How Dark the Night (30 page)

Two, Richard thought to himself, is likely the exact number of eyebrows that Jamie's behavior has raised. But he said nothing.

“Oh yes, people are talking,” she sniffed, undeterred by his silence and obvious anger. “I should think that you would wish to know what people are talking about.”

“You have just informed me, Mrs. Hanson,” Richard replied stiffly. “Now, if you will excuse me.”

She made way for him. “Good afternoon to you, Mr. Cutler,” she said pleasantly as he strode past her. “I trust you to remember me to your dear wife.”

“Indeed, Mrs. Hanson,” he said with a quick sideways glance, “I will tell her all about our encounter.”

At his home a short way farther down South Street he found Katherine knitting in the parlor. “I just collided with your friend Rebecca Hanson,” he called out as he hung his hat from a peg on the wall beside the front door.

“How lovely for you!” she said sarcastically as he took a chair across from the sofa where she was sitting. “What did that old windbag have to huff and puff about this morning?”

“As you would expect, she's shocked that Jamie and Mindy are getting married next month. To her warped mind, a betrothal in August and a wedding in October can mean only one thing. She was born two hundred years too late. She belongs back with the witches of Salem instead of in modern-day Hingham.”

Katherine smiled. “Why didn't you just tell her the truth? That Jamie and Mindy want to be wed before
Constitution
sails?” Left unspoken was what they both realized was another reason for the brief engagement: Katherine Cutler might be unable to attend a wedding in May or June of the following year.

“Rebecca Hanson doesn't want the truth. She wants material she can use to grind through her rumor mill, the more salacious the better. What I should have told her is that Mindy is with child and they decided they had better make it legal before the baby popped out. Hell, you know that's what the old battleaxe
wanted
to hear me say. That's what she was
praying
I would say. Most likely it's what she's saying right now to her busy-body friends.” He threw up his hands in frustration and then noticed an unfolded piece of paper with a broken seal on a table beside the sofa. “Who is the letter from?”

“It's from Cynthia, with a note from Julia. Joseph brought it over.”

“Joseph was here? I'm sorry I missed him. We haven't seen him in quite awhile.”

“And we'll be seeing less of him now that classes have started up again at Derby. But that's all right. He's doing so well there, Richard. It's working out just as we had hoped. He is everyone's favorite teacher.”

“He has you to thank for that, Katherine. The entire school should thank you for that. So, what does Cynthia have to say?”

Katherine handed him the letter and summarized it while he read.

“Cynthia and Julia are definitely coming to Hingham next spring for a short visit. Cynthia wants to see her son, of course, and they both want to see us. They would stay for two or three weeks. John and Robin are apparently all for it.”

“And you?” he asked cautiously. “Are you all for it?”

“I honestly don't know, Richard,” she said. “Joseph has asked me to respond to his mother, but I don't know what to say to her. I would so love to see Cynthia and Julia one more time before . . .” She let it go at that.

Richard refolded the letter. “Perhaps we should wait a few weeks to see how things develop,” he said soberly, adding, to impersonalize what he had just said, “There is just too much uncertainty and trouble in our world today.”

“There is that,” Katherine had to agree.

Twelve

Hingham, Massachusetts

March 1808

I
N
D
ECEMBER
1807 the ax fell. Its blade had been hewn to a fine edge during the months following
Leopard
's assault on
Chesapeake
, and the impact, when it hit, tore the body politic of the United States asunder. Although the vote was far from unanimous, the Tenth Congress, as expected, passed the Embargo Act recommended by President Jefferson, and he signed it into law on December 22. At the same time the government put into effect the Non-importation Act passed in April of the previous year, which prohibited the importation of many items from Great Britain, including leather, clothing, hats, and beer.

