A few minutes after they’d all taken their seats, the General appeared, accompanied by his two marine guards. Ingram didn’t imagine that Washington’s late appearance was by accident. He started to enter the room, and the marines started to enter with him.
“You marines may wait outside,” Ingram said.
They saluted and withdrew.
He had been thinking for some time what level of respect to accord Washington when he arrived. It had been one thing to salute him in sickbay. It was quite another to do it here, with most of his officers present. But as he rose from his seat, he knew there had never truly been a question as to what he would do. He snapped his hand to his forehead and gave the regulation palm down salute. His action caused all the others, including, to his surprise, Black, to rise and do the same. Washington returned the salute and bowed slightly to all.
“Welcome, Your Excellency,” Ingram said. “Please take a seat.” He himself had been seated, as protocol for a ship’s captain dictated, at the head of the table, and he gestured for Washington to take the seat to his left. After all were seated, he gestured to the stewards to fill the wine glasses with port, which he had authorized to be withdrawn from the special stores in the hold.
He took his wine glass in hand and rose to give a toast, realizing that it was a bit inappropriate given the guest, but gave it anyway. “To the King! To our ships at sea! A willing foe and sea room!”
His officers rose and toasted, as did Washington, who had a bemused smile on his face.
Then Washington made his own toast. “When I had the pleasure of travelling on one of His Majesty’s ships as a very young man, I was always fond of this one,” he said, raising his glass. “To our wives and sweethearts, may they never meet!”
They all burst into laughter. Even Black smiled. Washington’s toast set a festive tone for the remainder of the meal.
After the first course had been served—dried beef in a heavy sauce—Ingram asked of Washington, “When were you on one of His Majesty’s ships?”
“Ah,” Washington said, “I have exaggerated a bit. It was not a ship of the line, but actually a merchantman. That toast was, though, given many times. At the time I had neither sweetheart nor wife. Now I have a most loyal and wonderful wife, and no sweetheart at all.” He smiled.
“Where were you going?”
“I sailed from Richmond to Barbados with my brother, who was seeking a cure for his consumption.”
“Did that help?”
“Perhaps in the short term. He passed away not long after we returned.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“There has been so much death in this war, Captain, that a single death in my family matters little at this point.”
A lieutenant overhearing the conversation said, “Was your brother in the navy?”
“No. I was almost, though. I had my bags packed to leave to become a midshipman, but at the last moment didn’t go.”
“Was there a reason?” the lieutenant asked.
Washington laughed. “Yes, my mother. She objected, and if my mother objected, you didn’t move forward. At least not at the age that I was then—fifteen!”
Black, who was sitting quite far down the table, asked, “So you are comfortable on ships, then?”
“Yes, but hardly experienced. And at times have the same difficulties you have with the motion, Colonel. Today has been better, though.”
Washington had, Ingram thought, tried to ingratiate himself with Black by pretending to share his misery. The type of thing a true leader did instinctually. He assumed Washington was pretending, however, because no one had reported to him that the General was suffering from seasickness.
“Seasick or not, what of this so-called Revolution?” one of the other lieutenants, who had no doubt had his share of rum before the meal began, asked. “Why are you colonists not content with the blessings our king bestows on his subjects? Which are many.”
Washington paused, as if he’d been asked the question many times before.
“We have declared our own, independent nation because the blessings you speak of have been bestowed only on men who live in England.”
“What do you mean?” the lieutenant asked.
“I mean you have the right to vote to choose your representatives to Parliament. And that same Parliament, whom you Englishmen elect, places taxes on us over which we have no say. All we wish is to have these very blessings you speak of for ourselves.”
“Why don’t you ask for them?” Black said.
“Surely you are joking, Colonel. Surely you must know that we have asked for our rights many times and have not only been rejected again and again but punished for asking.”
“Surely,” Black said, “throwing tea into a harbour is not asking for anything. It is just thuggery.”
“I did not countenance that,” Washington said. “It was done in New England, where the hand of your ministers and Parliament has been particularly heavy, so perhaps it can be understood as an outburst grown of frustration.”
“What you colonists do not understand,” Black said, “is that the members of that Parliament you mention have your interests at heart as they govern. You are like our children and the Parliament like a distant, but caring, parent.”
Washington stiffened. “If you will excuse me, we are not children, and even if we were, a parent who is three thousand miles away can hardly be a good parent.” He paused. “Do you understand, Colonel Black, how long this distant Parliament has treated us as children?”
Without waiting for a response, Washington answered his own question. “We’ve been treated as children for more than one hundred fifty years, Colonel. Indeed some families have lived in our land for three, four, five, even seven or eight generations. I myself am the third generation to be born on the soil of Virginia and carry the name Washington.”
