Book One: A Poor Man

at the Gate Series

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Chapter Four

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New York was vile, rotten, corrupt, a town under sentence of death, the seat of government for the losing side in a war that still had a year or two to run but whose eventual end was clear; it had no future as far as building a business was concerned, but it provided every opportunity for short-term enrichment. The soldiers could talk of their expectations of winning next season’s battles, and the navy was slowly regaining control of the seas, but the reality in civilian eyes was that the Americans and French would win the war, and have no interest in the frauds and corruption of the previous regime, being too busy establishing their own, possibly using the same people at all except the very topmost level.

Profits were to be made from treachery and spying, looting, smuggling, theft and fraud; government funds were open to every peculator; licences to trade could be bought from the most junior of clerks; blind eyes were more expensive, but every general, customs officer and excise man sold them. For those who already had money, the grease to smooth their way through the maze of officialdom, New York was an Eldorado, a Golconda, the source of unlimited wealth. There was no police force, and the military provosts were few and untrained in the role, their rank and file sometimes honest, their officers – careers finished and seconded to the duty because they were inefficient or cowardly or simply disliked in their regiment - invariably hungry; the sole limitation on the criminal endeavours of the ordinary man was the existence of other criminals with their snouts in the trough and no great desire to share, and opportunities were so great that it was not too difficult to find one’s own, exclusive swindle. For a young man with money, no scruples and fewer morals, New York was a paradise on Earth; the hooked grin on Tom’s face turned into a smile of pure delight. Joseph, ever at Tom’s shoulder, had been brought up to Bible and Hellfire and disapproved, sometimes loudly, but he found himself able to accept a share in the profits, though sometimes wrestling with his conscience as he closed the drawstrings of his purse.

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They landed on an autumn morning, looked about at the expanse of crowded, bustling wharves, a hundred times greater than English Harbour or Poole, men and horses, wagons and handcarts intermixed, crates and sacks and packing cases in heaps on the waterfront, moving into and out of warehouses and ships’ holds, a shouting cacophony, an apparent chaos. First impression said it was wide-open, an uncontrolled shambles; more careful observation disclosed two pickets of soldiers, acting as provosts, and dozens of armed men stood watching over individual warehouses and gangplanks, private guards hefting clubs and pistols and cutlasses in casually professional fashion, as ready to kill as to say ‘good-morning’ and as little moved by the one as the other. The presence of so many on police duty meant there was no law and order – as young as he was, Tom knew that the dragoons and excise men were only to be seen when smuggling was rife, when control had been lost – a peaceful countryside needed no armed men to keep it down, an orderly dockside required few visible policemen. The Second Mate from their ship passed by as they stood watching, exchanged a casual nod, and Tom asked him what he should do for accommodation, could he give a recommendation.

“You’ll have to take a hotel room for the while, sir – and very expensive that will be, too, because it will have to be one of the big places, the ones that will have quarters for your boy.”

Joseph scowled and shuffled a pace backwards to a place of subservience.

“Down at the Battery, sir, Robertson’s has a cook who can do more than burn a steak, but ‘tis a guinea a night, sir.”

“Thank you, Mr Jones. It will do for the while, till I can find a place of my own.”

Jones smiled politely, waved and whistled to a four-wheeled carriage drawn by a pair – suitable to the dignity of a man who could afford a guinea a night - and gave the driver directions. Joseph picked up the bags and heaved them aboard before climbing up onto the roof, hissing at Tom when he made to protest that they had to fit in, to do it properly. Joseph, coming from Antigua, knew that he was free, but had no illusions that that meant equal, readied himself to bow and scrape in proper humility, consoling himself that he was going to be richer than most of the whites surrounding him and sneering; one day he would take his money and buy some land and be truly free, somewhere, in some country where a black man could dare to be rich.

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Robertson’s was perfect for Tom’s needs – Mr Jones had judged him well, it seemed - it was expensive but not genteel, no sprigs of the English aristocracy, actual or would-be, were to be found inside its doors, it catered exclusively for merchants and polite criminals, those who wore collars and washed their shirts quite often. He laid down fourteen guineas in advance, ringing each coin on the mahogany counter, and took a bedroom and sitting room for himself and a separate cubicle in the quarters for Joseph, not a bunk in the common servants room, meals included. The bags were sealed with quantities of wax and placed in the strongroom, itself under permanent armed guard and generally reckoned to be secure.

