The King`s Commission

Chapter 4

Florida pretty much ain't worth a tuppeny shit, Alan thought moodily as they lay up ashore just a few miles short of the headwaters of the Ochlockonee. The past night and day had been miserable. The air was still, and foetid with the smells of marsh and mud, the swamps aswarm with mosquitoes and biting flies, biting gnats. Alligators and poisonous snakes were two-a-penny on the banks, in the water, laying out for a bask on the tree limbs that overhung the banks when they were forced close ashore by a bend in the channel, or snuffling about under the banks in their nests and roaring at them when disturbed.

They had made very good time, though, catching a favorable slant of wind on the first night when the river was wide enough for short-tacking inland. So far they were a day ahead of schedule.

It was only after the sun had come up that they had been forced to row as the banks closed in and rose higher in thickly treed hammocks that blocked the breeze from the sea, and the familiar tang of salt air was left behind like a lover's perfume. The heat wasn't bad, though the air was stiflingly wet enough and humid enough to wring perspiration from them by the bucket, and it was a blessing that the leafy green waters could be drunk safely, or dipped up and sluiced over tired bodies.

Bald cypress, scrub pine, and yellow-green stagnant ponds spread out on either hand under the canopy of the marshes, punctuated by water reeds, sharp-edged grasses, or jagged stumps of prodigious size. Bright birds the like of which the hands had never seen cried and stalked or fluttered below the canopy. Frogs the size of rabbits croaked at them from their resting places. Water bugs skittered on the deceptively calm water as it slid like treacle through the marshes. Now and then a hammock of higher sandy ground loomed up around a bend in the channel, covered with pines thick as the hair on a cat's back, open to the bright sky as the result of a lightning fire, or burn.

Otter, deer, a host of wildlife, lurked along the banks. Alan saw raccoons for the first time, and opposums hanging by their naked tails like obscene caricatures of rats. He had been almost nauseated by McGilliveray's granted comment that opposums were very good to eat, though he was never one to refuse a bread-room fed "miller" in his midshipman days-at least the ship's rats were decent-sized!

McGilliveray had gone totally native by then, stripping off his shirt to bare more pagan tattooing, wrapping a length of cloth about his head like a Hindi's turban as Cashman styled it, naked under breech-clout, and the leggings only covering his thighs, held up by thongs from the single strap that held the breech-clout in place. Most of the sailors had tied their kerchiefs about their heads like small four-cornered mob-caps. The soldiers sported rough imitations of turbans, and had taken off their shirts as well, though their skins gleamed almost frog-belly pale in the fierce light, and several were already regretting the exposure, and patting their burns with water. At least in that regard Alan's sailors were more fortunate, since they had had months and years of continual tanning by the sun, so they appeared at first glance as ruddy as any savage.

"Apalachee scout over there," McGilliveray whispered, coming to Lewrie's side. "I shall go speak to him."

"Is that wise?" Cowell asked, almost prostrate with exhaustion, though he had not done a lick of work since plunking his posterior on a thwart the night before. Alan thought it comical to see how McGilliveray had tricked Cowell out in breech-clout, leggings, moccasins and calico checkered shirt, with a turban of his own, like a maggot done up as a man. He could not have fooled a European at a hundred yards, and any Indian running across him would have asked him how fast the pitch was at the new Lord's cricket grounds.

"We have to let them know who we are eventually, sir," McGilliveray said. "They saw us land, tracked us up-river. I had hoped we would make contact with them last night. It's only polite, seeing as how we've crossed most of their territory already."

"If this is the best real-estate they have, they're welcome to every bloody stick of it," Alan griped.

McGilliveray stood up and waved an arm, calling out in his odd language, and from where Alan thought only a mosquito could live, up popped a full half-dozen savages, dressed in breech-clouts and tattoos only, bearing long cane bows and arrows. McGilliveray took off his moccasins and waded across a shallow slough of weeds and reeds to converse with them.

