A thought-provoking novel that imagines what would have happened if the British had succeeded in kidnapping General George Washington.
British special agent Jeremiah Black, an officer of the King’s Guard, lands on a lonely beach in the wee hours of the morning in late November 1780. The revolution is in full swing but has become deadlocked. Black is here to change all that.
His mission, aided by Loyalists, is to kidnap George Washington and spirit him back to London aboard the HMS Peregrine, a British sloop of war that is waiting closely offshore. Once he lands, though, the “aid by Loyalists” proves problematic because some would prefer just to kill the general outright. Black manages—just—to get Washington aboard the Peregrine, which sails away.
Upon their arrival in London, Washington is imprisoned in the Tower to await trial on charges of high treason. England’s most famous barristers seek to represent him but he insists on using an American. He chooses Abraham Hobhouse, an American-born barrister with an English wife—a man who doesn’t really need the work and thinks the “career-building” case will be easily resolved through a settlement of the revolution and Washington’s release. But as greater political and military forces swirl around them and peace seems ever more distant, Hobhouse finds that he is the only thing keeping Washington from the hangman’s noose.
Drawing inspiration from a rumored kidnapping plot hatched in 1776 by a member of Washington’s own Commander-in-Chief Guard, Charles Rosenberg has written a compelling novel that envisions what would take place if the leader of America’s fledgling rebellion were taken from the nation at the height of the war, imperiling any chance of victory.
Praise for
The Trial and Execution of the Traitor George Washington
“Fresh, fun fiction that weaves some intriguing historical themes of what might have happened. This atypical escapade exudes all the right touches. A clever and imaginative tale.”
—Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author of The Patriot Threat
“Wonderful! From the very first page a thrilling, beautifully imagined ‘what if’ story—I read it straight through at a gallop!”
—Max Byrd, national bestselling author of Jefferson
“It isn’t difficult to ask a what-if question. But it’s far from easy to bring a highly engaging, thought-provoking what-if scenario to life. Charles Rosenberg has done exactly that in this masterful novel full of surprises. A terrific read from start to finish.”
—Andrew Nagorski, author of The Nazi Hunters and Hitlerland
“If you love history, you love to speculate. When it comes to the American Revolution, Charles Rosenberg can speculate with the best of them: What if the British captured George Washington and spirited him off to England? And that’s just the beginning of this hugely satisfying journey through time...a fascinating premise, a brisk pace, a storytelling high-wire act performed as deftly, convincingly, and entertainingly as it can be done. If you love historical speculation, you will love this novel.”
—William Martin, New York Times bestselling author of Citizen Washington and The Lost Constitution
“Skillfully plotted Revolutionary War ‘alternate history’ with a gripper of a title you can’t pass by without reading the novel. Has all the marks of a winner.”
—John Jakes, author of North and South
Also by Charles Rosenberg
Death on a High Floor
Long Knives
Paris Ransom
Write to Die
This book is dedicated to my wife, Sally Anne, and my son, Joe, who, many years ago, when I first imagined this novel, bugged me repeatedly to get started on it, and to my agent, Erica Silverman, who encouraged me to finish it once I had begun.
Charles Rosenberg is the author of the legal thriller Death on a High Floor and its sequels. The credited legal consultant to the TV shows L.A. Law, Boston Legal, The Practice and The Paper Chase, he was also one of two on-air legal analysts for E! Television’s coverage of the O. J. Simpson criminal and civil trials. He teaches as an adjunct law professor at Loyola Law School and has also taught at UCLA, Pepperdine and Southwestern law schools. He practices law in the Los Angeles area, and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Antioch College, where he majored in history.
www.CharlesRosenbergAuthor.com
Contents
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Part II
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Part III
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Historical Notes
Acknowledgements
PART I
Late Fall 1780
1
The almost seven-week voyage westbound across the North Atlantic had not gone well. Black had been seasick on and off since the day the sloop-of-war HMS Peregrine had sailed out of Portsmouth. Some weeks, when the wind and waves had been relatively calm, he’d been fine. But each time the weather roughened he’d had to rush for the bucket all over again. Some cruel sailor had even painted his name on it. It had all seemed to amuse the crew, and they had snickered openly in front of him. If he’d been able to wear his uniform, with rank and campaign medals on display, they would never have dared. But on this voyage, as testified to by the name splashed on the bucket, he was travelling as “Mr. Smith.” He was billeted as a civilian supposedly being transported to New York at the request of the Admiralty, for reasons not revealed to the crew or the more junior officers. And so they treated him with disdain, as if he were a clerk in a counting house.
