Old Glory

by Christopher Nicole

  Harry loved him too. But William Jones did not love Harry, however much he respected him. Partly this was on account of Harry’s religion, although Virginia was by no means as determinedly Protestant in its outlook as New England. But it was also partly because he no doubt understood that he could never have Harry’s total allegiance, the way he had John Paul’s. Because Harry had already given that allegiance to Paul.

  Yet Harry was perfectly satisfied with his situation. He was not actually in the mood for command, or even independence, however much he became aware, over the next few years, of a growing mastery over his profession, of seamanship and navigation, of fighting a ship too — for John Paul, having tasted the fruits of piracy, was not loath to risk that crime again on occasion when the opportunity presented itself, providing the victim was a Spaniard. But Harry’s mood continued as ambivalent as the Virginians’ attitude to their slaves. As John Paul had observed, he had not yet reconciled his year amongst the Caribs, his witnessing of cannibalism, and more than any of those things, his year of being almost wed to a savage animal. Where there is no imagination, no morals, no concept of good and evil, only strength and animal desire, there the human soul risks drowning in a quicksand of bestial urges. A year with the cacique’s daughter — he did not known her name, even, although he called her Annie, in some backhanded reference to Annie O’Rourke — had left him only certain that he could never risk the exposure of his animal passions to any Christian lady, and not even to any Christian whore. For the same reason he drank sparingly, thus never totally relaxing his mind, and preferred to lodge on board rather than ashore. If he had on occasion to fetch John Paul from a Norfolk brothel, he did it without looking right or left. ‘You are a very priest, Harry McGann,’ his friend would shout at him. ‘Christ, man, we will have to take you back to Dominica for exercise, else your tool will wither and die.’ Which would no doubt be best for all.

  Thus loneliness. As Paul early recognised. ‘Now, Harry,’ he said. ‘You are now a well found man, First Mate of a fine ship, respected in your profession. You have money jingling in your pockets and a sword slapping your leg. You are a man men fear to offend and women smile upon, however you may frown at them. All right, you have no desire to smile upon any Virginian, I’ll not argue with that. But have you not a family in Ireland, and a beautiful girl to whom you are betrothed?’

  ‘They will have forgot I ever lived,’ Harry growled.

  ‘Then they are no relatives of yours. Write them, Harry. Write them, and acquaint them of your situation. I do not recommend returning there at this moment. Undoubtedly there is still a warrant out for your arrest on a charge of mutiny on board the Spirit of the West, and probably also one for desertion from the Cormorant, unless they suppose you dead, and there may well also be warrants out for our joint arrest for piracy, by now … and you are an uncommonly difficult fellow to mistake for somebody else. But there is no reason why they should not cross the ocean and join you here. Biddy at the least. I tell you straight, I long to meet the girl.’

  A true friend. Harry allowed himself to be persuaded, and penned letters to both his father and Bridget O’More. Had he not promised John Palmer to bring them to Long Island as neighbours? But that had been a different man. In the event, he received no reply to either letter. Either they did indeed suppose him to be dead, or were themselve dead … that was an unbearable thought. But equally unbearable was another, that they had heard of his crimes and condemned him. That would be unbelievable, but he had encountered so many unbelievable human attitudes since leaving Tramore he was prepared to credit anything.

  Thus his anger, and his hatred, which had become softened somewhat in the sunshine of Paul’s friendship and beneath the aegis of William Jones’ support, threatened to return to the surface of his personality. But now somewhat qualified. Whatever had happened to his family, whatever, indeed, had happened to himself over the past several years, could be traced to the all pervading tentacles of English power and English law, which seemed to reach into every remote corner of the world, every aspect of every man’s life. Except in Virginia. Here was an enclave of determined resistance to absentee rule, and here there was a political attitude with which he could identify and thus support to his heart’s content.

