to send to Boston—the first ever unified action of its kind. Normally colonies took competitive advantage in the extreme of each other’s weaknesses or misfortunes. While others recorded the details of the Intolerable Acts of this period, what Deborah chronicled (in her head only—she could hardly read or write) was everything that she’d seen sent into Boston via the Neck, courtesy of the other colonies. She had it all down, to the last apple.

  “Quintals of codfish from Baltimore, rye from Maryland, meal and flour from Philadelphia, money from Connecticut. Last week alone, three miles of sheep from Massachusetts, and from New Hampshire, so many cattle I lost count. More blueberries and cider and potatoes and molasses and wine than I knew existed if only ’cause I can’t count any higher than a thousand fifteen, at which point my tongue gets all tangled and I lose track.”

  She took a deep breath, for she was nearly too excited to speak, then continued. “Our poorest of Boston citizens ain’t wanting for bread, John. That’s a first. That’s the beginning . . . and all because Britain retaliated. All because we got ourselves that much closer to war.

  “Wharves of Boston deserted, not a topsail vessel to be seen nowhere, nohow in the harbor, save ships of war. No work, no money, no medicine, and yet—food enough for everyone, like never before.”

  “God has sent speedy relief,” I added enthusiastically, eager to convey to her that I was catching her point. But I wasn’t.

  “God, indeed! No, the colonies have. That’s my point. With the trouble dealt us by Mother England, seems we pull together and recognize that we have to look out for our own. We’re not separate colonies in hard times—we’re all Americans.”

  She continued. “For you, it was all poetry, all verse—the tea riot and all. I know. All up here.” She laid a finger on my head. “But it doesn’t have to be like that,” she added, clucking her tongue, furrowing her brow. “It can be more—it can be real. Those sheep coming over that Neck can be the way, every day, if only—”

  I could put the rest together myself. For I knew full well from the days of trade with my father that generally New Yorkers were out for New Yorkers, Carolinians for Carolinians, Georgians for Georgians, and so on. In such an atmosphere, an interest in another colony that wasn’t simply mercantile, competitive, was inconceivable. The notion of sharing, caring for one another didn’t even exist.

  “But you and I, we’re gonna change all that!” she insisted.

  Finally she reached for my hand.

  Pure lightning. The real kind.

  I was sold.

  CHAPTER 17

  The Hoax

  Her plan was as unlikely as everything about her, and just as ingenious.

  It sounded simple, if you believed, as future generations would, that the Continental Congress, set to convene soon in Philadelphia in September 1774 was composed of sweet visionaries, enlightened men all, united in common rebellion against British tyranny and in making a case for freedom.

  But because even I knew better than that, I was sure that Deborah’s plan—to bring Congress together on a joint declaration of war against England—would require nothing less than a miracle. Which, as it turns out, she was prepared to provide.

  As Deborah put it, “Without some kind of enemy to close ranks together and oppose, there ain’t a pope’s chance in Boston of us all getting along. Hunger and bullets have a way of making you feel like you’re all together whether you really are or not.”

  “But if you’re not really together, then what’s the point?” I asked, fully aware that I was splitting hairs in an attempt to get out of what she’d planned.

  “Well, sometimes you gotta put people side by side first, on a common footing. Sorta give it a kick and a start.”

  And with that, she sent me on her way.

  My instructions were to tell her everything that went on, divided into two categories: to report juicy treasonous bits to keep Church and Gage “happy enough” (a challenge, as this was hardly an inflammatory crowd) and to note “possible openings” that might be exploited as the catalyst for war.

  “Openings” . . . hmmmm. Of course, I hadn’t a fucking clue how to provoke such a situation—short of pretending I was from a renegade British faction and storming the hall.

  When I asked Deborah to share with me what she imagined an “opening” to be, she said, “Can’t say. You’ll know it when you feel it, though.” Not much help, on the face of it. But ultimately, she was right—and I did.

  So there I was, smack in the middle of the First Continental Congress, a lint brush at the ready in one hand (Hancock’s marching orders were to keep Samuel Adams presentable at all times) and a pen in the other, for recording for posterity Adams’s and the other Massachusetts delegates’ every righteous word. In the main, my brush was kept very busy and my pen was conspicuously unoccupied. All the while, I strained to apprehend any openings to war that I might “feel.”

  My, my, I thought, what a strange process this business of Revolution is.

  So why’d I agree to do it?

  Simple. I couldn’t say no.

  Period.

  Openings?

  I must say, the prospect of seeing the Continental Congressmen declare war on each other was more likely to occur than spontaneous unity. These men seemed disinclined to agree on anything, down to and including where the illustrious body of fifty-six delegates should formally convene (rather poor advance planning, wouldn’t you say?).

