The Dominion's Dilemma: The United States of British America (23 page)

___________

Georgetown, D.C.
Early Evening
February 8, 1833:
    General and Mrs. Scott were in their carriage, enroute to supper at Chief Justice Marshall’s home, when, while passing the Samples townhouse, Maria announced that Candice had arrived late in the afternoon. “She’s invited me to a late breakfast at 11 a.m., Win. Seeing as we have no plans until tomorrow evening, I sent back an affirmative response.”
    The General smiled, relieved of the necessity of bringing up the subject himself. And also relieved that Bratton had obviously not gone to Twin Peaks.
I’ll bet he’s already tracked
down old Burr. Wellington was a little too cute on this one…
    “Tell me, my dear,” he began, purposefully looking out the carriage window, “do you recall the Duke mentioning the other night that his aide had ‘left town for a few days’?”
     Maria shook her head. “No, Winfield. Perhaps that went over my head. Or perhaps I was busy with the service at the time. I do recall seeing Captain Bratton at the Liaison reception last Sunday, however. Other than a longer forehead, he hasn’t changed a bit.”
     “Hrrm, you mean he’s getting bald, don’t you my dear? He is, but that’s not why I bring him up. Wasn’t he rumored to be, ahem, among Candice’s
admirers
back when?”
      “Yes, darling. During the plebiscite campaign in ’28, when Charles was off campaigning for Jackson. There was talk that Candice and the Captain had become ‘acquainted’…
      “Oh, dear! I see where you’re headed. This could get sticky. Oh, dear!”
     Scott looked directly at his wife. “Did Candice mention why she came down from Twin Peaks? Word hasn’t gotten out already about the state dinner for Wellington, I hope! Which, by the way, is restricted to those holding political, diplomatic and military titles, and their ladies. I suggested that to Jackson myself.”
      Maria giggled. “Not in so many words, Winfield. But her note did mention that our get-together would give her a break from the ‘wilder things’ she has planned for the remainder of the weekend.”
      Scott grunted. “Yes, no doubt. The Lieutenant must have a late morning meeting at The Residency. I recall him mentioning that he’d be checking in at the War Department first thing tomorrow. Let’s hope he doesn’t come up the steps on his hands and knees!”
      “Winfield!” Maria roughly poked her husband in his massive chest. “Do you really think that’
s all
they do?”
       Scott gently kissed his wife’s check. “Certainly not, my dear. Mainly, I expect they read ‘Caesar’s War Commentaries.’ Aloud. In the original Latin. Vini, vidi, vici!”  

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

New York City

February 9, 1833:
    Neither Bratton---by plan---nor Ignatieff---by necessity--had left the City that Friday. The Captain accepted Burr’s invitation to dine at 5 p.m. at a small restaurant on Water Street that featured, of all things, Italian food. The street sign proclaimed its name as “Luigi’s.” After an enjoyable meal with the fascinating old devil, he had stopped off at the Shakespeare Tavern for only a short time. His plans called for an early morning crossing back to Hoboken and the stable where he had left the horse belonging to the Royal Marines.
    Ignatieff, on the other hand, restlessly spent Friday afternoon being fitted for several new outfits that Tretiak insisted he’d need for the journey south. The Count had anticipated leaving immediately after a bath and shave, propelled by funds the merchant had immediately arranged for and clothed by whatever Tretiak could quickly obtain. But by the time the new clothes were ready and Ignatieff’s weapons cleaned and augmented by a sword and a small, two-shot revolver, it was too late to think of leaving till morning. 

