I BECOME AN UNPOPULAR CHARACTER.
I did not waste time in getting to work. I had already written to my
uncle, telling him my plans, and presently I received his consent. I
arranged that cargoes of such goods as I thought most suitable for
Virginian sales should arrive at regular seasons independent of the
tobacco harvest. Then I set about equipping a store. On the high land
north of James Town, by the road to Middle Plantation, I bought some
acres of cleared soil, and had built for me a modest dwelling. Beside
it stood a large brick building, one half fitted as a tobacco shed,
where the leaf could lie for months, if need be, without taking harm,
and the other arranged as a merchant's store with roomy cellars and
wide garrets. I relinquished the warehouse by the James Town quay, and
to my joy I was able to relinquish Mr. Lambie. That timid soul had been
on thorns ever since I mooted my new projects. He implored me to put
them from me; he drew such pictures of the power of the English
traders, you would have thought them the prince merchants of Venice; he
saw all his hard-won gentility gone at a blow, and himself an outcast
precluded for ever from great men's recognition. He could not bear it,
and though he was loyal to my uncle's firm in his own way, he sought a
change. One day he announced that he had been offered a post as steward
to a big planter at Henricus, and when I warmly bade him accept it, he
smiled wanly, and said he had done so a week agone. We parted very
civilly, and I chose as manager my servant, John Faulkner.
This is not a history of my trading ventures, or I would tell at length
the steps I took to found a new way of business. I went among the
planters, offering to buy tobacco from the coming harvest, and to pay
for it in bonds which could be exchanged for goods at my store. I also
offered to provide shipment in the autumn for tobacco and other wares,
and I fixed the charge for freight--a very moderate one--in advance. My
plan was to clear out my store before the return of the ships, and to
have thereby a large quantity of tobacco mortgaged to me. I hoped that
thus I would win the friendship and custom of the planters, since I
offered them a more convenient way of sale and higher profits. I hoped
by breaking down the English monopoly to induce a continual and
wholesome commerce in the land. For this purpose it was necessary to
get coin into the people's hands, so, using my uncle's credit, I had a
parcel of English money from the New York goldsmiths.
In a week I found myself the most-talked-of man in the dominion, and
soon I saw the troubles that credit brings. I had picked up a very
correct notion of the fortunes of most of the planters, and the men who
were most eager to sell to me were just those I could least trust. Some
fellow who was near bankrupt from dice and cock-fighting would offer me
five hundred hogsheads, when I knew that his ill-guided estate could
scarce produce half. I was not a merchant out of charity, and I had to
decline many offers, and so made many foes. Still, one way and another,
I was not long in clearing out my store, and I found myself with some
three times the amount of tobacco in prospect that I had sent home at
the last harvest.
That was very well, but there was the devil to pay besides. Every
wastrel I sent off empty-handed was my enemy; the agents of the
Englishmen looked sourly at me; and many a man who was swindled grossly
by the Bristol buyers saw me as a marauder instead of a benefactor. For
this I was prepared; but what staggered me was the way that some of the
better sort of the gentry came to regard me. It was not that they did
not give me their custom; that I did not expect, for gunpowder alone
would change the habits of a Virginian Tory. But my new business seemed
to them such a downcome that they passed me by with a cock of the chin.
Before they had treated me hospitably, and made me welcome at their
houses. I had hunted the fox with them--very little to my credit; and
shot wildfowl in their company with better success. I had dined with
them, and danced in their halls at Christmas. Then I had been a
gentleman; now I was a shopkeeper, a creature about the level of a
redemptioner. The thing was so childish that it made me angry. It was
right for one of them to sell his tobacco on his own wharf to a tarry
skipper who cheated him grossly, but wrong for me to sell kebbucks and
linsey-woolsey at an even bargain. I gave up the puzzle. Some folks'
notions of gentility are beyond my wits.