  Not without one or two misgivings, in the beginning. He was too naturally generous and fair minded a man not to recognise that there were faults on both sides. King George and his advisors had a legitimate reason for raising money; they had spent vast sums on defending the Thirteen Colonies against the French and the Indians during the Seven Years War of a few years previously. Victory had rewarded them, but had brought very little profit to them from the Thirteen Colonies, no matter what territorial acquisitions had been gained elsewhere. Nor was there a single man of sense who doubted that the French, totally defeated in war for the first time in more than a century, dreamed only of revenge. Thus an army and a navy had to be maintained in North America: the question was who should pay for it, and how? German George and his parliament considered, with some justification, that the expense should be borne by the people the army was there to protect; there were many Americans who conceded this point. The main quarrel was over the how. If England had officially abandoned any concept of a divine right of kings to govern as they pleased back in 1689, they possessed in their present ruler a man of naturally autocratic temperament, and more important, the Tory aristocracy which had come into power towards the end of the war with France, and which now actually governed England in the King’s name, was composed of gentlemen of even more autocratic temperaments. They conceived that they were there to rule, not to seek a consensus even from their own constituents, and certainly not from a pack of unruly colonists. The colonists equally conceived that they were entitled to manage their own affairs, as they did so in any event, and that if King George needed money, he should put the matter to them and let them decide how and when it could be raised.

  This was moderate opinion. But there were extremes at both end of the spectrum, from well known Tories like Josiah Bartlett of New York, who held that any resistance, even any argument, against the King’s will was treason, to equally well known radicals like John Palmer of Long Island, who held that the colonies would be far better off by telling King George and his soldiers to pack up and go, as if any colony had ever managed to do that and survived.

  The Virginians on the whole inclined towards the more radical side, driven onwards by a series of clashes with the British Government over disallowance of Virginia-enacted statutes, wordy exchanges which had brought the lawyer and orator Patrick Henry, so admired by John Paul, into national prominence. And just before Harry’s flight to the New World, the introduction of a Stamp Act upon every legal document, newspaper, and even on packs of playing cards, had caused such a furore, and raised, from the English point of view, such a spectre of the Thirteen Colonies, normally as much at odds with each other as with the Mother Country, uniting in their resistance — indeed the General Court of Massachusetts had actually summoned a congress of representatives from all the colonies to meet in New York to debate the matter — that the Act had quickly been repealed. But a new series of punitive duties had immediately been imposed, and the odious Navigation Acts so hated by John Paul enforced with greater rigour than ever before. Just about the time that Harry had been escaping from Dominica to Martinique, there had been almost a pitched battle between soldiers and citizens in the streets of Boston, so high had tempers run. Several people had been killed. This had aroused public indignation to British rule to a still greater extent, and from then on any thinking man could see that the two sides were moving towards an almost inevitable clash, unless one or the other climbed down completely. But it was obvious this was very unlikely to happen.

  It was a period increasingly punctuated by acts of violence, notably in June 1772, when the people of Rhode Island stormed and burned the British revenue cutter Gaspee, which had run aground in Narragansett Bay, and when in December of the follow
ing year a band of young Bostonians, disguised as Indians, boarded an East Indiaman moored in Boston Harbour and threw her cargo of tea into the sea rather than have their merchants pay the exorbitant duty demanded.

  More significant than these illegal acts, however, was the steady drawing together of opinon throughout the Colonies, by means of what were called Committees of Correspondence, which enabled colonial policy to be co-ordinated, at least in major crises. Such a crisis immediately followed the Boston Tea Party, as it was soon known, as the British Government determined to punish the recalcitrant port, and virtually closed it. Boston was one of the most prosperous cities in the entire Commonwealth, and its citizens appealed for help, with the result that a Congress of all the Colonies, with the exception of Georgia, did finally meet in Philadelphia in September 1774 to decide what could be done about the situation. Clearly the ultimate crisis everyone feared was just over the horizon.

  Neither John Paul nor Harry McGann had any doubts at all on which side they would be fighting, even if they each knew enough about Great Britain’s military and, more important from their point of view, naval strength, to suppose they were going to accomplish anything more than to be hanged for treason. But just as the national crisis was coming to the boil, they were confronted with a crisis of their very own; William Jones was taken ill.