    So Ignatieff reluctantly accepted Tretiak’s invitation to dine with the merchant and his wife. The long, congenial Russian-style dinner, accompanied by almost a dozen different white and red wines and the inevitable bottles of vodka, had the desired effect on the Count, who finally relaxed and went to bed early. He had been mildly interested to learn that Tretiak’s operations were not confined to New York, but included offices and warehouses in Providence, Baltimore and Richmond…wherever those exotic-sounding locales actually were!
Naturally
, he thought sourly,
the man has nothing that would be
helpful in Georgetown
…
     The two agents missed each other on the crossing, as the Captain took a 6 a.m. ferry to Hoboken, while Ignatieff, some 90 minutes later, boarded a small boat chartered by Tretiak which cut southwest across the harbor and landed the Russian in Sandy Hook. With that immediate early differential, the duo should never have come across each other on the journey. The Count, however, squandered part of his lead time in the search for an adequate horse. Ignatieff, who was used to commandeering any animal he wished at home, was infuriated by having to dicker with the insolent Jersey farmers. When he finally made a deal, it was late morning.
    (He had discarded the idea of impersonating a minor nobleman of inconclusive national origin. After discussion with Tretiak---who knew only that he was on a special mission directly ordered by the Czar (the ‘Nicholas Romanov’ greeting had established his bona fides with the merchant St. Petersburg had quietly placed in New York years before)---Ignatieff had adopted the alias ‘Andre Karlhamanov.’ Karlhamanov was to be a dissident: a disillusioned Russian liberal and college professor whose wealthy family had worked out a deal to send him into exile in the USBA rather than to prison at home. Getting the necessary false documents had also taken time; in fact, Tretiak’s people had labored most of the night to produce them.)
      And so it was that Bratton, whose overland travel exceeded the Russian’s by more than 20 miles, managed to arrive at the same Burlington County stop, Stegeman’s Cock & Bull Inn, less than 45 minutes after Ignatieff’s arrival. Nicholas, with the eye patch disguise (he had almost forgotten to pull it on before riding in), immediately sized up the British officer as potentially dangerous while he stood at the far end of the bar watching Bratton check in. For his part, the Captain paid little attention to the Russian agent as he hurried past the bar and made his way to his room.
      Thanks to the loose mouth of the owner, a fat and 50-ish blond horror who seemed to bellow in a German accent her every word, the Count knew the British officer was assigned to the Liaison Office in Georgetown before Harry had had a chance to wipe the road’s mud off his face. “Headed back from New York,” she continued in booming tones to the short, skinny bartender who, it turned out, was her long-suffering husband. “Must have been a short stay. I remember him watering his horse here Wednesday afternoon…”
      The bartender/husband glanced at Ignatieff and his other two customers, a local farmer and the village smithy, and shrugged his shoulders in a defeated, neutral way. “You hear all kinds of reports about these Liaison fellows. Some say they keep the Frenchie agents at bay. Other people think they’re just here to remind us who’s really in charge…”
      The farmer shrugged his shoulders noncommittally, while the big smithy drained his beer and laughed. “As long as they help keep the doors open here and occasionally need to have their mounts reshod and their wagon and carriage wheels replaced, I say: ‘who cares!’ Let the soldier boys be.”
      Ignatieff had been careful to leave his pistols and sword hidden in his clothes-roll in his room and had come into the bar with only his ever-present boot dagger and the small two-shot derringer he concealed in the waist band under his jacket. He had identified himself on signing the Inn’s lodging book as Karlhamanov, a visiting scholar seeking a look at this land of liberty and opportunity. That pose he maintained at the bar and, later, while eating alone at a fireside table.
       He observed the big British agent come back into the bar, which began to fill up with others, obvious regulars whom the hen-pecked bartender greeted by name. Bratton got into a conversation with the smithy and another, better-dressed man, but between the constant barking of the proprietress and the rising level of bar noise, the Count was unable to follow Harry’s conversation.
      As he sat eating a very good sauerbraten dinner and drinking a passable local red wine, he was able to study the Captain. Harry remained at the bar, having moved from hot rum to a Port the bartender claimed was imported.
If this one’s regularly
assigned to Georgetown, our paths will cross again. I’ll obtain his name
tonight or tomorrow from the Inn’s book and then have the Consulate staff investigate
.
He looks too
sharp to be assigned to a dull post like this
…
unless he’s being punished for some indiscretion
. Ignatieff grinned.
Then again, he could be in command of this
‘Liaison Office,’ whatever that is… No matter, I’ll know all about this big Englishman
within a week.
       Although he had no idea who the man was---and certainly wasn’t on guard for signs of Russian espionage---Bratton had of course sized up the wiry yet broad shouldered, black-haired, athletic-looking man with the eye patch who kept to himself, uttering as few words as possible in an Eastern European accent as yet unidentifiable.
He’s definitely
a traveler
, Harry thought.
Question is: which way is he
headed?
Bratton, who hated to eat at a table alone, had finally ordered at the bar. His steak medallions in a red wine sauce were surprisingly good for a country inn in the middle of nowhere. Then again, except for some hard bread and cheese washed down with lukewarm tea from his canteen, taken during a noontime break to feed and water his horse, he hadn’t eaten since dining with Burr the previous evening.
      That meal, or rather, the conversation, was more on the Captain’s mind than was the identity of the one-eyed traveler. Burr had proven a fascinating dining companion, a gentleman of impeccable manners who was as good a listener as a conversationalist.
     The old man had reminisced about first meeting Jackson back in the ‘90s, when Burr had been a Senator from New York and the future G-G came to Philadelphia as Tennessee’s first delegate to Congress. He had been---or so it seemed---remarkably candid about the Western adventures that had landed him under arrest on the infamous treason charge. “‘Old Hickory’ was eager to testify but we didn’t need him,” Burr said. “It all boiled down to what legally and constitutionally constitutes treason, according to John Marshall, who presided in his role as chief judge of the Dominion circuit court that included Virginia. Jefferson simply had no proof that I planned, indicated or tried to separate our then-Southwestern lands from the Dominion to set up another country. One to also include lands then belonging to France!”
      Burr was also willing to comment on more current events:

