The Guardship

Chapter 18

ONCE A year the great fleet of merchant ships from England and the colonies assembled in Hampton Roads to take on board the eighty thousand or so hogshead casks containing the year’s tobacco crop from Virginia and Maryland. It took nearly one hundred and fifty ships to carry it all, and the duty on that crop, when it was unloaded in England, would yield the government ?300,000 sterling.

The government was thus highly motivated to see that it got there.

For that purpose, the Plymouth Prize, with her clean and tight bottom, fresh rigging, new sails, and now enthusiastic crew, dropped down from Point Comfort and took up her station, anchored to windward of the fleet. She would escort the tobacco ships one hundred leagues from land, through the cordon of seagoing vultures that hovered around the Capes, and out into the deep water where they would be protected by the vastness of the ocean.

One hundred leagues from Land’s End in England, on the other side of the Atlantic, another ship of the Royal Navy would rendezvous with the fleet and escort it to London, protecting it from the dangers lurking in the English Channel. And thus the great wealth rising from the earth of the Crown Colonies poured into Old England, and the taxes on that wealth poured into the government that had organized the whole affair.

And His Majesty’s naval representative in the colony, the man who exercised ultimate authority over the fleet once it had passed beyond the purview of Governor Nicholson, was one Thomas Marlowe, Esq., Master of HMS Plymouth Prize.

He was all but laughing with anticipation as he clambered up the side of the Wilkenson Brothers.

The Brothers was the merchant vessel owned by the Wilkensons, one of the few families wealthy enough to ship their tobacco in their own bottom. Few planters owned ships. Most had to contract independent merchantmen to carry their crop.

The Wilkenson Brothers was a big ship for a merchantman, and well armed. Indeed, as far as size and firepower was concerned, she was more powerful than the Plymouth Prize, and she would have been quite able to see to her own defense if the Wilkensons had shipped enough sailors to simultaneously sail the vessel and fight her.

But they had not, because they did not care to spend that much money, and because they would never have found that many seamen even if they had wanted to. There were precious few qualified mariners to go around, and each vessel had just enough men to sail her, and not one more.

Marlowe stepped through the gangway and onto the deck, stepped aside to make way for Bickerstaff, directly behind him, and the dozen or so armed and dangerous-looking men from the Plymouth Prize who were following him.

George Wilkenson was aboard, as was his father, just as Marlowe had hoped they would be. He was staging the show for their benefit. They had been conferring with the master of the vessel up until the moment they spotted the Plymouth Prize’s long boat heading toward them. Now the three men stood by the main fife rail, an early frost in their eyes, arms folded, awaiting an explanation of this most unwelcome intrusion.

“What is the meaning of this? You were not invited aboard this ship, sir, and you are not welcome,” Jacob Wilkenson said. He looked like he might explode.

“I understand, sir,” Marlowe replied, “and I would not presume to call were it not that duty required it.”

“Duty? What duty have you here?”

“As captain of the guardship, it is my duty to see the enforcement of His Majesty’s laws concerning trade and navigation, and so I am doing my inspection of the fleet.”

“The fleet? You are trespassing aboard my vessel, not the fleet. Is this some kind of trick you are playing, some petty harassment?”

“Nothing of the sort. I shall inspect all the vessels, if time allows. I am simply starting with yours. Now, pray, break open the hatches and let us sway out a few hogsheads for inspection.”

“Break open…” the master sputtered, speaking for the first time. “Why, we’ve just got everything stowed down, and hatches clapped down and battened.”

“Well, sir,” Marlowe said, “unbatten and unclap.”

“We shall do nothing of the sort,” said Wilkenson with finality.

“Very well, then, I shall do it myself.” He gestured to the Prizes and they fell to unbattening the hatch, knocking the wedges out to free the tarpaulins.

“No, no, no time for that,” Marlowe said. “Ax men, just cut it open. Just cut through the tarpaulins and grating.”

The four men in the boarding party whom Marlowe had ordered to carry axes leapt up on the hatch and raised the blades over their heads.