  It had been a wet spell, and yet he had insisted, as was his custom, on inspecting his fields himself, had taken a soaking, and had contracted pneumonia. This happened while John Paul and Harry were at sea, but there were anxious messages awaiting them when they regained Norfolk, summoning John at any rate to their employer’s bedside. He left immediately, while Harry saw to the ship. The cargo was unloaded and warehoused, and after two days of hard labour he relaxed in the cabin with a glass of wine, when he heard feet on the deck above him, and looking up, saw John coming down the companion ladder.

  ‘John?’ He frowned. His friend’s face wore a most peculiar expression, half of sorrow and half of something quite different, although Harry could not decide what it was. ‘What has happened?’

  ‘Jones is dead,’ John Paul said. He poured himself a glass from the bottle on the cabin table, sat down with a sigh.

  ‘I am indeed sorry to hear that,’ Harry said. ‘He has proved a great benefactor to me. To us both, I would say.’

  ‘Aye,’ John Paul said. He finished his glass and refilled it.

  ‘So what happens now? Is the estate to be broken up?’

  ‘No, no,’ Paul said. ‘His debts are few. Everything is inherited by the widow. But with certain provisos.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘They are childless, as you know,’ John Paul said. ‘And Mrs Jones is above sixty and infirm. Jones sought a male heir, who will both protect his interests and his wife, and who will eventually inherit from her. He chose the fellow, there on his death bed; there was an attorney standing by with the adoption papers. Apparently this is something, and someone, he has long had in mind.’

  ‘Ah,’ Harry said. ‘I understand. We have a new employer.’ He gazed at his friend. ‘And one who does not fill you with confidence, I would estimate.’

  ‘Do you know,’ John Paul said. ‘You are absolutely right. I have serious doubts as to this man’s ability to play his new role with any success. Certain it is that he was not born to wealth, or authority.’

  ‘So what’s to be done?’

  ‘He will need your best support, Harry.’

  ‘He shall have it.’ Harry frowned. ‘My best support? You mean you will not lend yours? You are not thinking of quitting the Carolina Wind, John?’

  ‘Only in a manner of speaking. Harry, as of last night my name became Jones. I told you, the papers were all waiting to be legalised.’ Harry stared at him, then slowly put down his glass. ‘Well, glory be. John, I do congratulate you. No man can better have deserved such a stroke of fortune. Support? Oh, you will have my support.’ He grinned. ‘I should now call you Mr Jones.’

  ‘You will call me John, as you have always done. But I will call you Captain McGann.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Of the Carolina Wind. She is yours, as of this moment. You have long deserved a command, and I’m afraid I do not see myself getting to sea too often in the immediate future. There are legal matters to be seen to, and I must learn something about the business of planting cotton, it seems. My God, how a man’s world can be set on its head.’

  ‘On firmly grounded feet, you mean. Are you not happy?’

  ‘Happy,’ John Paul mused. ‘Now that I cannot say for certain. I am confused, to be sure, at this moment, and confusion is no basis for happiness. No doubt matters will arrange themselves. But Harry, Captain McGann, I wish you always at my shoulder, in the future as well as in the past.’

  Harry shook his hand. ‘I will be there, Mr Jones, in the future, as in the past.’

  John Paul Jones carefully refilled both their glasses. ‘Then let us set about making one or two changes in our approach to business.’

  *

  ‘There’s the entrance, Captain,’ said Mr Tobias, the First Mate.

  Harry took the telescope and levelled it. Crookes Point lay to port and Sandy Hook to starboard, and in front of him the water bubbled through the Narrows as the tide rose. In there was New York Bay, and Manhattan Island, and the town itself.