Even the ship’s captain,
Charles Ingram, had seemed at least mildly amused by his discomfort, despite Ingram having assured him that the sea was rather calm for the North Atlantic in late fall. The Captain, of course, was aware not only of his true name—Jeremiah Black—but also of his rank, and where he was actually going to be put ashore. He had not been entrusted, however, with the true nature of Black’s assignment. Once or twice, in the guise of seeming to commiserate with him about his seasickness, the Captain had tried to worm out of him the purpose of his mission. Black had steadfastly refused to be drawn in or to share his orders.
Those orders had been handed to Black by none other than the First Minister of Great Britain, Lord North himself, in a small meeting room on the second floor of 10 Downing Street. There, after reading them, Black had been made to understand that, aside from North and the military aide who briefed him on the more detailed plans as North stood by, only two other people in all of England were privy to them. North had named only one—the First Lord of the Admiralty. Black had gained the distinct impression, perhaps erroneously, that the second person who’d been told of the plan was the man whose large portrait hung on the wall—George III, King by the Grace of God, of England, Scotland and Wales, and, more recently, of Ireland, too.
He had also been given to understand that his promotion to the rank of full colonel was temporary, done so that he would outrank Captain Ingram during the voyage. Ingram, although captain of the ship, was only a navy commander by rank, the army equivalent of a lieutenant colonel. Should Black fail in his mission, he would be busted back to major, posthumously if necessary. Should he succeed, much glory and a general’s star awaited him. Or so he allowed himself to imagine.
As the meeting was coming to an end, North had shown him a copy of Captain Ingram’s orders. Ingram was to deliver him to a deserted beach well north of Philadelphia, not far south of where the Raritan River met the sea. The drop-off was to be done, if possible, on one of ten nights in mid-to late November between the hours of midnight and 4:00 a.m. If at all possible, he was to be put ashore on a night when the beach was not bright with moonlight. Should the ship fail to make landfall by one of those ten nights, Ingram was to take the ship into New York for reprovisioning. Then sail it back to England, with Mr. Smith still on board.
If good fortune prevailed, and the ship was able to land him on the beach on one of the ten appointed nights, Captain Ingram was to wait no more than eight days for Black to return to the same beach. If he failed to make it back on time, he was to be abandoned to his fate.
Black had asked why the rescue attempt was to be limited to only eight nights. North had looked away, and his aide, instead of answering Black’s question in detail, had said only, “Longer too much risks your discovery. But in any case, if you fail, no one in the United Kingdom will ever acknowledge that you were on an official mission, and if discovered you will be labelled a rogue officer attempting unsanctioned heroics.”
After that, standing there before Lord North, he had read through his orders once more and asked, “Minister, will Captain Ingram know what I hope to be carrying on my return?”
“No, he will not. Are there any other questions, Colonel?”
“I have two, my Lord.”
“I am listening.”
“First, I am deeply honoured to be entrusted with this mission, but—”
North interrupted. “You want to know why we are sending you when the loyal colonists have already planned your mission in such detail? Why can’t they do it themselves?”
“With all respect, Minister, the question is more, what do you hope I can add to what already seems a well-planned mission?”
North walked over to a window, clasped his hands behind his back and looked out, seeming to focus on something in the far distance. His face looked puffy and worn. It was perhaps not surprising. The “American war,” as it was often called, had not proved the easy victory originally predicted. Instead, it had dragged on for more than four years, with France giving more and more aid to the rebellion.
After a moment, North turned back to face him. “You are being sent as the embodiment of the King’s justice. The Loyalists over there—” he waved an arm towards the windows, as if to send his hand flying across the Atlantic “—are no doubt good men, but we do not wish this supreme traitor taken by—” he paused, searching for the words “—a ragtag group with no formal authority. Whereas you, an officer in His Majesty’s service, dressed in the scarlet of a British uniform, will carry out a lawful arrest.”
“I see,” Black said, but the Prime Minister was not done.
“That arrest, carried out in the very heart of the rebellion, will tell all that, whatever the grievances of the colonists, King and Parliament are still sovereign in the colonies. Sovereign!”