While Ingram was musing to himself about that, Colonel Black had responded to Washington, lambasting the colonies for not having paid what he considered their fair share of the defence in the French and Indian War. Lieutenant Crisp, meanwhile, who’d by then had far too much wine, was, to Ingram’s surprise, joining Washington’s complaint, but focusing on the fact that so many men in England itself lacked the right to vote. Black was getting red in the face, Washington had his arms crossed across his chest and Crisp was gesticulating wildly.
The dinner was not turning out as Ingram had hoped. Perhaps naively, he had expected it to be a pleasant meal amongst officers and gentlemen about which he could someday regale his grandchildren—of whom he already had four. He decided to try to bring it back to the way he wanted it.
He stood, tapped on his glass till all were silent and said, “Gentlemen, I propose a toast to the land of General Washington’s birth, Virginia!” Everyone huzzahed and clinked glasses.
Then Washington rose. “And I propose a toast to the land of your birth, Captain, or so I assume... England!”
All clinked and huzzahed again.
Hoping to continue the spirit of it, Ingram said, “And finally, to our king.” He hoped that if Black were to report the toasts up the chain of command, he would not note that Ingram had said our king rather than the usual the king, thus leaving Washington an opening not to object since he could have been referring only to the Englishmen at the table.
Washington, clearly understanding his point, rose again and said, “We do not have a king, sir, but we do have many statesmen. I propose a toast to an illustrious Virginia statesman, Thomas Jefferson!”
There was suddenly a stone-cold silence around the table. “Jefferson? Why Jefferson?” the second lieutenant—who to that point had been silent—asked. “Isn’t he the one who slandered our king in your so-called Declaration of Independence?”
Washington paused, as if carefully considering his response, and said, “Mr. Jefferson could be somethin
g of a hothead at times, and in any case I was not present at the gathering that wrote and approved the Declaration.” He smiled a close-lipped smile.
Ingram’s respect for Washington rose still higher. The man had to know that he was being taken to London to be tried for treason. And while it was one thing openly to declare the independence of the colonies for various political reasons, it was quite another to attack the King personally. Washington had just distanced himself from that. No one at the table would be able to testify at his trial that Washington had sat there in the wardroom of one of the King’s ships and personally insulted him.
His thoughts were interrupted by a loud bang, followed a minute later by shouts and cries of anguish.
The door was flung open.
21
It was one of the crew who gave only the most perfunctory of salutes. “Captain! A ship to port! It came out of the mist. They are trying to board us.”
Ingram jolted himself from his chair, along with every other officer, and rushed for the door. As he passed through the doorway, he yelled at the marines stationed just outside, “Guard the prisoner!”
The marines moved immediately into the cabin and stood one to each side of Washington, bayonets fixed.
Only Black and Washington remained in the cabin, still seated at the table.
“Are you concerned I might try to escape, Colonel?” Washington asked him.
“You have tried at least twice, both times at peril to yourself.”
“How would you propose I escape from this room and these two marines, even assuming the ship that’s trying to board us is American?”
“Even if I knew, I wouldn’t suggest to you how to do it.”
The door banged open again and Captain Ingram burst back in and pointed at the marines. “Every man on deck. Leave the prisoner!” He pointed at Black. “Every man!” Black hesitated, then got up and followed the Captain and the marines out onto the deck. Just as he went through the door he glanced back at Washington. The man was still sitting calmly at the table.
When Black emerged onto the deck it was thick with mist, but he could nevertheless make out four iron grappling hooks slung over the gunwale, and four men, none wearing a uniform, clambering over the rail onto the deck to join others who had arrived. Black saw two boarders brandishing swords, another swinging a large club above his head and one man with a long knife. That man lunged at a Peregrine crew member, but his target stepped nimbly aside, seized the knife and plunged it into the boarder’s throat.
The clash of metal on metal, mixed with screams, was becoming deafening, and the deck was growing slippery with blood.
Black barely had time to take it all in when a man ran directly at him and swung a broadsword at his head. He ducked and felt a whoosh of air as the weapon passed just above him. Black lunged at his attacker, caught him around the waist and flung him backwards. They fell to the deck together, with Black on top. They landed, hard, and he heard the man’s sword skitter away. But the man was huge. With only one try, he flipped Black over and began pounding his head on the deck. Then the man stood up, lifting Black up with him, grabbed him in a bear hug and began walking them both towards the rail. Black struggled to free himself but was powerless to break the man’s grip. Suddenly, the man went limp in his arms. Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around the man to keep him from falling. Black looked over the man’s shoulder and saw Captain Ingram standing there, holding up a sword, its tip covered with blood.
“You can let him go,” Ingram said. “If he’s not dead, he soon will be.”
Black released the man and heard rather than saw him hit the deck. He realized that all had gone quiet. He looked around and saw bodies everywhere, most of them ununiformed, a few wearing the blue of the British Navy.
“There weren’t many of them,” Black said.
“When the boarding party is small, the goal is to seize the commander of the ship and trade his life for something of great value and leave,” Ingram said.
A voice behind him said, “It appears you have repulsed their effort to board you, Captain.”
Black turned and saw that it was Washington.