I had taken to going to the church in James Town, first at Mr. Lambie's
desire, and then because I liked the sermons. There on a Sunday you
would see the fashion of the neighbourhood, for the planters' ladies
rode in on pillions, and the planters themselves, in gold-embroidered
waistcoats and plush breeches and new-powdered wigs, leaned on the
tombstones, and exchanged snuffmulls and gossip. In the old ramshackle
graveyard you would see such a parade of satin bodices and tabby
petticoats and lace headgear as made it blossom like the rose. I went
to church one Sunday in my second summer, and, being late, went up the
aisle looking for a place. The men at the seat-ends would not stir to
accommodate me, and I had to find rest in the cock-loft. I thought
nothing of it, but the close of the service was to enlighten me. As I
went down the churchyard not a man or woman gave me greeting, and when
I spoke to any I was not answered. These were men with whom I had been
on the friendliest terms; women, too, who only a week before had
chaffered with me at the store. It was clear that the little society
had marooned me to an isle by myself. I was a leper, unfit for
gentlefolks' company, because, forsooth, I had sold goods, which every
one of them did also, and had tried to sell them fair.
The thing made me very bitter. I sat in my house during the hot noons
when no one stirred, and black anger filled my heart. I grew as peevish
as a slighted girl, and would no doubt have fretted myself into some
signal folly, had not an event occurred which braced my soul again.
This was the arrival of the English convoy.
When I heard that the ships were sighted, I made certain of trouble. I
had meantime added to my staff two other young men, who, like Faulkner,
lived with me at the store. Also I had got four stalwart negro slaves
who slept in a hut in my garden. 'Twas a strong enough force to repel a
drunken posse from the plantations, and I had a fancy that it would be
needed in the coming weeks.
Two days later, going down the street of James Town, I met one of the
English skippers, a redfaced, bottle-nosed old ruffian called
Bullivant. He was full of apple-jack, and strutted across the way to
accost me.
"What's this I hear, Sawney?" he cried. "You're setting up as a
pedlar, and trying to cut in on our trade. Od twist me, but we'll put
an end to that, my bully-boy. D'you think the King, God bless him, made
the laws for a red-haired, flea-bitten Sawney to diddle true-born
Englishmen? What'll the King's Bench say to that, think ye?"
He was very abusive, but very uncertain on his legs. I said
good-humouredly that I welcomed process of law, and would defend my
action. He shook his head, and said something about law not being
everything, and England being a long road off. He had clearly some
great threat to be delivered of, but just then he sat down so heavily
that he had no breath for anything but curses.
But the drunkard had given me a notion. I hurried home and gave
instructions to my men to keep a special guard on the store. Then I set
off in a pinnace to find my three ships, which were now lading up and
down among the creeks.
That was the beginning of a fortnight's struggle, when every man's hand
was against me, and I enjoyed myself surprisingly. I was never at rest
by land or water. The ships were the least of the business, for the
dour Scots seamen were a match for all comers. I made them anchor at
twilight in mid-stream for safety's sake, for in that drouthy clime a
firebrand might play havoc with them. The worst that happened was that
one moonless night a band of rascals, rigged out as Indian braves, came
yelling down to the quay where some tobacco was waiting to be shipped,
and before my men were warned had tipped a couple of hogsheads into the
water. They got no further, for we fell upon them with marling-spikes
and hatchets, stripped them of their feathers, and sent them to cool
their heads in the muddy river. The ring-leader I haled to James Town,
and had the pleasure of seeing him grinning through a collar in the
common stocks.
Then I hied me back to my store, which was my worst anxiety, I was
followed by ill names as I went down the street, and one day in a
tavern, a young fool drew his shabble on me. But I would quarrel with
no man, for that was a luxury beyond a trader. There had been an attack
on my tobacco shed by some of the English seamen, and in the mellay one
of my blacks got an ugly wound from a cutlass. It was only a foretaste,
and I set my house in order.
One afternoon John Faulkner brought me word that mischief would be
afoot at the darkening. I put each man to his station, and I had the
sense to picket them a little distance from the house. The Englishmen
were clumsy conspirators. We watched them arrive, let them pass, and
followed silently on their heels. Their business was wreckage, and they
fixed a charge of powder by the tobacco shed, laid and lit a fuse, and
retired discreetly into the bushes to watch their handiwork.
