A King's Trade (14 page)

Even with his back to him, Lewrie could feel Twigg cringe and slit his mouth, for him to blurt out that his actions were anything less than humanitarian and selfless!

“Indeed, sir? I was informed …” Rev. Wilberfforce said with a wary sniff.

“Had we not, though, sir,” Lewrie quickly extemporised to save himself, “there'd have been no vacancies for the escaped slaves. The Admiralty frowns on captains who recruit, or accept, volunteers above the establishment deemed proper for a frigate of
Proteus's
Rate, even to the number of cabin-servants and ship's boys allowed, unless they are paid from a captain's purse. They're jealous of every pence spent on rations, kits, clothing, shoes, and what not.

” ‘Tis said, sir,” Lewrie concluded, striving to recall what a pious expression looked like, “that the Lord moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. The slaves' prayers, and mine, coincided nigh miraculously.”

“Amen!” Theodora seconded.

“Just as Admiralty has broken captains who cheat the Exchequer by overstating the number of their crews, despite losses to desertion and death,” Mr. Twigg informed all present with a knowing and casually world-wise air (even if he was glaring daggers at Lewrie), “who pocket the lost hands' pay, and connive with the Purser, who will sell off the un-issued rations and slop goods, Reverend, ladies and gentlemen, just as often as they would one who over-recruits.”

“Well… shall we be seated and have tea?” Mr. Trencher suggested, waving his guests to the settees and chairs about the parlour. Twigg practically snagged Lewrie by the elbow and led him to a settee too short for more than two, looking as if he'd love to hiss cautions, but couldn't. As they sorted themselves out, waiting for the ladies to sit first, Lewrie took happy note that he'd have a grand angle on the fetching young Miss Theodora, who dipped her head most gracefully, exposing what a fine and swan-like neck she had above her lace shawl.

“Or, might Captain Lewrie and Mister Twigg prefer refreshments more stimulating than tea?” Mrs. Hannah More enquired with a wary cock of her head.

Playin' fast an' loose with the Trenchers' hospitality, ain't we? Sly witch!
Lewrie spitefully thought, though answering her with another of his “special modest” grins, a shrug and shake of his head.

“As we say in the Navy, ma'am, the sun is still high over the yardarm, for me,” he replied. “Tea would be delightful.”

The next hour passed much as Twigg had warned him; they asked careful questions as to his motives, how his “theft” had occurred, and what sort of fellow was his fellow-conspirator, ex-Col. Christopher Cashman. Was he a spiritual man, and just when had
his
revulsion of slavery arisen? In his new enterprises in the United States, was he a slave-owner there, or … ? And, more to the point, when and where had the (so far) noble Capt. Lewrie developed his own detestation?

So he told them of his first experiences in the Caribbean, back during the American Revolution; of the fugitive Yankee slaves who had run to British-held towns and garrisons, seeking the freedom promised should they aid the Tory cause.

“I was at Yorktown during the siege,” Lewrie related, addressing Mrs. Hannah More, his most-insistent and most-dubious inquisitor, “in charge of a weak two-gun battery of landed guns… only a Midshipman, then. For labourers and help loading the guns, we had several runaway slaves. We were all on short-commons, we ate the same rations, slept in the
redan
together, kept watch and drilled together, with the same chance of being killed in battle, did the French and the Rebels attack.

“Well…they stood a worse chance, ‘cause they faced lashings, a return to their chains, being lynched or shot, if we lost…which we did, and, I fear, some of them
did
suffer such fates, for very few of them escaped before the Lord Cornwallis's surrender, and it
shamed
me, ma'am…the way they looked
at
me,
the veriest boy Midshipman, as their saviour, and I could do nothing, in the end,” he told them.

Damned if they didn't, and damned if I didn't,
Lewrie took pause to recall;
And every bloody word of it the Gospel Truth!

“And you were made prisoner, Captain Lewrie?” Mr. Trencher asked.

