Chesapeake (34 page)

In 1664 Barbados was a lively metropolitan center, with ships from many nations in its harbor and fine stores along its waterfront. Books could be obtained and choice stuffs from France and Spain. Here legal papers could be cleared as easily as in London, and there were schools which the children of the American colonists could attend.

‘I’m placing you aboard a ship to Barbados,’ Judge Goddard said. ‘From there you can easily get to Maryland.’ The judge gave the captain money for passage, then handed Paxmore a purse, and while the carpenter tucked the money into his belt, the driver of the carriage rummaged in the boot of his vehicle to produce Paxmore’s saws and adzes.

‘It’s better this way,’ Goddard said. ‘If you ever reappear in Massachusetts, I shall hang you before nightfall.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you are a threat to the tranquillity of our colony.’

‘I would that I could rock it from its base.’

‘I know. There will be others like you, but we shall prevail. Now go.’

Paxmore took his tools, bowed gravely to the judge who had saved his
life, and climbed aboard the Barbados boat. At dawn the captain lifted anchor and the long, pleasant journey to the island paradise was under way.

In Barbados, Paxmore was kept in his cabin until inquiries had been made ashore, and after a while a bustling ship’s chandler named Samuel Spence came aboard demanding in a stern voice, ‘Where is this Edward Paxmore?’ and when the carpenter was produced, Spence embraced him, crying, ‘I am one of thy persuasion.’

‘A Quaker? Is it possible?’

‘In Barbados anything is possible,’ and he led the bewildered carpenter down onto the quay and into a world Paxmore could not have imagined. There was a richness here that Boston had never known, and a freedom of spirit that was remarkable.

‘Are not Quakers beaten here?’ Paxmore asked.

Spence laughed and said, ‘Who would bother? There’s money to be made and work to be done, and each man prays as he will.’

‘Thee meets in public?’

‘Of a certainty.’

‘Could we go to the meeting place?’

‘On Sunday, yes. At least thirty will be there.’

‘I mean now.’

‘It would be to no purpose, Friend Edward. Is thee a good carpenter?’

‘I do good work.’

‘I can believe it. Thy tools are in excellent condition. We need a carpenter, and the wages are generous.’

‘Wages?’ In his entire life up to now, and he was thirty-five years old that year, he had never worked for wages, always as an indentured servant.

Spence moved him from ship to ship, mending spars, shaving away doors that had stuck and building cupboards in new spots. Within days Paxmore had three offers of permanent positions, and he had not yet seen the meeting house, but on Sunday, Spence took him to a shed attached to the home of a prosperous merchant, and there the Quakers of Barbados showed Paxmore for the first time what worship in the new style consisted of.

Four plain chairs were set against one wall, and on them sat three older men and a woman, all wearing hats. In the body of the shed benches were lined, with a rope down the middle indicating that men were to sit on one side, women on the other. The rest of the shed was severely plain, with no adornment of any kind, and as the meeting got under way the benches filled, and the Quakers kept their hands folded in their laps, looking straight ahead.

No one spoke. This was the holy time of which Thomas Kenworthy had told him, the time when the spirit of God descended and occupied both the meeting place and the hearts of those gathered therein.

Forty minutes passed, and in the solemn silence Edward Paxmore reflected on the curious destiny that had brought him here and would soon cause him to move on. His physical being cried out for him to stay here, in comfort and convenience, with an assured job and new friends who wanted him to stay, but the inner voice of which Kenworthy had spoken urged him to Maryland and the duties awaiting him there.

Eighty minutes passed, and still the Quakers sat in silence. Then one of the men on the facing chairs rose and said in a high voice, ‘We have amongst us this day a friend from Massachusetts. How goes it there?’

For more than a minute Paxmore was unable to realize that he was being called upon to speak in a Quaker meeting, and he did not know what to do. He sat dumbly, whereupon the man with the high voice rose again and said, ‘Friend Edward, thee would deprive us of needful knowledge. I pray thee, speak.’

So Paxmore rose and looked at the four silent figures on the facing chairs. He wanted to tell them what life in Massachusetts was like for a Quaker, to share with them the whippings, and the loneliness, and the exile of spirit. But in the churches of New England he had heard enough of ranting and of self-appointed men who had the answer for everything. He would never speak like that, nor raise his voice and shout God’s thunder. He was done with ranting.