On the first evening he came to an amicable arrangement with one of the several unattached young ladies to be found in the public rooms of the hotel, a pretty blonde-haired girl about two years his senior in age, a lifetime in experience; apart from the obvious reason, he had noticed that none of the men were unaccompanied – a complaisant young miss was a necessary accessory - a statement of success. Jenny knew everybody as well, was able to steer him towards a number of useful contacts, found him an attorney who knew of a warehouse with its own living quarters on the docks and was able to arrange its rental at very reasonable terms, for coin in advance – gold was in short supply, most transactions being made in various forms of paper. Tom presumed that she took a cut on each deal, but nothing came for free in this town and she had a living to make, a future to secure in a very uncertain world.

It took a week to close the lease and furnish the living quarters, Joseph doing the actual work of purchasing and moving furniture and equipping the kitchen, again a statement of wealth and position – young Mr Andrews kept his own black, did not get his own hands dirty. Joseph carefully referred to himself as ‘the Andrews’ servant’, implying that he had been a house slave and was still in servitude – freemen were distrusted but slaves were assumed to be stupid and docile – he overheard to their profit many a conversation for being treated as a dumb animal.

Jenny also was able to introduce Tom to Mr Robert Chawleigh – ‘call me Bob’ – an ‘agent’ and ‘trader in bits and bobs, ho-ho’ - who, she said, knew everybody and could be relied upon to point his clients in the right direction and, most importantly, stayed bought, never a whisper of a double-cross from Bob, everybody knew he was straight. Bob was looking for a man with a warehouse, a discreet gentleman who could buy and store a few tons of tobacco and then arrange to ship it out without any fuss. There was a planter ‘down the coast’ who had a consignment he wanted to move urgently – he needed the money, could not wait the months involved in shipping his crop to London and selling it.

Tom showed very interested, wanted to know more, arranged to meet a representative of the gentleman in question, the meanwhile discovering all he could about tobacco growing; it was soon clear that the nearest tobacco plantations were all well south, firmly in rebel-held lands, deep in the colonies, their ports blockaded. The English newssheets were available, with prices of goods at auction – Virginia tobacco was in increasingly short supply, its price rising every month in London; there was scope for profit. Customs could be squared, trading licences procured at little cost, but it might be wiser to attempt to conceal the tobacco in another cargo, give an appearance of legitimacy; rather than buy hold space it would be better to charter his own vessel.

Joseph set to work to discover a legitimate cargo, bought in best-quality seasoned timber for furniture making – oak and maple and walnut – and beaver skins for the hatters, commodities always in demand in London. Tom demanded two hundred tons of tobacco of Bob, disconcerting him, for he had been trying to move a river-boat load of fifteen tons.

“Can’t slip that much through the patrols, Tom, it ain’t possible.”

“Can’t be done then, Bob?”

They were sat to dinner in Robertson’s, both enjoying the change from the well-done beef that was all that was normally available elsewhere, as well as taking advantage of the unusually widely spaced tables that ensured privacy.

“Can’t be done the way I was first thinking, Tom. The tobacco warehouses are jam-packed full though, so it is merely a question of seeking another way, we could find a thousand tons if we wanted. If we cannot sneak the goods through, then they must come openly, preferably in an official convoy run by the military. We will need to buy papers and permits to load our goods onto military wagons - Major Jackson of the Commissariat who has an unfortunate taste for slow horses and fast women, could well be open to persuasion; settling day comes in two weeks and his credit is at an end, I know. Only yesterday an acquaintance begged me to pass him the hard word, in fact.”

The expression was new to Tom, he asked what he meant.

“Pay up, on time, or go for a swim in the Hudson, wearing lead boots.”

“Ah! That could be a very short dip – sounds like a very fair alternative, though. How much is he in for?”

“Only two hundred, but it’s not the first time he has had to beg for credit and he’s run out of friends – he could be topped with very little fuss, as an example to others.”

“Two hundred is always available to a friend, Bob, and more, perhaps. Could I meet the Major, or should everything be done at a distance?”

“I shall arrange for you to meet him, Tom.”