"They don't look like Rousseau's noble savages, do they, Mister Cowell?" Cashman asked, coming to join them as they stood idly by watching the parley.

"Look how lithe and tall they are, how nobly they bear themselves, sir," Cowell disagreed softly. "One does not need much clothing in such climes. Mankind, reduced to Eden, without a houseful of possessions and gew-gaws, with no prating philosophies to occasion rancor, shorn of metaphysics, of confusing science. They are a handsome folk, you'll not be able to deny. All pretensions of society cast aside, and relying on Nature and our Creator and their native wit for sustenance. You may speak of barbarity, of quick anger and bloody-handed murther, but has Mankind, in all our wisdom, gone far beyond those passions for all our supposed improvements, Captain Cashman?"

"We don't kill quite so openly and easily, sir," Cashman replied.

"Life, in all its facets, is closer and more personal with them, sir. They are not like us, but we were once much like them, and still are, in many ways yet. The brave man slays with a sword, the coward with an invitation to tea, if I may paraphrase the quotation, ha ha."

"I've never been scalped at a cat-lapping," Alan quipped. "Fucked with, God yes, and damned proud of it, mind."

"We are in luck, Mister Cowell," McGilliveray told them when he returned. "There are Seminolee a few miles ahead of us, in a spring camp to fish. Lots of horses."

"Any Spanish?" Cashman pressed.

"None seen this far inland in weeks. Some parties passed north of the swamps and crossed the rivers heading west a few days ago," McGilliveray/White Turtle grunted, having seemingly given up the act of smiling for the duration. "A company of horse, and one of foot, with baggage train. But they were busy driving stolen cattle they took from British colonists far off to the east."

"According to this map, there is a small stream that leads to the Apalachicola River," Alan pointed out, folding out their large chart. "How deep is it? This one that leads west and nor'west."

"Very shallow. Dugout canoes have trouble there," their guide said, after peering at the map, and at Lewrie. "Another change, Mister Lewrie?"

"We've made good time by water so far, why change bets now?" Alan replied, mopping his face with a kerchief. "If it goes our way."

"Best we continue on north." White Turtle scowled, pointing in that direction with a chin jutted over his shoulder. "This river bends easterly to the lake. Where the lake begins we find horses. Leave the boats, and a guard over them."

"Damn, splitting our party again," Cashman spat. "What's odds these Apalachee, or your relatives the Seminolee, would keep them safe for us. For a share of the profits, of course."

"If the Seminolee want something, they take it." He shrugged.

"Well, they can't make off with anything big as a launch and a gig, can they?" Alan japed. "I saw something up at Yorktown, a set of poles lashed together from a horse so it could drag, instead of carry a load. We could take the rations, masts, oars, everything on the drag behind one horse. I assume we'll march? Right, then. We haul the boats ashore and hide them from the Spanish at least. Then if they rip out the thwarts, we may still make new ones later. Wrap everything else up in the sails and shroud lines, which we can't easily replace."

"You are a paragon, Alan," Cashman beamed. "I'd never have ever thought of anything like that. See how fortunate we are, Mister Cowell, how well the Admiralty has provided for you?"

"Let's simply be on our way. It's stifling in these swamps," Cowell fluttered petulantly.

"Right you are, then. Off we go. Andrews? Back into the boats."

They began to get back aboard, but several of the men from the launch shrank back in fear and scrambled back ashore quick as they could.

"They's a bloody snake, Mister Lewrie, sir!" one of the hands yelped.

"Well, kill it and let's go."

"No!" McGilliveray shouted. "Never kill a snake! Bad luck with my people!"

"Wot're we s'posed ter do wifem, 'em, kiss 'em an' tuck 'em inna bed'r somefin'?" one of the older men muttered loud enough to hear.

"I do it. They're poisonous," McGilliveray offered, and climbed into the boat, using a long club to lift the snake out and toss it over the side, after greeting it in Muskogean.