“No, sir. Two boatloads of light infantry, North Carolina Loyalist troops, I and my few hands, were blown downriver while trying to ferry the army across York River. Got stranded on the mud shoals down Guinea Neck, the morning of the surrender. We sheltered at a tobacco plantation, a
slave
plantation, ‘til we could re-work our barges so we could sneak out to sea and escape. The orders were to abandon all but British, or White, troops, d'ye see…the horrid conditions that the plantation slaves had to stand, their near nakedness… pardon…”

“Fought their way out, ‘gainst a company of Virginia Militia and a company of French troops from Lauzun's Legion,” Mr. Twigg added with a sage nod of his head, to boot. Lewrie snapped his gaze to Twigg; he didn't know that anyone but the participants knew the details of that long-ago horror. “Nigh a week on the Atlantic, before being picked up by one of our warships. Might have sailed all the way to New York if he had had to. A most resourceful and determined man is our Captain Lewrie…even as a mere boy of a Midshipman,” Twigg ended, bestowing on Lewrie a most-admiring grin, one which Lewrie was sure was costing his soul a pinch or two. But, it was a welcome diversion, one that went down well with all present.

“Then…in ‘86, I was in the Bahamas,” Lewrie continued, “in command of a ketch-rigged gun-vessel,
Alacrity.
A Lieutenant, finally. There was a James Finney, there…known as ‘Calico Jack,' like that pirate, Jack Rackham. A war hero, a successful privateer, and a merchant of great fortune…made by
continuing
privateering against every trading ship, under any flag, even British. He was
very
big in slaves. Practically
owned
the Vendue House at Nassau, and always had what they call ‘Black Ivory'… ‘cause he was pirating slave ships on their way to the Americas, murdering the crews, and selling the Africans off, as well as the re-painted, re-named, re-papered ships. With official connivance, sad t'say. We raided his secret cache of goods, his lair, on Walker's Cay, finally, and found the bones of nigh an hundred pirated slaves too old or sick to auction off…some still bound in coffles by their chains, after they were murdered. Some not,” he grimly said. “Evidently, ‘Calico Jack' and his cut-throats thought it a waste to let perfectly good chains and manacles be buried.”

“Broke up the pirate cartel,” Twigg stuck in, again, with even more (faint) praise, “and pursued Finney right into Charleston harbour in South Carolina,
recovered what the brute had looted from the most-prominent island bank, and captured the last of his minions for trial, and righteous hangings, at New Providence. Put a
very
permanent end to ‘Calico Jack,' as well, didn't ye, Lewrie?”

What
doesn't
he know about my doings?
Lewrie gawped to himself, half-turning on the settee to see Twigg's eyes all steel-glinted.

“Well, ‘twas personal by then, Mister Twigg,” Lewrie admitted. “After Finney'd tried to seduce or assault my wife while I was at sea.”

“And,” Twigg drawled, looking back at the others with a smile on his phyz that was almost beatific, “made the man pay for his brute importunity by his own hand.”
That
made ‘em gasp and shiver!

“By personal experience with Captain Lewrie, I may also relate to you that his own Coxswain, any captain's most trusted aide, is also a runaway Jamaican house slave by name of Matthew Andrews,” Mr. Twigg further informed them, once they got over their vicarious thrill. “He has been with him for years, and most-like had a great influence upon Captain Lewrie's views on the despicable institution of slavery.”

“My
word,
sir,” that Mr. Clarkson exclaimed, “I am certain we were unaware of the depth of your feelings upon this head.”

“A
house
slave, ladies and gentlemen,” Lewrie said for himself, “better fed, clothed, and sheltered than field hands, one might even say
pampered,
to some extent, yet…Andrews risked three hundred or more lashes, or the noose, to flee it, and be a whole, free man.”

Hang on a bit,
Lewrie suddenly thought; he might as well have, for his brow and face were already furrowed with
some
sort of intensity.
Do I really despise slavery as much's I'm protesting? Well, mine arse on a band-box, but I really think I do!

“Don't rightly know what his name was before,” Lewrie admitted, suddenly of a much cleaner soul, relieved that he was not
completely
playing a role to save his neck, “lest his old owners spot him and try to haul him back, I s'pose. Won't even tell
me,
just in case, but…”

“And your man Andrews, your newly rescued Negroes,” Wilberforce enquired, “has any attempt been made to see to their souls, Captain?”

“Uhm…the night they came aboard, sir,” Lewrie said, with a feeling that his soul-washing had been very temporary, for he was now back to tip-toeing ‘cross a
fakir
's bed of nails. “I hope that no one thinks this a presumption, but…'tis customary for new hands to doff their civilian clothes, go under the wash-deck pump, and get bathed, be rid of fleas and such, before being issued slop-clothing. Well…our Sailing Master, Mister Winwood, a
most
devout
Christian, thought it much like
baptism,
d'ye see. At his suggestion, each chose a new name for ship's books, as if they
had
been baptised, or christened.”

