The Whiskey Rebel

Joan Maycott

March 1792

Things began to happen not precisely quickly, for events were spread out over several weeks, but certainly with a kind of consistency that, looked at later with the eye of history, would certainly give the impression of rapidity. Duer attempted to proceed with his plan to control six percent securities, but his failure with the Million Bank was a public setback. News spread that Duer’s schemes had failed him, and so finally there was tarnish upon his name.

Soon thereafter the Bank of the United States began to restrict credit, calling in loans, including a number belonging to Duer that were difficult, if not impossible for him to meet. Then the last blow was struck. The Treasury Department itself had conducted an inquiry into Duer’s actions on the old Treasury Board-the ones I had myself discovered-and found the $236,000 he had illegally appropriated. Duer objected and wrote to Hamilton, begging forbearance, but these were only delaying tactics, and now it was but a matter of waiting for the inevitable.

The great speculator no longer made appearances at the Merchants’ Coffeehouse. He could ask none of his agents to do his bidding. All either faced their own ruin or would not be touched by Duer’s new ignominy. Instead, he barricaded himself in his house in Greenwich Village and, I could only imagine, attempted to convince himself that even the most severe of storms would, in the end, pass. A man who had endured as much as he would endure this.

He did venture out now and again for private business, and one such time, near the end, he came to see me. I received him in my parlor. Unlike Pearson on the day of the Million Bank launch, Mr. Duer appeared neatly dressed and well groomed and, were someone not to know his circumstances, he would never suspect him to be in any danger. I could only see him as the buzzard circling the dying form of a corruptible nation.

He sipped a glass of sherry and smiled at me, inquired how I had been keeping myself and what news I had to report. I made small talk, of course, but in the end I was forced to return the subject to his own concerns.

“I do not like to repeat the unpleasant news I hear in the papers,” I ventured, “but you and I have ever been too friendly for me to pretend there are no such reports abroad.”

“You need not concern yourself with me,” he said. “I shall weather this. There are always moments of crisis in a speculator’s life. This is but a distraction.”

I sipped my sherry but never once took my eyes off him. “I should like to know how you will extract yourself from these difficulties.”

He looked at me, seeing something new in me, perhaps. He might have, for I was growing weary of disguise. Indeed, I could hardly imagine a reason to remain in disguise. “Your tone, madam, suggests you do not think you will see me recover.”

“You owe more than half a million dollars by my estimate, and that assumes you will liquidate your items of real value, including your house. Creditors such as the Bank of the United States are not easily put off, and I don’t think the coopers and bakers of the city from whom you’ve borrowed will be any more forgiving. Indeed, you may have more to fear from them than you do the law.”

He said nothing for a long moment, as if waiting for the words that would erase what I had already said, the words that would turn everything into a great joke. “I-I cannot understand why you would speak to me so.”

“I only tell you the truth. You do not hate the truth, do you?” I set down my drink, folded my hands in my lap, and looked at him until he looked away.

“Is it the money?” he asked. “Is that what this comes to? You fear I shall soon be worthless, and so you scorn me?”

“Even in your moments of distress, you are nothing but a creature of greed. You think there is nothing in the world but money, sir? You think we care for nothing but wealth? It means nothing to me. Have I ever asked you for so much as a penny? No, never. I have never wanted anything from you, and yet you did not notice it.”

He wiped his hands on his pants. “I do not know how to respond to this. I must go.” But he did not stand.

“When you first sought my company,” I continued, “I thought you must press me for the most intimate of favors. Did you know that, if I had been made to choose between giving in to you and incurring your displeasure, I would have given in? That is how much I wanted you to regard me well, to trust me. But you did not want the pleasures of the flesh. You wanted only to feel clever and important, and I had to do no more than praise your ideas and confirm your sense of self. And now you are ruined, ruined beyond redemption, and nothing can save you. You have debts such as have never been seen on this continent, such as could never be paid by any American, and if the mob does not take you out for a hanging, you shall die in debtor’s prison.”

“Mrs. Maycott,” he said.

I would not wait. I would say what I had to while I could. “What I find particularly ironic is that during the Revolution, I am told, you were a true patriot. You had not yet let the rot of greed eat your heart to nothingness.”

“Why would you torment me by saying these things? What have I ever done to you that you would hate me so?”