  Was he excited, or afraid? He was not actually aware of either emotion. He had goods aboard for certain New York merchants with whom Paul Jones had reopened business dealings, and none of them came under the heading of dutiable articles. As for the past, both Jones and himself had agreed that in this early spring of 1775 the events of the spring of 1769 would hardly be of importance. He doubted he would recognise any of the inhabitants, or them him, for all his size. Not in a blue broadcloth coat trimmed with cloth of gold, with matching vest, brown breeches, white stockings and shoes, a brown tricorne, a sword at his hip, and the habit of command in his voice and bearing.

  He doubted anyone would dare.

  And did he wish to recognise any of them? Equally, he would not dare. Nothing in a skirt, anyway. They had brushed together, briefly, when they had both been children, and it had meant near disaster for him — and no doubt for her as well. Besides, now they were both adults. She was undoubtedly married, and would assume she knew both the best and the worst of sexual man; he understood that he could never again dare seek sexual happiness except from the body of a savage animal.

  As for the men … he was not here to cause trouble. There was enough of that brewing just further north, in Massachusetts, where Boston still lay under British military rule, while the countryside boiled with indignation, and the other colonies waited to see what the Bostonians would eventually do. Now was a time for caution and level-headed behaviour, and he had promised Paul Jones to pursue both courses.

  Because from now on his life would be totally bound up with the fortunes of that enigmatic Scotsman — as indeed it had been for six years already. It was more than the fact that the failure of his family or Biddy to reply to his letters had left him feeling utterly alone in the world, save for his friend; it was also to do with a conviction that Paul Jones’s fate was somehow hitched to a star. Did he envy him that fortune? The way he had so fallen on his feet? Harry was sure he did not. But Harry was equally sure his own future could only lie in the shadow of that star.

  The ship sailed through the Narrows and into the bay. ‘Back your yards, and prepare to let go, Mr Tobias,’ Harry said quietly, and watched his instructions, firstly to take way off the ship by turning the yards, and thus the sails, to face the wind, and then to let the anchor plunge into the mud, carried out. He prided himself on having more total and immediate authority over his crew than ever John Paul had achieved. Partly this was because of his size, but equally partly, he was sure, it was because, like Abner Dowding, he possessed a more relaxed style of command than Paul, who was overtly aware of his responsibilities, and his prerogatives, as a ship-master.

 
The vessel came to rest and the jolly boat was swung out. Harry went ashore, immediately aware that he was attracting attention, but more surprised that in six years so little had changed. O’Hare’s Inn still stood across the street from the dockside, and indeed the black bearded Irishman was standing in the doorway to gaze at him, obviously summoned by one of his girls. Harry could not resist the temptation to walk towards him, left hand resting on the hilt of his sword. ‘Top of the morning to you, O’Hare,’ he said.

  ‘Harry McGann, by God,’ O’Hare said. ‘You’ve the nerve of the devil, himself.’

  ‘Would you care to do something about that, now?’ Harry asked pleasantly.

  O’Hare stared at him, then stepped aside to reveal the blunderbuss he had leaning against his leg. ‘One day, McGann,’ he said, and went back inside, closing the door behind him.

  Harry grinned, and went on his way to the Exchange, where he knew the gentlemen with whom he was here to deal with would be waiting for him. The business itself was concluded very rapidly, following which the New Yorkers and the sea captain drank each other’s healths. Harry was just getting up to leave when there was a commotion behind him. He turned, and gazed at Josiah Bartlett.

  ‘By God!’ cried the shipowner. ‘By God! I could not credit O’Hare’s messenger. Of all the gall. You’ll not know with whom you deal, gentlemen.’

  ‘Ah, Captain Harry McGann,’ said one of Harry’s hosts, James Moultrie. ‘Of Norfolk, Virginia, sailing for the Jones Company. Are you an acquaintance, Bartlett?’

  ‘An acquaiantance, sir? This man is a wanted criminal. There is a warrant out on him, for mutiny, on board one of my ships. He is a scoundrel, gentlemen. An utter scoundrel.’ Harry regarded the little man with a benign expression. ‘Top of the morning to you, Mr Bartlett,’ he said. ‘Have you shrunk, or have I grown, would you say, these last six years?’