Tom relaxed as he left the hotel – Jenny had suggested, very strongly, that he should learn to talk like a gentleman, it would enable him to meet them on equal terms, and she had been teaching him, correcting his aitches and broadening his vocabulary – she said her father had been a curate and had wanted her to become a governess, but she had found more congenial ways of making a living, coming out to New York with an officer when she was no more than sixteen. It was still hard work though, the Dorset burr very hard to shift from the tongue – but, he accepted, he needed to talk ‘like a gentleman’ if he was to fleece the gentry, and they had the most money.

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Major Jackson was plump, self-indulgent and a fool – not unintelligent, not unwise in the ways of the world, but convinced that life should be easy, that he should not have to work for a living, that he had a right to the comfort he had been born to. He was a second son, his late father a baronet, his brother settled on the family estates in Huntingdonshire on five thousand a year, and himself having inherited only a very few thousands from his mother; he ignored the fact that his brother had bought his commissions for him, for that had been no more than was right for the head of the family, merely deplored that he should be expected to keep himself and his family on his pay. His family was now no more than a daughter, his wife and son having been taken by typhus a year before, and he regretted bitterly that he could not send his girl back to England, to live with his brother, but he could not afford the cost of a passage for her and a maid. His expenses were the least a gentleman could consider, and his gambling losses just one of those unfortunate burdens the well-born had to bear; nothing was his fault, nothing was in his power to amend – he was sure Mr Andrews could appreciate his position.

Mr Andrews appreciated only too well, so much so that he offered a ‘temporary’ loan to tide the major over his current difficulties – a mere monkey, five hundred pounds. As for terms, unimportant, it could be repaid as and when the major might find it convenient – the major could discuss that with Bob, at his leisure. There was no mention of anything so unsubtle as a bribe, not even a hint that the major might wish to offer a favour in return – they were merely gentlemen together.

It took two months, but on a cold January afternoon a military convoy pulled into the yard of Tom’s warehouse, fifty of the largest artillery wagons discharging two tons each of wrapped bales of tobacco – the wrapping to disguise the nature of the goods, although the smell was pungent and unmistakable at fifty yards; the wagons returned a week later with the second half of the consignment. Bob had arranged for the leaf to be brought by small coastal boats - tiny yawls and cutters and ketches that normally carried no more than market gardeners and their vegetables from village to local town - in consignments of five or ten tons at a time to a jetty a few miles down coast; the boats would have stood out in New York itself, obviously out of place, so the last stage had been made overland.

Another five days and Tom’s chartered ship docked at the wharf opposite to his doors and his cargo was loaded, clean and dry and bilge-free. She sailed into the storms of winter, her master quite without apprehension – she was a new ship and well-found, would stand up to anything short of a hurricane, and there were fewer hazards in the cold months – cruising men-of-war less often to be found and private ships of war, never.

The convoy from England docked in late June and Tom received a packet from his correspondents in England; his goods had been received and put to auction, the tobacco, best snuff, particularly well-received, as the discounted Bills of Exchange enclosed would testify.

Tom sat to his account books, all payments made and commissions paid, and calculated that he had cleared eleven pounds on each ton of tobacco, thirty shillings a ton on the furniture wood and eighteen pence on each of the four hundred beaver pelts, a little less than three thousands, which was good money, but only a quarter of it from Joseph’s legitimate trading. It was obvious where his endeavours must most sensibly be directed. Bob was asked to lay his hands on another four hundred tons, at least, of tobacco, as quickly as might be.

“Less easy than last time, Tom – the coastal waters can’t be used, due to the navy getting efficient in its blockading. It would have to be overland all the way – American wagons north to the extent of their influence, then ours across the debatable areas and through the English controlled lands. They would have to be escorted – a troop of irregular cavalry, I suspect – they have no uniforms and can belong to either side at need. It would demand more of cash down, I think.”

“Who needs be paid, Bob?”

Bob reeled off a list of names – a general and three lesser officers on the British side, four Americans and one Frenchman to the south and west and the ‘colonel’ of a  troop of militia operating in the forest lands to the west of the colonies.