"Notice how his speech is getting more pidgin as we go?" Cashman noted before they shoved off.

"Yes, I had. Must be getting back into the mood of his people," Alan replied.

"Perhaps," Cashman whispered, rubbing his nose. "Perhaps."

After camping at the lake shore with the party of Seminolee men, they started out at first light after a dip in the water and a quick breakfast. The Seminolee had provided some rather good horses, and had known what Alan was driving at when he described a drag. With some of the trade goods left behind, and at least the promise that the boats would be left undisturbed, there was nothing for it but to proceed.

Once out of the swamps, the land opened out into grassy meadows almost like park land, where the heat was not so oppressive and the gentle winds could cool them on their march. It was early January, and the skies were cloudier than before, promising rain.

With a pair of cotton stockings on, rolled down to the ankle, Alan found moccasins rather comfortable to march in. They went in a single file, with soldiers and sailors gathered round the pack-horses, and Seminolee out on the flanks and rear, with a scout out ahead.

"Great warrior, the Raven," White Turtle said, pointing with his chin to the head of the column. "The bravest man. He gives call of a raven if he sees trouble. To the left, the Wolf."

"Who howls, I presume?" Alan replied, meaning to be civil.

"To the right, the Owl, who will hoot. Behind us, the Fox who will yelp." McGilliveray nodded in agreement. "The others should go all in each others' moccasin prints, so it only looks like one man. Might be a big party, might be one man alone. Makes for safety."

"Seems safe enough now."

"Nothing is safe here, you will learn."

"But it's so open!" Alan protested, shifting the sling of his fusil on his shoulder. "Two hundred yards to the trees, and the scouts."

"Hide behind tree, hide in those groves. Lay in the grass. Ten warriors, twenty? They could be on you before you get that gun to your shoulder."

"Delightful." Alan shuddered. "Look, about that snake yesterday. Never kill a snake."

"No."

"Never wash meat in a stream, never piss in one, never put out a fire with water. Never get downstream of a widow, or upstream from a wife. Avoid women in their monthlies like the plague. What else?"

"A great deal more, Lewrie," McGilliveray said. "But it makes sense to us. Women are a separate animal from man. Not like us at all, so we have to be careful we are not defiled. We know the Thunder Boys are the ones who create mischief in this world, and people bring it on because they mixed elements that should not have been mixed. In the world above, everything is perfect, each animal, each plant, and man and woman, larger than us, and perfect. Down below in the underworld, monsters and witches and Water-Cougar, one of everything, but evil. In the right here world, sometimes the perfect comes down, sometimes bad comes up from below, like Spear-Finger, the old woman who kills and steals men's souls to feed on so she can live forever. Even when she was finally killed, she did not really die. The good and the bad always come back, so people must always be on their guard not to defile their spirit, or offend the Great Spirit by defilement. For their own good, their family and clan, and their nation."

"Is that what you believe personally?" Alan asked. "Are you a Christian, or do you believe the native religion?"

"When my father took me to Charleston, and then to England, he taught me about God and Jesus, but I always found it a little confusing," McGilliveray admitted. "Even after a year at Cambridge, I find the old ways more comforting. Mister Cowell and his friends tried to explain the unexplainable as he puts it, but the various points of doctrine are troubling to me."

"Ah well, most people have that problem. Most call themselves Deists and let it go at that." Alan grinned.

"Then you do not honor your God who made you, as we do. To say that God exists, and then continue your life your own way, is to negate your belief," McGilliveray expounded. "Others leap about and speak no known tongue, shake and dance in glory. They raise the Bible on high and declare everyone sinners but themselves. But then they go out and kill eagles for sport, kill snakes, sleep with their women in their courses. All Christians treat the earth as a dead thing to walk upon, and all animals as dumb food. When we kill an eagle to get its feathers for our great men, it takes much prayer, and we ask the eagle, and the Great Spirit, who is most in the birds, and in the eagles of any race of animals on earth, to forgive us for we have to do this. Christians would strip this land bare, chop all the trees, slaughter all the game far beyond what they could eat, because God gave man dominion back in the cloud-time before the clans saw their signs. Look here," he said, pointing to a circle tattoo on his chest, which enclosed a four-legged equilateral cross.