“No, no, belay that!” the master shouted, mere seconds before Marlowe’s men destroyed his tarpaulins and hatch gratings. “Boatswain, see the hatches broke open.”

The guardship’s men stood in silence as the Brothers boatswain and his gang undid a morning’s worth of work, hauling back tarpaulins and lifting off the gratings. The stay tackle was let off and swung out over the gaping hatch, and three of the Prizes climbed down into the dark hold with slings to go around the casks.

George Wilkenson and his father and the master watched with sullen expressions, arms folded. They said not a word, but Marlowe knew that their silence would be short-lived.

Twenty minutes later, the Prizes had a half-dozen hogsheads swayed out and standing on the deck. Marlowe looked them over, walking slowly between them, shaking his head. “This does not look good, I fear. Bickerstaff, be so kind as to measure this.”

Bickerstaff laid his measuring stick across the top of the cask and then against its side, and he shook his head as well. “Thirtysix inches on the head, fifty-two inches tall.”

“Thirty-six…” Marlowe said. “Is that true for all of them?”

Bickerstaff moved down the line, measuring each. “Yes, I fear. They are all the same.”

“Well, sir,” said Marlowe, turning to Wilkenson, “this is a bit of a problem. A legal-sized hogshead is thirty-two inches by forty-eight inches. I might have looked away, you know, had just one or two of these been a bit oversized, but as it is we shall have to measure them all.”

George Wilkenson’s mouth fell open, Jacob’s eyes narrowed with rage. “Measure them all?” George managed to say. “Do you propose that we sway them all out to be measured?”

“I see no other way that it might be done.”

“Oh, to hell with you and your petty harassment!” Jacob Wilkenson shouted. “You do not fool me, you are just trying to get back at us for condemning your trash tobacco. Well, it was trash, sir, and we were within our legal right to burn it! It was our duty!”

“And I am likewise within my right to inspect your casks, and it is likewise my duty. And from what I have seen so far, you are in violation of the law.”

The Wilkensons and the master of their ship stared at Marlowe for a long second but said nothing.

The salient fact-and every man aboard knew it-was that Marlowe was absolutely right. The hogsheads were above the legal size.

What they also knew, though it was hardly worth pointing out, was that every hogshead in the fleet was above legal size. With duties and handling charges set per the hogshead and not by the pound of tobacco contained within, it was a great savings for the planters to cheat a bit on the size of their casks, and most customs officers, for some small consideration, looked the other way. They all did it, which was how Marlowe knew he would catch Wilkenson in the crime. But their all doing it did not make it any more legal.

“Damn your impudence, who do you think you are?” Jacob Wilkenson broke the silence. “You most certainly will not sway out our entire cargo!”

“Indeed? And who shall stop me?” The Plymouth Prizes were gathered in a semicircle behind their captain, looking every bit the band of bloody cutthroats, with pistols and cutlasses thrust into their sashes, axes and muskets cradled in arms, and their heads bound in bright-colored cloth.

“You do not scare us, you and your band of villainous pirates,” the master growled.

“We have no interest of scaring you, sir, only in enforcing the law. And it looks as if there is quite a bit of enforcing that needs doing.”

“Look, Marlowe,” George Wilkenson spoke. His voice was low, his tone reasonable. “If we are in violation of the law, by some unhappy mistake, then I apologize for that. Levy the fine and we’ll pay it and be done with it. After all, the convoy sails in two days.”

“The convoy, sir, sails when I say it sails. And as to-”

“I say, Captain Marlowe?” Bickerstaff called up from the hold where he had gone down to inspect. “I say, look here.” He emerged from the scuttle, and in his hand was a clump of fragrant brown tobacco.

“Is this bulk tobacco? Surely they are not carrying bulk tobacco?”

“Great mounds of the stuff, crammed into every corner of the ship.” Bulk tobacco, tobacco shipped loose and not prized into a hogshead, had been strictly prohibited by act of Parliament since 1698, though, like the oversize casks, it was unlikely

that any ship in the convoy was not carrying it, so profitable was it in clandestine sales.