  Some lobbied for a nearby church, others for the Philadelphia House Chamber, a tavern, a ballroom, even a farm. Oh, the debate went on and on and on, contentious from the start. New Englanders feared a religious setting, moderates were wary about the Pennsylvania House Chamber’s “empire” feel. A ballroom, while lovely, just wasn’t “right,” unless someone wanted to spring for a little chamber music entertainment—that might be nice.

  Carpenter’s Hall was eventually decided upon because it had a pretty courtyard for pacing and gossip, should things get too boring. An understandable concern, for once this raging debate over where-to-have-the-party was over, I couldn’t imagine these men would have a helluva lot left to say or do.

  Things commenced at a place exactly opposite where Deborah wanted to take them. Patrick Henry spoke for nearly all when he declared, “There is
not a man amongst us who would not be happy to see accommodation with Britain.” So first we’d make a motion regarding formal unity with England, contingent upon the polite nonbinding suggestion that the king authorize a tiny branch of Parliament to sit here in America. Then we’d vote on it and go home.

  To my surprise, the motion lost . . . but by a single vote.

  “No possibility of a declaration of war against England yet here, friend,” I would tell Deborah each night over grog in the cave.

  “You’ll know,” is all she’d say, adding, “We’ll wait.” Which was the first she’d ever indicated to me what I’d intuited that first night in Hell’s Caves: that whatever Deborah had planned, she was not acting alone.

  “An opening always comes. You just need to be looking, and to trust yourself here when it does.” She tapped my heart.

  It came. And she was quite right: When it did, I knew. It was that swamp/Apollo/Deborah’s smile/Green Dragon/Ezekiel/shattered tortoise shell/Otis’s words/little Garrick’s cry/Boston Tea Party/night in the hay kind of feeling, coming from the same Patrick Henry, the delegate from Virginia who had made the motion for our reconciliation and reaffirmation as England’s dependent.

  From out of the blue, the opening we had waited for sprang from Henry’s sudden and instantaneous turnabout: “The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian—I declare as an American.”

  The entire hall flushed with vitality. Even the walls, pink in the setting sun, seemed enlivened, abashed, in a state of nervous excitation. Henry had touched a nerve.

  I reported back to Deborah.

  The next day word arrived from Boston from a “mysterious source” that Gage had laid siege to the town, that Boston was burning, and that people had been killed.

  Reverend Duché, an Episcopalian, led ten minutes of prayer on behalf of Boston, “that once happy town.” There was no controversy over his denomination. Samuel Adams himself had settled the debate by offering to hear any prayer from any gentleman so long as he was “a friend to his country.” Quakers cried, Congregationalists sighed, and Anabaptists trembled with feeling.

  While Duché read the thirty-fifth psalm to Congress—“Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me”—I prayed, gripping Apollo’s shell necklace like rosary beads.

  And then came that telltale silence, enveloping us all.

  Rancor ceased.

  We were colonists no more.

  We were Americans.

  Virginia’s George Washington wrote home that he quite liked the New Englanders after all.

  In the courtyard, more than one delegate found himself characterizing Patrick Henry’s speech as “music.”

  And by the time it was determined that the news of the siege of Boston was entirely a hoax, it was too late. The state of unity that had emerged in the silence could not—as much as the delegates might have wanted to later—be called back quite so fast. Certainly not quickly enough to stop Congress from approving what came to be known as the Suffolk Resolves, brought into Congress by courier more or less simultaneously with confirmation of the hoax.

  I never asked Deborah about it.

  I didn’t have to.

  I just knew.

  The hoax was immediately forgotten in the wake of the Suffolk Resolves. This document from the Massachusetts Provincial Assembly (and penned adroitly by the bellicose Dr. Warren) amounted to a virtual declaration of war in recommending that the Boston Port Act (the blockade) be disregarded and resisted. Furthermore, that the people should prepare for combat against England whenever Boston sounded the alarm.

  To my absolute bafflement and delight, the Resolves were approved unanimously amid gushing tears and applause.

  Deborah was merely pleased: “It’s a start.”

  That night, we met in Gloria Dei, Philadelphia’s oldest church, dating back to Philadelphia’s beginnings, and made our plans. The church was similar to Hell’s Caves in that it too was carved from rock, unornamented except for a bell, a baptismal font, and a wood carving of two cherubs mounted on an open Bible that read: The people who wander in darkness have seen a great light.