‘In Massachusetts we do not meet like this,’ he said quietly. ‘There is a law, written down, which determines that Quakers are heretical and treasonous, and when caught they are tied to the tailgate of carts and dragged from village to village and whipped as they go.’ He dropped his voice and added, ‘Women and men alike, stripped naked to the waist and whipped.’

He stood silent, trying to control his emotions so that his voice would not rise, and no one in the shed made a sound. Finally he coughed ever so slightly and concluded, ‘A meeting like this, in peace, sitting with Friends, is beyond the imagination of Quakers in Massachusetts, who sit in jail with their feet bound by chains. This is not only the First Day of the week. It is the First Day of my new life.’

No one else spoke, but when the meeting broke, the Quakers of Barbados clustered about Paxmore to ask if he had knowledge of this or that Quaker who had passed through the island on the way to Boston, and he was able to recite a doleful litany: ‘He was hanged. She was tied to the great cannon and whipped. He is preaching in the fields near Ipswich, but I fear for him.’

And then an older man took him by the arm, and when they were apart, said, ‘Thank thee, Friend Edward, for thy spiritual message,
which heartened us. But did thee have to say, in public meeting, the word
naked?’
Paxmore said, ‘I think it was necessary,’ and the old Quaker said, ‘Perhaps so, but to speak of a woman naked … even though it was not of her doing …’ He was not at all sure.

On Monday, Paxmore became involved with a task that made little impression on him at the time but which would later exert an indelible influence on his life. An English ship put into Barbados carrying as passenger the captain of another vessel, and this man hurried to Spence’s chandlery complaining that while approaching the neighboring island of St. Lucia he had been attacked by pirates. With ample muskets and fixed guns his crew had been able to hold off the pirates and even to inflict substantial damages.

‘If no harm to thy ship, what’s the problem?’ Spence asked.

‘During the fight, while the crew was occupied, our cargo of slaves revolted and ripped chains from the moorings.’

‘They can be fixed.’

‘But when we unloaded them they tore up the barracoon.’

‘That’s serious,’ Spence said gravely. ‘Can’t have slaves rioting.’ And he arranged for Paxmore and two other carpenters to return with the captain to St. Lucia to repair the ship and the barracoon.

It was a pleasant sail over the beautiful green-blue waters of the Caribbean, and Paxmore was in a happy frame of mind when the ship approached Marigot Bay, where the damaged vessel rested. He was not prepared for the beauty that awaited him: the entrance to the bay was scarcely visible from the open sea, but once attained, it spread before Paxmore’s eyes a wonderland of green mountains, tropical valleys and blue water. It was one of the finest small harbors in the world, a place of enchantment, and here the wounded vessel waited.

It required only two days for the carpenters to repair the damage done by the pirates and the rioting slaves; then everyone moved ashore to mend the barracoon. This was a high-walled enclosure in which slaves from all ships putting into Marigot were deposited prior to reshipment to either Brazil or the English colonies of North America. Useless ones, or those who looked as if they might not survive passage to America, were jammed into whatever ship passed and sold in Haiti for six or eight months’ service before they died.

The present cargo of slaves, having engineered a partially successful mutiny during the pirate attack, had gone on to rip away the top planking of the barracoon and showed promise of destroying the rest, if allowed. ‘I don’t want to shoot them,’ the captain explained, ‘but we can’t let them break loose.’

‘The whole should be reinforced,’ Paxmore said, and the semi-pirates who operated Marigot agreed, so for three more days the carpenters worked, and during this time Paxmore had many opportunities to observe
the extraordinary natural beauty of this place; its combination of steep hills and deep water entranced him, and he thought: Some day when Maryland is finished I would like to live here.

The barracoon, on the other hand, made little impression on him, and the slaves imprisoned within, none at all. In Boston he had had no chance to observe blacks. Occasional families had owned slaves, but in a city they were much like indentured servants and were treated in the same way. Now he saw several hundred crowded together and guarded by muskets, and his only thought was: They look sturdy, all of them.