“An unpleasant man, Tom, one who has fought for both sides, occasionally at the same time, but he has some control of the larger of the backwoods trails, and if he did not escort our convoys, he would raid them, so there is little choice. Colonel Henry J. Miller will cost us some three hundreds in gold, I believe, but will provide us with sixty men for a month, them to see a guinea a week, him two guineas a day. We can use river-boats for part of the journey through the colonies, ox-wagons for the run north, fifteen miles a day they will make. It will be best if you see Miller yourself, for otherwise he will have doubts – there are those in the Army who might wish to do him down. Major Jackson will provide us with passes through the British areas, if he is still available – he lost every penny of the five hundreds you dropped him - fortunately for him, paying off his most pressing debts first. I believe he has begged his brother to arrange his transfer to the Ordnance Board in England – where fortunes can very easily be amended, they having control of all of the Army and Navy’s contracts for great and small guns and powder and ball; but he will remain here for at least another six months, even if he is successful in achieving his wish.”

“Will he survive so long?”

“Not without access to at least another thousand, Tom.”

“He will need to provide a lot more than a safe-conduct for so much, Bob.”

Bob nodded, said that he would broach the question with the major, endeavour to discover what he could offer, if anything.

Major Jackson was desperate, having become aware, belatedly, of just how insecure was his hold on life; he was willing to promise anything for the chance of even a few hundreds of pounds; neither Bob nor Tom trusted him to be able to deliver, however.

“Gentlemen, I can arrange to buy wheat and corn from the farms down the coast, as well as consignments of beans and brewing barley and best hay and wheat-straw. There will be five hundreds of wagons moving every day, in all directions, and insufficient cavalry squadrons to escort each convoy. It should not be impossible for you to bring a consignment to a given farmstead and for my wagons to pick it up in the ordinary nature of things. The areas where we forage are, in the nature of things, separate from the main theatres of war, and there are no more than troops of irregulars to be found there.”

They accepted his proposals, but arranged for half of their consignments to be run under the aegis of Colonel Miller – he would be slower, but they suspected he might be more reliable.

Joseph continued to buy in timber and furs and a few hides, a legitimate cargo to provide cover again.

Harvest came home and the Commissariat wagons went out to buy grain, as Major Jackson had promised, and after a week, five or ten wagons a day turned up at Tom’s warehouse, offloading as scheduled. A fortnight of profitable activity came to a sudden halt when the Major appeared, unheralded, at Tom’s office door.

“We have a problem, Mr Andrews!”

Tom sat him down, signalled to Joseph for refreshments, quietly told him to stay in hearing range to listen for anything the Major chose not to say.

“Forty of my wagons, Mr Andrews, held at a farmstead just half a day, eight miles, north of the city, carrying the last of your tobacco, sir. A greedy young man of the Provosts, Mr Andrews, who has decided to take a share in our profits – five guineas a wagon, he is demanding!”

Tom’s first reaction was that the Major had himself become greedy, wanted another two hundred in a hurry: no doubt he would ask for the coinage and volunteer to carry it out himself to pay off this certainly imaginary Provost officer.

“The young gentleman demands to see my principal, Mr Andrews, would not accept cash from me, why I do not know, am unable to imagine! I think it would be best for you to ride out with me immediately.”

It stank – there was something badly astray in Jackson’s manner and, besides, he should have gone to Bob Chawleigh, not come directly to Tom. There was false paper enough to cover the stocks in the warehouse already, but the loads on the road were obviously contraband – a nasty, suspicious mind might wonder whether Jackson was setting him up, bringing him into direct contact with goods that he admitted to be his – it could make a very tidy arrest and conviction, one that all of Bob’s array of bought interest would be unable to overturn.

“You will have to wait a few minutes, Major Jackson, I am promised to the master of my ship on the hour, must make my final arrangements with him if he is to bring his hull to my wharf tomorrow. What is the time now? Ten of the clock? By half past eleven, Major Jackson, I will be your man. I have no riding horse of my own, could you hire a buggy, do you think, from the livery?”

Jackson trotted off to make the arrangements, not even begging for the monies in advance so anxious as he was to secure Tom’s company.

“Joseph? Do you know where Bob Chawleigh is likely to be this morning?”

“Here, Master Tom, I sent the boy running for him ten minutes since. I been looking out the pistols I gotten hold of as well, Master Tom, thinkin’ you might have a need for such some day. It cold enough for a big frieze coat on, Master Tom, and I bring your belt along from the old Star. Six big hand-guns, Master Tom.”