They ate that fact up like plum duff, with many a pleased, prim simper or shared smile, and softly whispered “Amens.”

”
Proteus
doesn't carry a chaplain, sorry t'say,” Lewrie added. “Only line-of-battle ships, admirals' flagships, generally do, with the charge to minister to a squadron's, or a fleet's, spiritual needs, and are paid either by Admiralty for their services, or are supported by a devout senior officer, and, as I'm sure you're aware, the pay isn't all that grand…the same rate as an Ordinary Seaman, with so many groats per hand in the crew atop that. Hardly ever
see
a chaplain on a ship below the Third Rate. Mister Winwood, therefor, is my chieffest aid at Sunday Divisions. We hold a
form
of Divine Services…Morning rites with a Collect or two, as specified, a suitable Epistle, perhaps even a brief Homily, and, of course, rather a lot of hymns. No Sacraments, of course! Though,” Lewrie just had to add, feeling free enough for a bit of waggishness, “right after the final hymn, we
do
issue the rum-ration at Seven Bells of the Forenoon. But, totally secular and Navy, you understand.”

“But, are your Negroes cabin-servants, waiters, and such, or do you employ them as sailors, Captain Lewrie?” Mr. Trencher asked him.

“Sailors, Mister Trencher,” Lewrie firmly stated. “Most, rated Landsman, like volunteers or pressed men un-used to the sailors' trade. In gun crews, waisters at pulley-hauley, aye, the older ones. One is a dev…an outstanding cook, I must admit, but that was his plantation trade. Our five youngest, though, do go aloft, are rated Ordinary Seamen…spry topmen, sure t'be rated Able Seamen in a few years … oh, and one young fellow's a crack shot with a musket or Pennsylvania rifle. And, they're all drilled in musketry, cutlasses, pikes—”

“They have fought, under arms?” Mrs. Hannah More intruded, with a slit-lipped squeamish look at the image of
armed
Negroes, not merely
freed
Negroes. Was that too
much
equality for her, too soon?

“But, of
course,
ma'am!” Lewrie replied, surprised by her fret. “They
must,
if they're to serve in the Royal Navy. They have, indeed, and hellish-well, too!” he boasted, though wishing he could un-say the “hellish” part. “Like any English tar must, to serve his King, and to uphold the honour and liberty of his ship … to aid their shipmates in time of peril, whether storm or battle, ma'am.

“Shipmates …” Lewrie prosed on, only thinking himself
half
of a fraud, “paid the same, garbed the same, fed and doctored the same as each other, swing elbow-to-elbow in their hammocks belowdecks …you may see such for yourself aboard any ship in the Navy, for Free Black volunteers are everywhere. In
the Pool of London this very morning in any merchantman you'd care to board…”

“Oh, we've seen them!” Mistress Theodora exclaimed, one hand on her mother's arm. “Those poor souls dismissed their ships between one voyage and the next…those horrid captains who turn them ashore to save money ‘til they're needed, again. They live as hand-to-mouth as the poorest unemployed Irish. What did that brute call them, Father, that disparaging…?”

“Ah, erm … ‘Saint Giles Blackbirds,' dear,” Mr. Trencher managed to say, waving a hand to excuse getting even close to commonness, or Billingsgate slang. “Where they gather, mostly…Saint Giles.”

“Indeed, they evince such
heart-warming
gratitude whenever some of us circulate among them with clothing,” Mrs. More piously said, in a righteous taking, “or provide a hot-soup kitchen for sustenance once their few pence are lost to vice, to
drink,
to…the sort ofdebased women who…well,” she said with a grim roll of her eyes. “They're, dare I say,
avid
to receive our improving tracts and penny Testaments. It is quite
encouraging
to witness the
thirst
they have for the Good News of the Gospels. Why, I could even conjure that in every glad eye, one may actually see the spark of uplifting enlightenment blossom! In point of fact, when we lead them at hymns, their simple, joyous expressions put the lie to the contention that Negroes are forever bound into darkness and savagery. I fancy them budding
saints
in their patience, their eagerness to
please,
and improve themselves… with God's help, of course…and ours,” Mrs. More primly, and firmly, concluded.