Then we fell upon them, and the hindquarters of all bore witness to our
greeting.
I caught the fellow who had laid the fuse, tied the whole thing round
his neck, clapped a pistol to his ear, and marched him before me into
the town. "If you are minded to bolt," I said, "remember you have a
charge of gunpowder lobbing below your chin. I have but to flash my
pistol into it, and they will be picking the bits of you off the high
trees."
I took the rascal, his knees knocking under him, straight to the
ordinary where the English merchants chiefly forgathered. A dozen of
them sat over a bowl of punch, when the door was opened and I kicked my
Guy Fawkes inside. I may have misjudged them, but I thought every eye
looked furtive as they saw my prisoner.
"Gentlemen," said I, "I restore you your property. This is a penitent
thief who desires to make a confession."
My pistol was at his temple, the powder was round his neck, and he must
have seen a certain resolution in my face. Anyhow, sweating and
quaking, he blurted out his story, and when he offered to halt I made
rings with the barrel on the flesh of his neck.
"It is a damned lie," cried one of them, a handsome, over-dressed
fellow who had been conspicuous for his public insolence towards me.
"Nay," said I, "our penitent's tale has the note of truth. One word to
you, gentlemen. I am hospitably inclined, and if any one of you will so
far honour me as to come himself instead of dispatching his servant,
his welcome will be the warmer. I bid you good-night and leave you this
fellow in proof of my goodwill. Keep him away from the candle, I pray
you, or you will all go to hell before your time."
That was the end of my worst troubles, and presently my lading was
finished and my store replenished. Then came the time for the return
sailing, and the last enterprise of my friends was to go off without my
three vessels. But I got an order from the Governor, delivered readily
but with much profanity, to the commander of the frigates to delay till
the convoy was complete. I breathed more freely as I saw the last hulls
grow small in the estuary. For now, as I reasoned it out, the planters
must begin to compare my prices with the Englishmen's, and must come to
see where their advantage lay.
But I had counted my chickens too soon, and was to be woefully
disappointed. At that time all the coast of America from New England to
the Main was infested by pirate vessels. Some sailed under English
letters of marque, and preyed only on the shipping of France, with whom
we were at war. Some who had formed themselves into a company called
the Brethren of the Coast robbed the Spanish treasure-ships and
merchantmen in the south waters, and rarely came north to our parts
save to careen or provision. They were mostly English and Welsh, with a
few Frenchmen, and though I had little to say for their doings, they
left British ships in the main unmolested, and were welcomed as a
godsend by our coast dwellers, since they smuggled goods to them which
would have been twice the cost if bought at the convoy markets. Lastly,
there were one or two horrid desperadoes who ravaged the seas like
tigers. Such an one was the man Cosh, and that Teach, surnamed
Blackbeard, of whom we hear too much to-day. But, on the whole, we of
Virginia suffered not at all from these gentlemen of fortune, and
piracy, though the common peril of the seas, entered but little into
the estimation of the merchants.
Judge, then, of my disgust when I got news a week later that one of my
ships, the Ayr brig, had straggled from the convoy, and been seized,
rifled, and burned to the water by pirates almost in sight of Cape
Charles. The loss was grievous, but what angered me was the mystery of
such a happening. I knew the brig was a slow sailer, but how in the
name of honesty could she be suffered in broad daylight to fall into
such a fate? I remembered the hostility of the Englishmen, and feared
she had had foul play. Just after Christmas-tide I expected two ships
to replenish the stock in my store. They arrived safe, but only by the
skin of their teeth, for both had been chased from their first entrance
into American waters, and only their big topsails and a favouring wind
brought them off. I examined the captains closely on the matter, and
they were positive that their assailant was not Cosh or any one of his
kidney, but a ship of the Brethren, who ordinarily were on the best of
terms with our merchantmen.
