Chesapeake (63 page)

‘I will not do thy work in meeting,’ he said, and when Ellen continued pestering him he stomped from the house and sought refuge at the
boatyard, where he could grapple with problems that had a specific solution. He remained there for several hours, inspecting with approval the massive schooner that was taking final shape, and as he saw her looming from the shadows, he projected her into the water, two masts erect, and it occurred to him that if speed was the principal requirement, it could be assured by quitting the rigorous custom of rigging every schooner with large triangular fore-and-aft sails and substituting a much more subtle design: Gaff-rig the fore-and-afts so that the top of each mast becomes available for a pair of square-rigged sails, and add another jib forward. With such a mix … With a dowel he sketched on the floor such a rigging, and it looked fine, but when he imagined himself in the bowels of a schooner so rigged, he began to sense limitations.

So he adjusted his ghostly sails, shifting them to unseen spars: I want this schooner to be able to maneuver in whatever wind, and for that there’s nothing beats the square sail. They can halt a ship in midflight. Or even back it up. But I also want to sail close to the wind, and for that we must have bigger fore-and-afts. On and on he went, investigating in the abstract the properties of sail, but the more rationally he thought, the tighter became the knot in his stomach, until at last he shivered in the night, so oppressive were the problems besetting him.

Suddenly he cried aloud, ‘I will not testify in meeting,’ but even as he uttered these evasive words he had to acknowledge that Ellen’s harassment about slavery was not the cause of his moral confusion. That sprang, curiously enough, from his speculations about rigging, and it was a perplexity that could plague only a Quaker: Speed and maneuverability! No man would require both if he were merely importing goods from London. He’d have that double need only if he intended using his vessel in war. What I’m building is a ship of war.

Overcome by this realization, he fell on his knees, clasped his hands and began to pray: I’m not building ships of war. I’m not building platforms for cannon. Almighty God, I’m a poor man trying to live with my neighbors in accordance with Thy law. Exert Thy full power to keep us at peace. He prayed for a long time, asking guidance as to what he must do with this schooner, and the three others coming in its train. He would not build for war, and yet every improvement he had made on the
Whisper
made her more war-worthy.

He was on his knees when the door to the big shed opened, admitting a man who seemed to be carrying an armful of tools. Had he been headed the other way, Paxmore would have suspected him of stealing them, but obviously he was bringing them back—and this was perplexing. Maintaining silence, Paxmore watched as the man drew closer, and saw to his surprise that it was Gideon Hull, one of his best workmen and a Quaker to be trusted; he was indeed carrying a heavy armload of shipbuilding tools.

‘What’s thee doing, Gideon?’ he asked in a quiet voice.

The workman dropped the tools, whipped around in dismay and saw Paxmore kneeling in the shadows. Neither man spoke, so Paxmore began picking up the tools. ‘What were they for, Gideon?’

‘I was bringing them back.’

‘I would have loaned them, if thee had asked.’

‘Not for my need, Levin.’

‘Whose then?’

Hull stood mute. He knew that if he said one word, the whole story would unravel, and this he did not want, for it involved others. But Levin Paxmore, like his wife, was persistent, and after many questions, Hull was worn down. ‘It’s Teach Turlock. He’s back in the marsh with a cannonball through his side. We slipped out to help him mend it.’

‘We?’

‘Leeds and Mott.’

Paxmore was shocked. Three of his best men involved in aid to an outlaw! Realizing the legal dangers involved in such criminal behavior, he was about to berate Hull when it occurred to him that he was at least as guilty and perhaps more so: In this yard we’re building ships for war. Our acts are treasonous, and helping a pirate mend his sloop is the least of our wrongdoings.

Now Hull was bragging. ‘Everyone knows it was Turlock who did in Copperdam. He’s already sold two cargoes of captured goods in Baltimore.’

‘How did he get a cannonball through his strakes?’

Hull refused to divulge additional details, and Paxmore judged it best not to press the point. ‘Did thee patch him?’