“What have you done? Do you not remember? You sat in my house and lied to me and my husband. You used your influence and knowledge and trickery to convince us to trade our war debt for worthless land on the frontier, to be tormented by your partner, Colonel Tindall. I saw Tindall die, you know. I saw him strung up myself, with my own eyes.” This was not strictly true, but as I saw Duer sink into deeper and deeper reaches of terror, I could not resist a little theatrical elaboration. “You have thought nothing of ruining lives for your wealth, and your greed led to the death of my husband-and, yes, the child in my womb-murdered by your partner. All this death and destruction can be set at your feet, for you lied to us about what lay in store for us. That is why I have done it, and now you know. I tell you for the simple reason that there is nothing for you to do. Knowing won’t save you. Your knowing can’t hurt me. I’ve committed no crime you can prove. Yet, even if your knowing put me in danger, I would tell you, for it is important you understand that your ruin is not some random mishap. You suffer from the direct consequences of your ambition. You are undone in repayment for all these crimes and, I have no doubt, a thousand more, the knowledge of which I have been spared.”

Mr. Duer rose slowly. He looked at me imploringly, as if I still had some power to undo what had been done. “I have never known such wickedness,” he said in a slow, deliberate voice. “Perhaps I have not always been honest in my dealings. What of it? I am a trader. It is what I do, and what I am. But I have never taken pleasure in the destruction of others. That you revel in my suffering is unspeakable.”

“I take no pleasure in it,” I said. “I take my revenge not out of desire but out of duty. How could I live with myself if I let you continue? I have dedicated my life to your destruction, and though seeing it may give me satisfaction, it gives me no pleasure.”

It would also make me and my partners wealthy, but I chose not to mention this part, for there he could still do me harm. Instead, I merely rang the bell and told the girl that I believed Mr. Duer had taken enough of our time.

M y conversation must have effected a change in Duer’s behavior, one notable to his underlings, for the next morning, just as I began to make preparations to abandon my New York lodgings for good, I was approached by Mr. Reynolds. He had clearly known better than to call on me and so had been loitering outside my boardinghouse. I stepped outside to enter a hackney, but before I could reach it Mr. Reynolds stepped out before me and bowed slightly.

“Good morning, madam. Nice weather today, ain’t it?”

“What can I do for you?”

“Well, to be honest, you can give me a bit more money.”

“You have already been paid well for your silence,” I told him.

“It’s true,” he acknowledged, “but I spent that money, so I’ll be wanting more.”

I looked at him sternly. “I cannot be held accountable for that.”

He showed me his yellow teeth, and he seemed to me like an overgrown dog who has eaten his master’s dinner. “It’s looking to me like you can. You bought my silence once; I’m guessing you’ll do it again. Oh, I know, I made certain promises, but from where I’m standing, there doesn’t seem to me a lot you can do about it.”

He squared his shoulders and hovered over me, and he was far taller, far broader, and undoubtedly far more vicious than I saw-or at least more violent. Yet I would not allow myself to be intimidated by such a brute. I had faced down worse than he. It is what he did not understand, would never understand-that there were limits to what can be accomplished by physical menace. “Mr. Reynolds, I did not buy your silence, I rented it, and the time for which I required it has now passed us. You may now tell Mr. Duer what you like. I imagine he is out of sorts, which made you uneasy and is why you have come back. You feared the period in which you might apply to me would be drawing to a close, but it has already done so.”

He put his face near mine, as if we were lovers, and I smelled his scent of whiskey and tobacco. “I hope you ain’t testing me, because I mean to try your words.”

“I have told him myself,” I said. “He knows I’ve acted against him. I do hope he doesn’t owe you much money.”

Reynolds stepped back. “He pays me by the quarter, and he ain’t paid me yet this year.”

I brushed past him and allowed the coachman to open the door for me. “You shan’t see the money.” I stepped in and looked out the window at him. “I do hope you earn more than one hundred and fifty dollars a quarter,” I told him. “If that’s the case, you’ve been a loser for your efforts. Good day, Mr. Reynolds. For your own safety, let this be the last time I see you.”

And indeed it was, for I left New York that evening and made my way to the point of rendezvous with most of the others in my band. Only three remained in New York to protect the mission from Saunders. Having done so much to aid us, he could still do us harm if he managed to divine our scheme. In Philadelphia, my agents had done everything possible to lead him astray, but it was yet possible he might come to New York, so the remaining men were there to make sure he attempted nothing that would harm us, and, if he did, to use appropriate measures to stop him.