"This is the circle of the world between the sky and the underworld. The four principal directions, and where they meet, right here now. Everyone of Indian blood knows here is where he must live if he wants to be good, following the laws laid down by the Great Perfect Spirits."

He reached out and put a hand inside Alan's shirt.

"Hold on, my good fellow!" Alan snapped, unused like any Englishman at being pawed at. But McGilliveray took hold of his small juju bag strung about his neck and weighed it thoughtfully.

"How odd. I had expected to find a cross," McGilliveray said with a wary expression. He let go of the bag so that Alan could tuck it back into his shirt. "The white man's cross is off-center. There is no sense of being centered, and the directions lead off to nothing, which is why all white men, all Christians are so unhappy, and want to have dominion. I saw the old roods, the Celtic crosses of your people in the long ago, which had circles around the center, but the directions go beyond the circle. They must have been close to the truth in those days, but even so, they never really knew peace."

"We could have had a fish, you know. What would you make of that, I wonder?" Alan groused, still resenting the manhandling.

"Then it would be a great fish that swims the world's oceans and never knows rest," McGilliveray intoned. "If one cannot find peace, then one will try to run everything to one's own satisfaction in the search for peace. How much better are my people, who live so close and snug to each other, in a great family. We know want, but we share equally, not like you who store up food and wealth from each other and let other men of your kind starve or beg. If our clan or town is rich in food, we all eat well. If there is little, we all starve together, and pray that we have lived well, so that the Great Spirits and the perfect spirits of the deer people, bear people and fish people may come to our hunters and help us by giving us their lives. If a man was starving back in your London, and he came to your door, would you send out a slice of your roast beef to him? I do not think you would, sir. To you, all is property and goods. You are a Christian yourself?"

"Church of England, and damned proud of it, sir."

"So many of your people say that, but they do not really believe in their crucified son of God, not in their hearts. And which God do you serve with your little bag?" McGilliveray asked with the smugly superior tone of anyone who thinks he is more righteous than the next.

"It's a good luck charm, from a young lady of my acquaintance," Alan had to admit sheepishly. "One of her servants made it… to keep me safe from drowning, and such."

"Not even representative of any god, then. How sad. What is in it, do you know?"

"No, I don't. And what's in yours?" Alan asked.

"My personal medicine."

"Then please be so good as to leave mine alone in future," Alan spat.

McGilliveray glared and trotted toward the head of the column.

"Bet the Wesley brothers would love you," Alan muttered to himself once McGilliveray had gotten far enough off, thinking how absurd it was to be discussing theology with a Cambridge man in breech-clout and scarifications with his bare arse waving about in the breeze.

At the evening stop, not half a day's march from the second lake where they would find McGilliveray's tribal towns, Alan took a tour of his men, seeing to it that they were bedded down comfortably and had a hot meal. Some of the Seminolee had put up some birds and nailed them with their insubstantial cane arrows tipped with fish bones or tiny flints. There was sofkee, a hominy meal mush, a soup or stew of the birds, succotash of sweet corn kernels and beans, and cool clear water to wash it down.

The men had been issued a small measure of rum, liberally mixed with water to have with their meal, and the Seminolee had crowded round to take a taste, though McGilliveray was leery of the practice, and warned all not to share more with them.

"'Ere ya go, Mister Lewrie, sir," Cony said, dishing up a bowl of sofkee with some of the game-bird stew ladled over it. "H'it ain't bad, really. Better eatin'n we got in the Chesapeake, sir. An' I got yer rum ration laid by, so's the Seminolee won't notice."