The Embargo Act was not one law but a series of laws passed in rapid succession to close loopholes in earlier iterations, especially as they related to Canada. Highly lucrative smuggling by boat, wagon, and sled began to flourish along that colony's border with Vermont and upper New York State. At its core, the Embargo Act was intended to end American foreign trade in an attempt to deny Britain and France the produce from America they so desperately needed—in Jefferson's judgment, at least—in their epic struggle, and thus force them to end impressments, seizure of cargoes, and other affronts to American law and honor. The act closed down American foreign shipping—all of it: to Europe, to the Orient, to the West Indies, to every port of call around the globe. Specifically, the act prohibited American merchant vessels from sailing into any foreign port unless authorized to do so by President Jefferson or an official customs collector. To encourage compliance, shipping companies were
served notice that violations of the act would incur a financial penalty of $10,000 for each offense, in addition to forfeiture of the ship's cargo. Federalists—and many Republicans as well—viewed the Embargo Act as a flagrant abuse of Americans' liberties. The act permitted port authorities to seize cargoes without a warrant and to bring to trial any shipper or merchant who was suspected of even contemplating a violation of the embargo. Merchant vessels purportedly sailing from one American port to another American port were required to post a surety bond that was forfeited if the vessel happened to stray from its stated itinerary.

The draconian law smacked of the worst of European totalitarianism. It also flew in the face of long-proclaimed Jeffersonian principles of a limited federal bureaucracy and minimal government interference in the lives of private citizens. But on this issue the president was adamant. He would not yield an inch even though members of his own cabinet opposed him, most notably Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, who argued in cabinet meetings that the embargo would be ineffective and impossible to enforce. Gallatin's tune played to deaf ears. Jefferson summarily approved any and all red tape and expansion of governmental powers necessary to enforce the embargo. In coffeehouses and taverns across Federalist New England, rumblings of outrage and opposition began anew; along the shores of Lake Champlain and the coast of Down East Maine there were threats of open insurrection. The brief period of national solidarity following the
Chesapeake
affair that had brought New England back into the fold had been severed by the ax. New Englanders once again began to look to themselves to save themselves.

“At least the man had the decency to announce that he would not seek reelection,” Caleb Cutler groused during a family supper at his home on Main Street in Hingham during an evening in mid-March. Outside, rain and sleet splattered against the window-panes, a mixture that in South Hingham, four miles inland and away from the warming effects of the sea, would be falling as snow. In the stone hearth a fire crackled agreeably, spreading its warmth across a dining table that seated four couples of the extended Cutler family. Diana and Peter Sprague were conspicuously absent. After the Christmas season they had moved from Hingham to a suite of rooms on Eliot Street in Cambridge near the home of Anne Cutler Seymour and her physician husband, Frederick, in order for Peter to be near his law studies at Harvard. Tonight, as had been true of many nights recently, Mindy Conner Cutler was staying with the Spragues so that she could be with Jamie when he was allowed to leave his post in
Constitution
. The superfrigate, once again under the command of Capt. John
Rodgers, was undergoing a major refit at the Charlestown Navy Yard, and her commissioned and senior warrant officers were required to be on station most days to oversee the process and to monitor progress.

“Aye, he did,” Agreen said. “But ask me and I'll tell you: Jefferson's not tryin' t' do the honorable thing by limitin' his presidency to two terms as President Washington did. No sir! The man wants out; he's tired of his responsibilities. And hell's bells, who can blame him? Besides, he knows he wouldn't be reelected if he ran again.”

“I wouldn't bet on that,” Richard countered. “I agree that Jefferson wants out, but I suspect he'd be reelected by a good margin were he to run again. Next year the Federalists will likely nominate Charles Pinckney again,” referring to a South Carolina statesman, Revolutionary War hero, and Federalist icon, “to oppose Madison, and last time around he was soundly defeated. Madison and Jefferson are two peas in a pod, as you like to say, Agee. In fact, the embargo is probably more Madison's idea than Jefferson's. Our agent, Mr. Shaw, tells us that Madison has been pulling the strings and essentially running this country for the last two years while Jefferson has been biding his time, waiting to step down and return home to Monticello.”