To him black slaves were merely an extension of the indenture system of which he had been a part. In London, prior to sailing to the New World, he and his fellows had been sequestered in barracoons, and on landing in Boston he had been auctioned off. He had been a slave of sorts, and his slavery had been an avenue to a better life. The only difference between him eleven years ago and these blacks now was that their indenture was for life, and could be discharged by no passage of years, no amount of faithful servitude.

He could not comprehend the implications of this difference, because to him the idea of a perpetual indenture made common sense, for the black would enjoy a fixed position, a known security and a permanent master with whom he could establish a workable relationship. Paxmore could not, as he hammered the final boards of the barracoon into position, anchoring them with chains, perceive the dreadful moral problem that would arise if the permanent indenture of these blacks were extended to their children, and their children’s children to all generations. That was slavery of a kind he could not envisage for himself.

But he felt no necessity to give the problem serious thought, and when the barracoon was mended he had three fine days to enjoy Marigot Bay before returning to Barbados, and he spent them well, imprinting on his mind the peculiarities of the tropics. But on the evening of the third day an English trading ship rushed into the bay with alarming news: ‘Pirates are loose again. They raided Port Royal and were seen heading south.’ So all slaves in the barracoon were hastily loaded into the trader and sails were raised for Maryland. It was on this ship that Paxmore embarked.

Once the slaves had been deposited in Jamestown, the ship proceeded to Devon with crates of furniture, and here he walked down the gangplank, wide-eyed, to inspect his new surroundings. He was met by a handsome gray-haired man nearing fifty, who extended his hand and a most cordial invitation: ‘I’m Henry Steed, and if you’re looking for work, I surely need a carpenter.’

‘I was sent to the Quakers of the Choptank.’

‘Hard people to work for. You’ll do better here.’

‘I am a Quaker.’

‘In Maryland, no significance. I pay well, Mr….’

‘Paxmore.’ He liked the concept of an employer’s offering to hire a workman before asking his name. ‘I would like to work for thee, but I am obligated to seek out the Quakers first.’

‘And so you should, if promised.’ And then, to Paxmore’s surprise, Mr. Steed arranged for one of his own boats to forward Paxmore up the river to the spot where the Steeds had recently opened a large warehouse. ‘It’s called Patamoke Landing,’ Steed explained. ‘Few houses but much activity.’

‘I am surprised thee would offer thy boat to a stranger,’ Paxmore said.

‘We are hungry for settlers. Quakers seem as good as any.’

When the bateau entered the harbor, Edward Paxmore saw a sight which put his wandering heart at rest: a secure haven from storms, a rude log hut serving as a tavern, two houses, a score of boats come in from neighboring headlands. Someone rang a bell, and people gathered from unexpected places.

‘Are there any women among the newcomers?’ two young men asked.

‘Only a carpenter,’ one of Steed’s boatmen called back, and the young men departed.

‘Mr. Carpenter! Mr. Carpenter!’ an excited man shouted. ‘My name’s Pool.’

Bidding for Paxmore’s services began before he landed, for others called out their names, advising him that he was needed, but he gave no sign of recognition, and when he finally stepped ashore, clutching his saw and axes, he said, ‘I seek James Lamb.’

From a group of men standing beside the Steed warehouse, a man stepped forward and extended his hand. ‘I am James Lamb and I welcome thee to Patamoke Landing.’ He added that he had no need for a carpenter but that his fellow Quaker, Robert Pool, did.

A child, hearing this statement, called, ‘Robert Pool, thee is wanted,’ and a tall, serious man hurried up.

‘I’m Pool, the man who hailed thee.’

For some intuitive reason Paxmore believed that he must keep close to James Lamb, and he told Pool, ‘I have already spoken with Friend Lamb,’ and Lamb understood the newcomer’s hesitancy, for he told Pool, ‘I shall be taking our friend to my house,’ and then he asked, ‘What is thy name?’

‘Edward Paxmore.’

‘The man from Boston?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh …’ Lamb said the word gravely, then quietly moved among the crowd, informing them that this was Paxmore of Boston, and a collection of Quakers formed a circle about the carpenter, asking questions that indicated both their familiarity with his history in Massachusetts and the deference in which they held him.