"You're a wonder, Cony," Alan said, sitting down cross-legged on a piece of sailcloth by a crackling small fire with the other officers. McGilliveray was at another fire with the Seminolee, stuffing food into his mouth with one hand and talking with the other. Pipes were going on all sides, though it was a rough blend, Cowell stated.

"Well, no one's turned into mad foaming bears yet from rum," Cashman said. "Though I wouldn't mind much."

"One is struck by how much progress we have made," Cowell said, smiling while perched on a fallen log for a seat. "It has all fallen out pretty much as young Desmond said it would. The Apalachee were friendly, and now so too are the Seminolee, giving us an escort and all."

"There is that," Cashman replied, laughing softly. "And the fact that we still have our hair and our livers."

"If one approaches people in a friendly, open manner, Captain, with something of value that they desire, as a prize for good behavior, what else could one expect?" Cowell sniffed. In the firelight he looked, in his Indian garb, much like some haggard bridge troll from a nursery story. "We have not given offense, have we?"

"No, but other white men before us have, and they're not the sort to forget easily, or forgive," Cashman commented between spoonfuls of victuals. "There's still the possibility that someone might be tempted to knock us off for our arms and the goods we carry, and the devil with the rest of the shipment. They have no concept of time, of waiting for things promised when they can get half a loaf now."

"For your information, these Seminolee are going with us to the Creek town," Cowell told them. "To get a share of the spoils, yes, and to visit. Indians either fight or feed you if you show up on their door step. Some of them have second wives among the Muskogee. They've sent for their mikkos to come parley. And they let Desmond know that his own mikkos are pretty much together at the main town ahead of us. It's some game they play, an annual contest of some importance to them."

"So Parliament's been called to session, and it's Cambridge Fair," Alan offered for a jest.

"It would appear so, Lieutenant Lewrie," Cowell replied stiffly, still on the outs with his naval commander. "I shall be glad to get there, put on a decent suit, and get out of these rags. And spend a night under a roof. No matter how exotic and exciting this journey of ours is, I must own to being unused to such discomfort."

"We did have a roof over our heads last night," Cashman pointed out. "That was about all, though, I'll grant you."

The Seminolee had erected a temporary fishing camp, replete with structures they called chickees, open platforms raised several feet off the ground and open to the night winds and any flying insects, with a thatched roof to keep off the rain. McGilliveray told them sleeping so high off the ground discouraged snakes that would otherwise crawl into their bedding for warmth, and made the leap too far for fleas. Either way, either the mosquitos or the tiny biting gnats had gotten to them, for they all itched and had broken out in rashes.

"Desmond tells me that as honored guests and ambassadors, we shall probably be quartered in the town house," Cowell went on. "If the visiting mikkos have not already taken it. Their winter meeting hall, I'm told, very solid and snug. Much like an Irish sod house, I think."

"God pity us," Cashman said grinning. "All fleas and no whiskey."

McGilliveray came back from the Seminolee fire circle to join them, and sat down gracefully in a cross-legged position. "If you have finished supper, you might wish to try a short parley with the Seminolee with me, sir. Their Raven is not very influential, but you will do great honor to sit with him and smoke a pipe or two. He's gaining note as a warrior, and as a great man, sure to lead a chiefdom in future."

"That sounds eminently sensible, thank you, Desmond, I shall."

Cony and Andrews came in from the dark, carrying large bundles of Spanish moss, which they had harvested from the nearest trees to make a soft mat for bedding, and McGilliveray smiled for the first time that day.

"I wouldn't if I were you, gentlemen. Don't sleep on moss."

"Why?" Alan asked, having used some the night before to make a pallet.

"There are tiny red bugs that thrive in the moss, like very small lice," McGilliveray told them. "They can hardly be seen, but they drive people mad from the itching."