“Why, sir,” Marlowe turned to the Wilkensons and the master, “I am shocked, shocked to find this. This is no more than smuggling, damn me, and you one of the leading families in the colony. I am sorry, but I cannot let this go.”

“Just levy the damned fine and get off my ship!” Jacob Wilkenson all but shouted.

“This is beyond a fine, sir. Either you will get this tobacco in hogsheads of a legal size, and the bulk as well, or you shall not sail.”

“Not sail?” the master growled. “And how do you propose to keep us from sailing?”

“By removing every sail from your ship, sir, if you do not comply. Now I suggest you get to work. You’ve a great deal to do.”

Less than three hours later the Wilkenson Brothers looked like a beehive, with workers swarming over her, racing to get the cargo in order before the sailing of the fleet. Even if it had been legal to sail unescorted, which it was not, it would have been suicide, with the pirates that swarmed around the Capes and infested the sea between the coast of America and the Caribbean.

Of course, pirates would not even be an issue after Marlowe took their sails.

Marlowe imagined that the Wilkensons had considered complaining to the governor, but they would have realized that doing so would be folly. What would they say to him? That Marlowe was being unfair in forcing them to obey the law?

Rather, they and their people worked like men possessed to make their cargo legal. They brought new hogsheads down on sloops, from where, Marlowe did not know, and laboriously hoisted each old cask out of the hold and broke it open to reprize its contents into the new, smaller cask.

The tobacco on the Wilkensons’ ship, having been prized once already, was much easier to prize again, but still this operation consumed two full days, with the men of the Plym

outh Prize laying odds and making wagers on whether or not they would finish in time. When Marlowe found himself unable to sleep he would take a turn on the guardship’s deck, and from there he could see the sailors and the field hands toiling by lantern light in the waist of the Wilkenson Brothers, breaking open hogsheads, emptying them, reprizing the tobacco, and storing them down again.

On several occasions the Wilkensons sent a man over to invite Marlowe to inspect their progress, for fear no doubt that he would demand the new casks be brought up again once they were stowed down. He declined these invitations, each time sending his word as a gentleman that he would trust another gentleman to honor his agreement and the law.

Two days later, with the tobacco fleet making ready to sail, the job was done. The Wilkensons’ sloop cast off from the ship’s side and began to beat northwest up the James River, and from the deck of the Plymouth Prize Marlowe could hear the ringing of hammers as the wedges in the battens were driven home. He was impressed. He never thought they would finish in time.

“Boarding party, are you ready?” Marlowe asked. Gathered in the waist was another armed party, much the same as the first, but bigger.

“Ready, sir,” said Lieutenant Rakestraw, leading the gang.

“Very good. Into the boat, then.”

“Tom,” said Bickerstaff, standing at Marlowe’s side, “is this entirely necessary? Have we not had vengeance enough?”

“What we put those bastards through was a mere annoyance compared to the damage they have done us. Look here, Francis, you made the point yourself. Burning our crop does little harm to you and me. It’s the field hands who suffer. It is more their loss than anyone’s.”

“You are not doing this for the field hands. This will not restore their crop. I fear we are only prolonging our pointless warfare with the Wilkensons.”

“Nonsense. This will put an end to it, and will give us assurance that such will never happen again. I must go.” With

that Marlowe climbed down into the boat, unwilling to discuss a decision that he had already made.

Once again he climbed up the side of the Wilkensons’ ship, an armed band at his back. The ship did not look nearly as tidy and bravely rigged as she had two days before. There were bits of wood, clumps of tobacco, broken barrel staves, and hoops scattered about. Rigging lay in great piles on the deck. The men looked utterly exhausted, as if they had hardly slept in days, which, in fact, they had not.

The Wilkensons were there, Jacob furious at Marlowe’s effrontery, George weary and afraid.

“Marlowe, what in all hell is it now?” Jacob Wilkenson demanded. “I was fool enough to accept your word as a gentleman that there would be no more inspections.”