North was breathing hard and becoming red in the face. Black decided not to pursue it further. “Thank you, my Lord,” he said. “I think I understand.” Although in reality, he did not.
“You said you had two questions, Colonel.”
“If I apprehend him, but for whatever reason cannot return him here, what are my orders?”
North stared at him. “Your orders are to sail there, capture him and return him here. That is all.”
He thought of pressing the issue, but North had already walked back to a green-felt table laden with documents and begun to examine them. “You are dismissed, Colonel,” he said, without turning around. “My aide will show you out.”
“Thank you, my Lord.”
Black and the aide had almost reached the door when North once again turned towards them and said, “God speed you on your way, young man.”
Young? He didn’t feel all that young. Black had undertaken his first secret mission for the army when he was but twenty years old, and it had felt like an adventure. Now, at age thirty-three, the idea of travelling three thousand miles across an ocean to a land he’d never been to before, seizing a commanding general from the middle of his own troops and returning him to London, alive, seemed not so much an adventure as a likely death sentence. At least for him. Perhaps for both of them.
2
On their forty-eighth day at sea Captain Ingram called Black to the bridge. It was late afternoon, and the sun was already low in the sky.
Ingram was holding a long spyglass to his eye. “We are no doubt close to shore,” he said.
“Can you see it through the glass?”
“Not yet. But there are shore signs. Green leaves in the water, more flotsam than normal, shorebirds in the sky, and the depth is dropping off rapidly.”
“Anything else, Captain?”
“A well-honed sense of the sea.”
“Where are we, then?”
“If our navigator has well calculated our latitude, and our maps and charts are correct, off the coast of His Majesty’s Colony of New Jersey, somewhat south of the mouth of the Raritan River.”
“How sure are you of either?”
“I’m confident in our navigator. Whether the latitude of the beach in question as marked on our charts is accurate is anyone’s guess.”
“You have no tools to help you, Captain?”
“Yes. For charts of this coast, we have the Atlantic Neptune. The Admiralty paid one hundred thousand pounds to have it created just four years ago. At that price, it ought to be good, eh?”
“I would hope.”
“But it hasn’t been corrected since this lunatic war began. And who is to say it doesn’t need correcting?”
“Can we get closer before choosing a place to land? If I land on the wrong beach, there will be no one to greet me.”
“Colonel, I will be candid. We will be lucky to find the right beach, although it is favourable to us that the beach in question has two distinctive rock formations.”
“What is unfavourable?”
“If our calculation of where we are is off by even
a few minutes of latitude, we may miss the beach by miles.”
“Is the only choice to try to head straight in?”
“No. The usual way would be to locate the mouth of the Raritan—not that difficult—and head down the coast, constantly checking latitude and looking for the rock formations. But that route takes us very close to New York, with a lot of shipping nearby. We’d be more likely to be spotted.”
“By American warships?”
“Not likely. We have largely swept the sea of the ships of the so-called Continental Navy. My main worry will be the privateers they have licensed, but they will be mainly off of Philadelphia. I hope.”
“So overall, this may not be easy.”
“Put it this way, Colonel. Whoever thought up the idea of bringing you from England to land—in the midst of what is very much a naval war—on a particular beach at night without first going into a known port and acquiring a pilot familiar with the coastline must be an idiot.”
“You may be speaking of the First Lord of the Admiralty.”
“Perhaps I am. Idiocy is not unknown in such high places. But in any case, we cannot get much closer to shore now lest we be seen.”
“Understood.”
“When we put you ashore, we will, of course, have no choice but to come in closer, and hope that the dark hides us from unfriendly eyes. And that brings me to the reason I asked you to come up here.”
“Which is?”
“Tonight is the first night of the ten nights we should prefer, according to my orders, to put you ashore. Do you wish to go tonight or wait?”
“The sea is rough now. Perhaps I should wait a day or two.”
“Perhaps. But it is equally likely it will get much rougher in the days ahead.”
“What will the moon be like tonight?”
“Using the longitude of the town of Tom’s River as our guide, which we have in our charts, the moon will not rise until after 2:00 a.m.”
“So if you put me ashore before 2:00 there will be no moon on the beach.”
“That is right.”
“May I borrow your spyglass, Captain?”
The Trial and Execution of the Traitor George Washington Page 1