     “...those idiots in South Carolina. Jackson was right to send in the Coastal Guard. Should have sent Scott down with a couple good regiments, too…

    “I’m afraid of this Bank business; Andy has a blind spot when it comes to economics! You kill the Bank and I think all this prosperity we’re enjoying now could dry up soon enough. All these ‘little’ banks he wants to replace it with! Isn’t it easier and more sensible to regulate the actions of one Dominion Bank than try to keep hundreds of little ones on the straight and narrow?”

     However, he danced deftly around the subject of the Vice G-G when Harry brought it up:
      “I’ve known Matty Van since he came to Manhattan around the turn of the century. Was originally from Kinderhook, up by Albany, you know. I admire the quiet progression of his career; the way he gets things done so effortlessly!”
     The old man grinned ruefully. “There seemed to be controversy in anything I tried to do. Jefferson, the Clinton family here in New York State, my old friend Hamilton… Matty simply has the ‘touch,’ if you will, that so many other would-be leaders so unfortunately lack. Myself included!”
     But that was as close to the genesis of the Burr-Van Buren relationship as the old man would go.
      Having finished his steak, Bratton was lingering over a final glass of Port when the stranger in the eye patch rose from his table and made his way back to the bar. “I believe I heard earlier this evening that you, too, sir, are traveling to Georgetown?” the stranger asked in an accent that Bratton guessed might be Russian.
      “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am,” Harry replied with some surprise. “And may I ask how you discerned that from your table by the fire?”
     “From the, shall we say, ‘proclamation’ of our hostess… I see that my knowledge does not please you. A thousand pardons, sir.

     “I am sorry but I’m unfamiliar with military protocol, to say nothing of military insignia, here in your country.” The Count, who was well aware that Bratton’s uniform was British Army and his rank that of Captain, lied smoothly. “You see, I myself have only arrived in America in the past few days. I am on my way to Georgetown and thought perhaps we could ride together tomorrow. If that is against the custom here, I withdraw the suggestion.”
          Bratton sipped his Port and smiled. “Our hostess, eh! Yes, I can believe that!
         “Well, sir, I will be on the road by 6 a.m. If you are an early riser, I have no objection to your accompanying me.”
        
Yes you certainly are
a British officer
, Ignatieff thought. However, he swallowed any retort to the Englishman’s condescension: “It would be an honor, ah…”
          “Captain Harry Bratton of His Majesty’s Coldstream Guards. Temporarily attached to the Liaison Office in Georgetown. And you, sir?”
         “I am Andre Karlhamanov. I teach at the university in St. Petersburg. I am on sabbatical and hope to study the wonders of your country.”
         “Well, Mr. Karlhamanov, to do that you’d have to sail to England. This is not, technically, ‘my country.’ Or anyone else’s, either… But the USBA is a vibrant part of the Empire. You are welcome to study the ‘wonders’ of this place. They do not include, however, that frightfully dull little village on the Potomac!”
        
For my purposes, they do, my dear Captain.
However
: “I must begin my tour by notifying our Consulate of my arrival, Captain. Only then am I free to move around the USBA.”
         “Well, Mr. Karlhamanov…”
         “Please, call me Andre. Even for a Russian, my name is a jawbreaker…”
         “Well then, Andre, I, for one, need my sleep. I left New York at 6 a.m. and the same time tomorrow will come much too soon. I intend to pay my tab and go to bed.”
        “I, too, Captain, was up early. I will meet you outside at 6 a.m. Good evening.”
         Ignatieff left his unfinished drink on the bar and, bowing from the waist, turned and left. Despite his announced intention to leave, Bratton ordered one more as he thoughtfully reviewed their conversation
. A Russian intellectual touring the Dominion? Perhaps. Worth keeping an eye on, once we’re in Georgetown. I’ll have Major Layne’s people investigate…