‘He’s headed for the Chesapeake right now,’ Hull said with grim satisfaction. ‘I’ll stow these.’ And without further comment he replaced the valuable tools, bowed to Paxmore and left the shed.

Paxmore remained till dawn, deeply agitated by Hull’s action, and then he saw the three great oak trees waiting to be hewn into keels, and he recalled the dictum of his forebears: A Paxmore ship keeps an unsullied keel. The vessels he had built had all contained such keels, heavy and true and unpenetrated, and this had accounted for the fact that they had not become hog-backed or old before their years.

But the keel of his personal life was far from steady; his ship was generating a high degree of sway. On the slavery issue, he knew that his wife was right and that the time had come for Quakers to announce forthrightly that the ownership of slaves disqualified a man or woman from membership in the society, but he also knew that one man could do only so much, and his job was building schooners against the impending crisis. But in doing this he tacitly approved the warfare which he saw as both deplorable and inescapable. Patriots tended to be irresponsible people like Teach Turlock; they sought to inflame the populace to acts
that would be regretted. Honest men like Steed and Levin Paxmore avoided such excesses, and he prayed they always would.

But on this night he had discovered how easily one could be tricked into aiding rebellion, and he was confused. He ended his long vigil with one more prayer: Almighty God, keep these colonies on an even keel.

The precarious balance was shattered during the balmy spring of 1774. Guy Fithian, with the best intentions and a desire for commercial gain, sent his brother-in-law Simon this enthusiastic letter:

Steed did not anticipate any trouble in the sale of his unordered cargo: Fithians would send leaves of first-rate quality; it was eagerly wanted by his customers; and as London pointed out, under the new system it actually cost less than tea imported from Holland or France. But in the interval before its arrival he began to encounter difficulties at home.

Jane Steed was proving to be even more delightful a wife than he had anticipated; she was a fascinating companion, a delightful hostess. Whatever dress fell into her hands she improved, and her three slaves seemed to enjoy sewing her old clothes into new patterns, or tricking them out with bits of lace and satin. She was also innovative in kitchen affairs, dressing duck and venison in rich new ways, and finding delicious uses for hominy. She made good gravies and used nuts and fruits to advantage. Devon had never known better meals than the ones she supervised, and when visitors from Europe spent a month or so at Rosalind’s Revenge they always complimented the Steeds on the excellence of their table. ‘Simon’s the one to thank,’ Jane said modestly. ‘He lived in France, you know, and learned the secrets of good cooking.’ This was an amusing deception; Simon shared the honest American attitude toward food—‘Have plenty and cook it till it’s black.’

In the early days of their acquaintance Jane had sometimes ridiculed her future husband’s colonial pretentions at learning; after she had lived with him for a while she found that he actually did read five languages: English, French, German, Latin and Greek. His library did include the best available books in each of those languages, and all had been studied. His knowledge was extraordinary and she was pleased to see that it had not made him a radical; in all judgments he was conservative, and when she spoke forcefully in defense of England, he supported her.

But Jane had become increasingly distressed by one fact which had not impressed itself upon her during the brief days of their courtship: Simon was in trade. He had stores in Patamoke, Edentown, Oxford and St. Michaels. He and his brothers had actually worked in these stores, serving the general public, and nephews of the family now served in them, mastering the skills which had kept the family prosperous for more than a century and a half.

Not only did the Steeds have stores, but they also offered for general sale the handiwork of their slaves. The Steed Negroes made barrels, as blacks did on all plantations, but when they had made enough for the family’s use, they went on making them, and young Steed managers went about the Chesapeake peddling them. They sold lumber, too, and extra cloth woven by the Devon slaves. What was even more demeaning, on two different occasions Simon had loaded one of his ships to the gunwales, sailed her to Martinique and sold her ‘cargo-and-bottom’ to an enterprising Frenchman who in one swoop gained possession of some hogsheads of tobacco, some naval stores much needed in the islands, and a sound Paxmore-built ship. On the first of these unusual deals Steed had gained a thousand pounds, paid in Spanish coins, and on the second, a thousand five.