  CHAPTER 18

  Grape

  We were waved through the checkpoint on Boston Neck without incident because, as one surly sentinel explained, Gage had ordered it so. “Lucky thing,” he reminded us. “Otherwise we’d quite happily have blown you to smithereens. Welcome home, gentlemen, to the fine mess you’ve made of things. Suffolk Resolves, my eye!” he spat at our carriage. Then to his fellow officers at the other side of the gate he shouted, “Let the bloody Rebels pass!”

  Where once Boston’s quaint gate had stood was a shaved pine stockade, some eight feet tall, blocking the road. Two fences, barbed and sharp, spanned the entire stretch of isthmus between the bay and the sea; and a countless number of His Majesty’s sentinels marked time, permission granted to shoot to kill anyone who gave them cause.

  “Treasonous bastards,” another guard sneered.

  And another: “Ah, you’ll be seeing the noose soon enough, you can count on that!”

  As if this display of hostility wasn’t shocking enough (particularly to John Adams, who had expected to be met at the gate by adoring fans), imagine our shock at having our carriage commandeered by Yankee roadsiders with supplies in need of transport just as soon as we crossed into Boston on the other side.

  “Get out!” ordered the motley band of gun-wielding Rebel highwaymen.

  “Right, then. Plain enough,” John Adams assented, first out, pushing the rest of us out of his way.

  “This is a loan, I take it?” Sam Adams inquired of the gang.

  “Yea, with nary a date, time, and place for its return!” one of the brigands, a dirty squib of a woman, replied. And they drove off.

  When we arrived at Hancock’s two and a half hours after we were expected for lunch, we were in no mood for one of his snits, which we knew would be impossible to avoid when through the door we heard the sound of his staff cracking plates for him to keep him calm. His butler being otherwise engaged in dropping teacups down the staircase, we let ourselves in.

  “Helloooo! Helllooo!” we shouted through the house, hearing an altogether unfamiliar echo resonating throughout.

  It had been only eight weeks since we’d seen Hancock, but in that time his house had undergone a remarkable transformation. It had been laid bare, with any sign of extravagance removed. The silver chandelier, the Venetian glass vases, the onyx chess set, lacquered tea trays, even the Italian silk draperies—all gone.

  “Helloooo?” Echo, echo. Crash, crash, bang.

  Even our soup, two hours cold and laid before us sloppily by a hatchet-faced maid with a runny nose, seemed stripped down, thin, bereft, lacking in meat, cream, wine, or flavor.

  “What a terrible day this is turning out to be,” John Adams flatly stated, breaking the well-on-three-hour silence among us since our approach to Boston gate. Not a peep from a one of us during the episode at the gate, the theft of our carriage, the long walk to Hancock’s, or the unhappy surprise of a sniffling bitch serving a piss-poor lunch with our host in the throes of hypochondriacal mania upstairs—until now.

  John Adams had had just about enough. Now, ensconced safely enough in Hancock’s home, he was ready and eager to bitch and moan.

  “Is it me or has this town changed?” he asked, in what undoubtedly remains one of the greatest understatements of the era, if not all time.

  Changed? Our walk had been like a forced march at double time through alien territory. We had witnessed an “open-air town meeting,” during which a cabal of three denounced “all legislatures of all kinds” and declared “an enemy of the people anyone honoring Parliaments of any sort,” be they British, American, or, for that matter, Whig or Tory.

  “John Hancock could do without yet another carriage,” is all Sheriff Greenleaf had to say when Sam Adams approached him to complain he’d been robbed.
/>   “Robbed or confiscated? Which is it?”

  “Robbed!” Adams answered defiantly.

  “We’ll see,” Greenleaf responded indifferently.

  Where Deborah once had been pilloried on the Common, there were women, hundreds of them, installed at spinning wheels. Skirts hiked up between their legs, bonnets loose and askew, they turned flax into yarn, with prizes being awarded to the “most industrious Patriot”—i.e., she who had spun the most. The prize, a jar of blackberry preserves, went to a little black girl who had produced four hundred yards of cloth and three hundred skeins of yarn.

  Walking down King Street, we noticed a string of once-prosperous jewelry and silversmith shops, all closed. In their place were open-air markets, with sections designated FOR AMERICANS ONLY!—the first time I’d ever seen the actual word American written down. In these markets, soldiers, Tories, and any merchant seeking profit over ten percent were disallowed. There were no luxury items available and not a single British import. But there were baskets of flax, delicate herbal teas, local freshwater fish (remember, the harbor was closed to commerce), seasonal vegetables, local dairy, and fruit. Connecticut brick was here for the bricklayers, New Hampshire hardwood for the carpenters, hide for the leathermakers.

  And in the streets where once there was violence, there was barter: yarn for milk; milk for lead; lead for bullets; bullets for cartridges; cartridges for pouches; pouches for guns; guns for food.