My suspicions now grew into a fever. I had long believed that there was
some connivance between the pirates of the coast and the English
traders, and small blame to them for it. 'Twas a sensible way to avoid
trouble, and I for one would rather pay a modest blackmail every month
or two than run the risk of losing a good ship and a twelve-month's
cargo. But when it came to using this connivance for private spite, the
thing was not to be endured.
In March my doubts became certainties. I had a parcel of gold coin
coming to me from New York in one of the coasting vessels--no great
sum, but more than I cared to lose. Presently I had news that the ship
was aground on a sandspit on Accomac, and had been plundered by a
pirate brigantine. I got a sloop and went down the river, and, sure
enough, I found the vessel newly refloated, and the captain, an old New
Hampshire fellow, in a great taking. Piracy there had been, but of a
queer kind, for not a farthing's worth had been touched except my
packet of gold. The skipper was honesty itself, and it was plain that
the pirate who had chased the ship aground and then come aboard to
plunder, had done it to do me hurt, and me alone.
All this made me feel pretty solemn. My uncle was a rich man, but no
firm could afford these repeated losses. I was the most unpopular
figure in Virginia, hated by many, despised by the genteel, whose only
friends were my own servants and a few poverty-stricken landward folk.
I had found out a good way of trade, but I had set a hornet's nest
buzzing about my ears, and was on the fair way to be extinguished. This
alliance between my rivals and the Free Companions was the last straw
to my burden. If the sea was to be shut to him, then a merchant might
as well put up his shutters.
It made me solemn, but also most mightily angry. If the stars in their
courses were going to fight against Andrew Garvald, they should find
him ready. I went to the Governor, but he gave me no comfort. Indeed,
he laughed at me, and bade me try the same weapon as my adversaries. I
left him, very wrathful, and after a night's sleep I began to see
reason in his words. Clearly the law of Virginia or of England would
give me no redress. I was an alien from the genteel world; why should I
not get the benefit of my ungentility? If my rivals went for their
weapons into dark places, I could surely do likewise. A line of Virgil
came into my head, which seemed to me to contain very good counsel:
"_Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo_", which means that if
you cannot get Heaven on your side, you had better try for the Devil.
But how was I to get into touch with the Devil? And then I remembered
in a flash my meeting with the sea-captain on the Glasgow stairhead and
his promise to help me, I had no notion who he was or how he could aid,
but I had a vague memory of his power and briskness. He had looked like
the kind of lad who might conduct me into the wild world of the Free
Companions.
I sought Mercer's tavern by the water-side, a melancholy place grown up
with weeds, with a yard of dark trees at the back of it. Old Mercer was
an elder in the little wooden Presbyterian kirk, which I had taken to
attending since my quarrels with the gentry. He knew me and greeted me
with his doleful smile, shaking his foolish old beard.
"What's your errand this e'en, Mr. Garvald?" he said in broad Scots.
"Will you drink a rummer o' toddy, or try some fine auld usquebaugh I
hae got frae my cousin in Buchan?"
I sat down on the settle outside the tavern door. "This is my errand. I
want you to bring me to a man or bring that man to me. His name is
Ninian Campbell."
Mercer looked at me dully.
"There was a lad o' that name was hanged at Inveraray i' '68 for
stealin' twae hens and a wether."
"The man I mean is long and lean, and his head is as red as fire. He
gave me your name, so you must know him."
His eyes showed no recognition. He repeated the name to himself,
mumbling it toothlessly. "It sticks i' my memory," he said, "but when
and where I canna tell. Certes, there's no man o' the name in
Virginia."
I was beginning to think that my memory had played me false, when
suddenly the whole scene in the Saltmarket leaped vividly to my brain.
Then I remembered the something else I had been enjoined to say.
"Ninian Campbell," I went on, "bade me ask for him here, and I was to
tell you that the lymphads are on the loch and the horn of Diarmaid has
sounded."
In a twinkling his face changed from vacancy to shrewdness and from
senility to purpose. He glanced uneasily round.
"For God's sake, speak soft," he whispered. "Come inside, man. We'll
steek the door, and then I'll hear your business."