"I was wondering what 'gentlemen's companions' had gotten to us," Cashman said, and Cony and Andrews dumped the stuff immediately and began to wipe their arms and chests down.

"Once we get to the town, I can give you some grease to make them leave you, but for tonight, I am afraid you shall have to scratch." He frowned. "Did you use some last night? I'm sorry, I should have told you. There is so much to know, and so much of it comes naturally to me, that it slipped my mind entirely."

"We could take a dip and scrub them off. I have some soap," Alan offered.

"Not at night!" McGilliveray gasped. "The Water-Cougar…!" He paused and pouted at his own reaction. "It's safer to avoid the water after dark. You can't see the snakes until you stumble upon them."

"What a country," Alan snapped, exasperated and now itching fit to feel the need to scream. Damme, I started out being terrified of being gutted and scalped, and now I'm more scared of dropping my breeches after dark than I am of these mangy pagans, he thought.

"It is good country, even so," Cowell said. "Look at these fine meadows, just waiting for herds to graze them. Think of the crops that could be raised in this rich soil. Forests enough to build fine home-steads."

"It is a fine country, sir," McGilliveray echoed. "But, who is to do this farming and cattle-raising? Our people like having wild land around them, land no one uses, except for hunting and fishing. Do not forget that one of our aims is to reach some sort of accommodation with our respective peoples. The lands are just as rich to the east, on the other side of Apalachee Bay."

"You mean this would revert to Indian land?" Cashman asked.

"There are swamps and rivers running north and south to the east. The new American colony of Georgia to the north," McGilliveray pointed out. "If my people, and the Seminolee, are to be your barrier to future expansion here in the south by the Rebels, we must determine where the Creek, Seminolee and others can live in peace, with secure borders."

"Why can't we live together?" Alan asked, trying his hand at politics. "It would be good for your people, would it not?"

"When has it ever been good for Indians to live cheek-to-jowl with Europeans, Lieutenant Lewrie?" McGilliveray asked sadly. "Do you but think back on the history of relations between us since the first colonists. Slaughter, misunderstandings, Indians displaced from their ancestral lands by usurpers. We shall never understand each other. You think in terms of property to buy and sell; my people own everything, and nothing. Our ways are so different. Your people slave to make a living, put up houses to last hundreds of years, while my people do with so little, and all we have is impermanent, taking only what we need. We are clean in our personal habits of bathing each morning, but wear the same single trade-good clothing until they wear out, and have no need for more, just to have something to prove we are wealthy, as you do. I saw your sea chest aboard ship, sir. You carry a lifetime's worth of goods for your comfort. I and any of my people could gather his life's possessions in a single sack, and feel rich."

"Well…" Alan began but Cashman shushed him with a nudge.

"Perhaps sometime in the distant future, there will be good relations between us, but until then, it would be best if someone could say, here is Indian land this side of this river. No whites but traders and missionaries go there. Here is where Indians do not go. We Creeks and the Seminolee know our borders, to the north where Upper Creek territory starts, and the Upper Creek know where Cherokee land begins. To the west of here are Chickasaw, Choctaw, Natchez. If white men come among us here, there is nowhere for us to go. If rum comes among us as trade goods, we lose respect for our mikkos and mischief comes down with the Thunder Boys. We cannot be with you and stay a people. If you need us, and truly want to live in peace with us, you must realize this. If you want us to take the arms and fight your enemies for you, then you must let us live our own ways on our own lands. To keep our lands and our ways, we need your support and your arms, your soldiers close by."

"But what about the smaller tribes already here?" Cashman asked.