Jane found such dealings distasteful. Gentlemen did not engage in trade; they left the running of shops and the haggling over prices of individual items to folk of lesser category. In fact, a true gentleman rarely carried money on his person and never discussed it with others. The actual handling of money—the passing of coins from one person to another—was contaminating, and she found it abhorrent that her husband was engaged in this dirty business.

‘Fithians does nothing else,’ Simon protested one day.

‘Ah, but we do it in general, never the specific.’

‘I don’t see the difference,’ Steed said.

‘You would if you’d been educated in England. Trade is repulsive. Gentlemen restrict themselves to the management of great businesses.’

On this point she was obdurate, and Steed discovered that to the English gentry the retail sale of a single item was gauche, while the wholesale movement of a thousand such items was acceptable. ‘It comes down to one simple question,’ his wife said. ‘Do you meanly bow and
scrape to everyone who has a shilling, or do you handle your business affairs like a gentleman … with yearly accounting in a dignified manner?’

‘Is that what your brother does?’ Simon asked.

‘Of course. I doubt if he’s ever handled money in his life. There are books and yearly accountings and it’s all settled by clerks who write letters.’

Steed laughed. ‘When we were in Virginia, didn’t you see that those fine people were in danger of losing their plantations because they knew nothing of business? And that we Steeds have saved ours because we did? We know how to run stores, and work slaves to a profit. Every one of my nephews knows how to make a barrel, as I did at their age.’

‘Don’t you feel’—she groped for a word—‘dirty? Doesn’t this store-keeping make you feel degraded?’

‘Not when it keeps us solvent. And able to buy the books we want.’

If, as Jane charged, she was ‘besmirched by the dirty fingers of trade,’ she had to admit that the trade was not parochial. To be sure, the family fortunes rested upon the Eastern Shore emporiums and collateral manufacturing operations, but the levels of profit were determined by exports to Europe: tobacco, naval stores and timber to England; fish, flour and meat to other countries. It was not unusual for a merchant ship to arrive in the Chesapeake with commercial documents from as many as fifty different European cities inquiring about shipments of Steed materials. In Great Britain the letters might have come from towns like Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh; in Spain, from cities such as Barcelona, Cadiz, Seville; in Portugal, from Lisbon or the salt town St. Ubes; in Belgium, from Ghent, Ostend, Ypres; in Holland, from Amsterdam, Utrecht, Haarlem; and in France, because of Simon’s study there, from any of thirty-four cities like Bergerac, Dunkirk, Metz, Besançon and, especially, Nantes. To work on Devon Island in 1774 was to be in contact with the most sophisticated centers of Europe.

But in the spring of that year one commercial event superseded all others: the arrival at the mouth of the Chesapeake of the creaking, waterlogged old snow
Fair Rosalind,
laden with packets of tea which had evaded the normal tax in London. All that was required to make this transaction legal was the payment of a small token tax designated by Parliament to act as proof that the colonies were still subservient to it. In Boston in the preceding autumn there had been minor trouble over this petty tax, and one consignment of tea had actually been thrown into the harbor, but those tempers had subsided and Marylanders loyal to the king trusted that there would be no trouble in their colony.

In fact, the responsible planters to whom Steed spoke welcomed the arrival of this cheap tea. The justices expressed strong pro-British sentiments and told him, ‘High time the mother country exerted her authority. You did a good job, Steed, bringing in this tea.’

The Paxmores were disturbed. They loved their tea, and since they drank nothing stronger, had felt deprived when denied it. But like Quakers in general, they brooded about potential consequences of even the most transparent act, and this tax on tea was far more complicated than that. ‘I want the tea,’ Levin Paxmore said, ‘but to be forced to pay a tax about which I was not consulted goes against the grain of my republican principles.’ He concluded that he should pay the tax, drink the tea and tremble over what might happen next. ‘I know what Steed will do. I know what we will do. But who can predict what the Turlocks might do?’