“And none there shall be,” Marlowe said brightly. “If you say the cargo is legally done, then I am composed of trust. But there is just one more matter.”

Wilkenson and the master exchanged glances, a mutual dread of what Marlowe would say next. A well-founded dread, as it happened.

“I am short of men,” Marlowe said, “having not replaced my casualties from the battle of Smith Island. I fear I shall need some of the men from your company to man the guardship.”

“You think you will press men out of my ship? You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, but I am. We all must sacrifice, you know, for the good of all. The guardship needs men enough to protect the tobacco fleet.”

Jacob Wilkenson took a step forward, his lips pursed, and Marlowe could well imagine what he was about to say, but he never had the chance. The master grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back, and in a tone of weary resignation asked, “How many men do you want, Marlowe?”

“Oh, I should think eight would do it. These men here, for starters.” Marlowe indicated the five men who were just lying back to deck after having loosened off topsails and topgallants. The fact that they were working aloft, and working the

topsails, told him that they were the foremost hands on the Wilkensons’ ship.

“Eight hands!” This announcement shook the master from his resignation. “But that’s half my men! I can’t sail if you take eight men!”

“Indeed?” The Plymouth Prizes under Rakestraw’s direction had already herded the topmen and three others and were standing in a semicircle around this group of exhausted, confused, and increasingly angry men.

“Look here, Marlowe,” said George Wilkenson, trying once more to be the voice of reason. “You have taken your revenge for what you perceive as our crime against you. But this is too much. You know full well that we will lose a whole year’s crop if we do not sail. There are no more seamen to be found on the Chesapeake.”

“I know all too well about the paucity of seamen in these colonies. That is why I must take yours.”

“If you need men,” said the master, “why d’ya not take one from each of a dozen ships?”

“I could,” Marlowe admitted. “But I will not.”

“God damn you!” Jacob Wilkenson exploded at last. “You cannot do this! You cannot press men without the governor’s consent! You are breaking the law, you blackballing bastard!”

At this Marlowe looked around in dramatic fashion and said, “I see no law here, sir, other than myself.”

“Get off my ship.”

“Very well. Lieutenant Rakestraw, see these men down into the longboat.” Rakestraw, with many a push and strong word, began to file the unfortunate men down the ship’s side and into the Prize’s longboat.

“Marlowe, you bastard, you whore’s son!” Jacob Wilkenson was across the deck in an instant. He grabbed Marlowe by the collar, and before Marlowe could react jerked him close so their faces were inches apart. “You’ll not get away with this, you bastard, d’ya hear? You upstart, coming to this place and worming your way into command of the guardship…”

Marlowe said not a word but reached down to his cross-belt, unclipped a pistol, brought it up between them.

“You think you have the governor in your pocket, sir, but let me assure you-” Jacob continued, then stopped as he felt the cold circle of steel, the end of the barrel pressed into the soft flesh under his chin. He faltered in his harangue. Marlowe drew back the cock.

“Please unhand me,” Marlowe said. Wilkenson’s grip went slack and Marlowe stepped away, easing the cock of his pistol down. “Another of your family had the temerity to insult me thus, and you were witness to his fate. Be thankful I do not demand satisfaction of you. However, if you wish to meet me like a man, you need just tell me. If not, I will thank you to keep your mouth shut.”

The Wilkensons stood staring their hatred at him but said nothing. Marlowe knew they would not rise to the bait. Matthew Wilkenson’s arrogance might have been marked by bold stupidity, but Jacob Wilkenson was more cunning than that, and George was the kind of coward who would be devious rather than openly aggressive.

“Very well, then,” Marlowe said, “let this be an end to it.” He bid them both good day and followed Lieutenant Rakestraw down into the crowded longboat.

Let this be an end to it. He might well hope for that. They all might hope for that, but Marlowe knew it would never be, his words to Bickerstaff notwithstanding.

He had seen enough of that kind of conflict, faction against faction, to know that the only way for it to end would be for one or the other side to admit defeat or for one side to finish the other off.

And Marlowe knew that neither he nor the Wilkensons would ever admit defeat.