“I thought you had promised not to try to escape,” Ingram said.
“I made no attempt to escape, Captain. I merely stood near the rail. After all, I made no promise to avoid being rescued.”
Ingram actually laughed. “General Washington, you should perhaps have been a lawyer.”
“You should lock him up for the rest of the voyage,” Black said.
“I don’t think so,” Ingram said. “I don’t know whether the men who tried to board us were privateers or Americans trying to rescue the General, and who by some miraculous stroke of luck managed to find us on the open ocean. But either way, I don’t think it is likely to happen again.”
“You will take no action against him, then?” Black asked.
“He seems to me not to have done anything to dishonour his pledge,” Ingram said. “But I’ll increase his guard.” He paused. “Just to be sure.”
* * *
For the balance of the voyage, Captain Ingram gave Washington the liberty of his ship—so long as his guards went with him. They shared many convivial dinners together—none attended by Colonel Black, although he was always invited.
At their final dinner, Ingram raised a toast: “To an end to this war, and your quick return to your country.”
Washington responded: “To a just end to this war and all wars.”
When the Peregrine docked in Portsmouth, they had to wait more than four days for Lord North to be notified and for a contingent of marines to arrive.
As the gangplank was finally lowered, Ingram turned to Washington and said, “General, I fear that what you face will not be pleasant, to say the least. I wish you the best of luck.”
“Captain, you have been every inch an officer and a gentleman. Godspeed to you and your ship.”
Colonel Black, who had been standing to the side, listening, together with two of the ship’s marines, said, “General, you are my prisoner. Please put your hands behind your back so that I might secure them. I will be taking you down as soon as the gangplank is secured.”
PART II
January 9, 1781
22
10 DOWNING STREET
LONDON
The First Minister was not in the best of moods. The war in the rebellious American colonies had, he supposed, been going well enough. General Cornwallis had been pressing the agreed-upon southern strategy in the Carolinas and reported winning almost every battle. But he had yet to deliver a true knockout blow to the rebels, and he was now reporting being constantly harried by colonial militia.
Cornwallis’s very latest report, which North had not received until November, reported that a month earlier, at a place called King’s Mountain, a rebel militia had engaged a British militia of Loyalists personally recruited and led by one of Cornwallis’s officers, Major Ferguson. The Loyalists had been roundly defeated, with more than 1,100 men killed, wounded or captured out of an initial force of 1,200. One of the dead was Major Ferguson himself. North hardly knew whether the defeat was simply a misfortune in the course of a long and bloody war or a calamity.
For that kind of military interpretation, he relied on Lord Germain, Secretary of State for the American colonies, who had actual experience as both a soldier and a general in the field and so was vastly better informed on things military. Indeed, against his better judgement, North had turned over direct command of the armies in the colonies to Germain. And Germain’s view was that the loss at King’s Mountain was regrettable but nothing to worry overly about. Still, the report was causing North anxiety.
Worse, it was now January and, given the five-week or longer travel time from the Carolinas to England, for all he knew the war had already been won. Or lost. The delays in receiving current news
was maddeningly frustrating.
Meanwhile, the costs of supplying an army three thousand miles away were taking a large toll on the treasury, and Parliament was restive, with more and more members questioning the value of spending blood and treasure to defeat the ingrates across the sea, especially when the ongoing war with France seemed much more important. And then there was the King. Far from wanting to give up or soften his views, he was impatient to see the rebellion put down once and for all. North’s informants in the palace had even told him that the King was having vivid dreams of Washington, Adams, Franklin and the rest of them swinging on the gallows at Tyburn. He hoped it was a false rumour.
He took another sip of the camomile tea his physician had prescribed for anxiety. Perhaps it helped, but he was sick of the stuff. Just then, his private secretary, Hartleb, knocked and said, “There is a messenger come from Portsmouth with a note for you. Do you wish to receive him now or shall I just take the note?”
Portsmouth was where His Majesty’s ships docked, so it might well be news from Cornwallis.
“Show him in, please.”
A moment later, the messenger, who was dressed from head to toe in brown leather and sweating—whether from the journey or nervousness, North couldn’t tell—entered, bowed slightly and said, “Your Lordship, I have this note for you from the Captain of HMS Peregrine, which docked early this morning in Newport.”
“Thank you,” North said and nodded at his young assistant, Hartleb, who gave the messenger a coin. As the man was about to turn and depart, North said, “Wait. Did you read the message?”
“Of course not, my Lord. I would never do such a thing.”
“And yet you seem excited. Do you know its contents?”
The man paused and took a deep breath. “Yes. Or at least I suspect what it says.”
“How did you come by this information?”
“I overheard the captain of the ship talking to another man.”
“What did he say to this man?”
“That on the ship is the traitor George Washington, under arrest.” He smiled broadly. “And if this be true, congratulations to you, sir. You will soon have the blaggard in hand.”
The Trial and Execution of the Traitor George Washington Page 11