Adele Cutler spoke up. “Like him or not, you have to admire a leader who truly believes he can achieve his diplomatic objectives through economic coercion rather than by force of arms, and thereby save lives and save his country from the ravages of war. President Jefferson may be an idealist, and I agree that in this instance his idealism may have gotten the better of him, but I say that this war-torn world needs a good deal more of his brand of idealism.” She took a sip of wine and added wryly, “I realize that my stepfather would see me in a stock and pillory for uttering such blasphemy.” A chorus of jovial agreement followed that remark. “Fortunately,” she added, “he is not here to hear it. But it
is
a shame,” she continued in a more serious tone. “Jefferson started his presidency with such hope and promise, and he is ending it in such misery and despair.”

Other citizens of the United States and in the halls of Congress might disagree with those last few words, but no one at the table did. Nor was anyone at the table surprised either by Adele's candor or her eagerness to engage in verbal jousting over business and politics. It was one reason why she had become fast friends with Mindy Cutler and Diana Sprague. Well educated and well read, they shared traits that many young women of Boston society found unladylike and unbecoming.

For an extended interval the group sat in silence and ate their supper of roast venison, potatoes, and peas, the only sounds the clinking of
utensils on china, the quiet sighs of gastronomic contentment, and the crackling of birch logs in the hearth. At length, Will Cutler broached a subject that was on everyone's mind but was rarely mentioned outside the inner sanctum of the Cutler & Sons' countinghouse on Long Wharf.

“Uncle Caleb,” he ventured, “just how long can Cutler & Sons continue to pay its sailors with no revenues coming in?”

Caleb gave his nephew a startled look. “As long as it takes,” he said immediately. “How can you even ask such a question, Will?”

Katherine Cutler glanced at her husband, who said, “What your uncle means to say, Will, is that our sailors are our lifeblood and we must keep them on whatever the cost. When they signed on with us, we made a compact with each of them that Cutler & Sons would care for them and their families, come what may. I made that very same promise twenty years ago to the crew of
Eagle
as they sat in an Algerian prison and worried about their loved ones back home. Cutler & Sons made good on that promise, even though we had far fewer resources then than we do today, and kept it throughout the ten years it took to gain the crew's release. For all those years their families never went without. We continued to pay each family what each sailor was due by contract. People wonder how we manage to sustain such loyalty among our crews. Well, there's your answer. So, we're not going to abandon our sailors now, even if that means dipping into our own family's reserves. They will continue to be paid as long as we have funds available to pay them. Sooner or later our government will come to its senses and repeal this embargo. When it does, we'll need our sailors in our employ, and we'll need their continued loyalty. That goes from Mr. Hunt right on down to the lowest-paid deckhand. We've been through this before, haven't we?”

“Yes, of course, Father,” Will said. “I have always understood that and I agree wholeheartedly. My question, though, is how long can we continue to do it?”

“As long as it takes,” his father said, reiterating Caleb's words in a tone that brooked no dissent.

“And bear in mind,” Caleb said in a more congenial tone, “that Cutler & Sons is not entirely without revenues. You've seen the books, Will. Granted, our earnings today are not what they were in years past, but funds are still coming in. John and Robin can still ship to us, and we can sell sugar and rum to the interior of our country through our Baltimore office.”

“Assuming Americans can continue to afford such items,” Will asserted.

“I can't disagree,” Caleb said. He left unsaid his most profound fear, one shared by every member of his family and by many of his countrymen: the effects of a prolonged embargo could devastate the fragile American economy and bankrupt the nation and nearly everyone in it. He also left unsaid the legal point that while Cutler & Sons merchant ships from Barbados were still allowed to ship goods to America under the embargo, they were not permitted to load cargo for the voyage back to Bridgetown—or to any other port. That meant they had to sail from the United States with empty holds, and
that
cut potential revenues in half and squeezed potential profits to the point of no return.