"The Spanish and the French have already destroyed them," McGilliveray said. "They could move to the Indian territories, if they do not like living among the Rebels or the British. People in small groups can always find a home in another tribe easily. And if there is land that you want, then the Upper Creeks, the Lower Creeks, and the Seminolee, tied by trade treaties, supported by British arms, can make war on the smaller tribes with you. The Alabama, Biloxi, Kosati, and some of the tribes along the coast. West of here, toward Pensacola, and the mouth of the Mobile, there are fewer swamps along the coast. If we march together, you take certain lands, and we take certain lands, making sure we have good borders, you get what you want, and we get what we want. When the Rebels come across the mountains, as they will, they will put pressure on the Cherokee, and the small tribes in Georgia, who will be forced to move onto our lands. But if my people have strong allies who will march to our aid and give us weapons, we can say 'no' to them."

"An Indian kingdom," Cowell said, having heard the argument before. "We join hands with sultans and rajahs in the East Indies so."

"This would give heart to the Cherokee to hold onto their land, to come parley with England for the same sort of help. And you already help the Iroquois League north of them. A solid barrier, all along the great river Mississippi, west of the mountains where the Rebels live."

"Been my experience with sultans that they'd rather fight among themselves than eat," Cashman stated, a trifle dubious.

"Then bring officers among us, white officers and sergeants to lead us, to teach us, like the East India Company raises native units," McGilliveray urged, getting excited. "Bring teachers to help us develop, our own books, printed in Muskogean. Do you know just how big this continent really is, Captain? How far it stretches to the other ocean? It would take a thousand years to fill it up with people. Think of Indian regiments who could help you take it and hold it. Think of future wars with the Rebels, and how the people east of the mountains could be defeated with our help, not just as irregular scouts and raiders, but as a field army, like Germanic and Gallic auxiliaries who supplied the cavalry to Imperial Rome! And how barbaric were the Germans to the Romans at the time. As barbaric as we appear to your burgeoning Empire now?"

"Gad!" Alan exclaimed, getting dizzy at the thought of it. "Is that what we could start? We'd go down in history, famous as anybody!"

"It is, indeed, Lieutenant Lewrie," Cowell said so soberly that even in his ludicrous togs, he looked as impressive as any to-gaed Senator of old Rome himself. "So you see why Desmond and I were so worried that neither of you seemed very involved in it, and have altered our carefully laid arrangements."

"Had we been told, sir, it would have made a difference," Cashman replied. "Did you discuss this hope with Lieutenant Colonel Peacock? With Alan's admiral?"

"We were not able to make either of them privy to all our goals."

"Damme, Mister Cowell, we should've landed a regiment and come ashore with a band, 'stead o' this rag-tag-and-bobtail. I didn't even bring my regimentals with me. Alan left his uniform behind. From now on, would you please consider us in your plans, 'stead o' keepin' it to y'rself?"

"I give you my solemn vow that from this instant, you shall be thoroughly informed, and involved, in our deliberations, Captain," Cowell said, giving them a satisfied smile. "But do you see the implications of our embassy to the most powerful southern tribes? Not simply correcting a fiscal mistake which reduced subsidies when the war began. If we had continued financial aid, the Creeks and Seminolee would have stayed on with us instead of staying neutral, and we would have had the force to retain Florida and Georgia, come the Devil himself against us. God willing, it is still not too late to recover this region. And in the process, establish a fairer, more productive and peaceful relationship between all Indians and all Europeans throughout the Americas, one that shall put to shame near on two hundred and fifty years of the way we have dealt together. The Rebels are married to the old ways, while our new colonists to a renascent British Florida, untainted by misconceptions of the past, can adjust to the new order of things."

"And I would not worry much about making a grand show," McGilliveray chuckled. "Along the Great Lakes, the 8th Regiment wears Iroquois garb as part of its full-dress regimentals, Captain. My people have seen grand embassies before, and they all led to nothing. What we bring is more important than how well you dress for them. As I remember, I saw a painting in London just before we left. A very famous soldier portrayed in part Hindu garb, part rag-tag-and-bobtail, as you put it. He was Clive of India. Would you gentlemen like to be known to history as famous as Clive? He won England a doorway to India. You could win England the rest of North America."