Chawleigh appeared, listened briefly, swore and left at a run to fetch his horse from the stables he used, was waiting a furlong up the road when the Major drove up, the reins in his own hands, no boy from the livery. Chawleigh was wise in his trade, set off up the street in front of them – no man looked to be followed from in front – the guilty-minded always checked their back trail, very rarely took note of the travellers up the road from them. Joseph accompanied Tom, causing no upset to the Major – a ‘body servant’ made no difference one way or the other, less significant than a pet dog for being unlikely to bite; he assumed that the bag Joseph carried contained a snack and a bottle for the road, never demanded to see inside it.

The buildings of the city, still relatively small and confined to the island, ended abruptly and gave way to the lines of a camp of Hanoverians, garrison troops and little concerned with apparent civilians travelling out; their sentries at the roadside demanded passes of the trickle of traders coming in, but seemed lackadaisical, as if they expected no attack and really cared nothing about smugglers. The area had been cleared of civilians in some past time of greater emergency, houses and small farmsteads that could have covered a besieger burnt down, hedgerows grubbed out – it was waste, barren, empty, flat and offering no concealment for nearly five miles. They came to a scattering of small farms and woodland and Jackson turned off the road onto a track leading to a barn and small, broken-down house, derelict seeming but with a two acre paddock hidden by the trees and now full of wagons. Upwards of eighty men, the drivers and their mates, Tom presumed, were sat in a huddle, guarded by a half a dozen of dismounted dragoons. The troopers’ mounts, a dozen all told, were tied up to rail by the barn; eleven carried carbine buckets, the twelfth, a slightly better looking horse, had a richer saddle, was probably the officer’s charger.

A captain, a young, slender, smartly turned-out gentleman, seemingly very bored, escorted by a big sergeant and four men, walked out of the open barn doors, nodded to Jackson.

“Is this our man, Major Jackson?”

“Yes, Captain Dawson, this is Mr Thomas Andrews.”

Dawson turned to Tom, looked him up and down dismissively - a mere civilian.

“You are owner of the contents of these wagons, Mr Andrews?”

“I am,” Tom replied, jumping down from the buggy and loosening his overcoat.

“Then, Andrews, I arrest you for carrying contraband goods through the blockade and for treasonable dealings with the enemy. Carry on, sergeant.”

The captain half-turned away, distancing himself from the trash he had to deal with, wholly un-alert. Tom killed the sergeant first, expecting him to be the more dangerous man; Dawson screamed once but made no attempt to fight – he probably did not know how to. Joseph pulled the old horse pistols from his bag and shot at the four troopers, clustered together; Tom finished the job and watched as the wagon drivers swarmed their guards under. The drivers were civilians employed by the Commissary but were subject to military discipline; Dawson had made the error of informing them that they were a bunch of traitors and could expect five hundred lashes apiece at minimum and they were taking their own measures to avert that crippling punishment.

A rattle of hooves behind him alerted Tom to the presence of Chawleigh; he glanced up as he reloaded.

“Can we lose the bodies and the horses, Bob?”

“Provided the boy had made no written report of where he expected to be today, yes. If he’s under orders from his colonel, or if he’s working with other patrols, probably not.” Chawleigh turned to Major Jackson, sat unmoving, open-mouthed, horrified, having made no attempt to draw pistol or sword. “Well, Major Jackson? Was your friend on his own, or was he under orders, sir?”

“He was not my friend, Bob, not at all. He forced me to do it! He said he was sure my wagons were carrying contraband, would have them searched officially and would see me broken. He said he would arrest Mr Andrews and have him shot when he resisted being taken up or ‘attempting to escape’, afterwards, and then he would make a big fuss of the wagons full of smuggled goods, bringing himself to the attention of his seniors, while I sold off everything in the warehouse and shared it with him. I had to do it, Bob, had no choice.”

“I’m sure you are right, Major Jackson.” Chawleigh’s voice was deeply sympathetic, understanding of the poor man’s problems; Tom caught Joseph’s eye; they winced in unison and turned away as he spoke again.

“So, Major Jackson, did Dawson say there was anyone else in this with him?”

“No, not at all, I’m sure there is not – I met him at the Club and he spoke to me there twice, and he said nothing of anyone else. I know he is somewhat embarrassed for funds and I am certain he would not have wished to share with another, it was all his idea, though I am not sure how he knew about me.”

“I expect it was because you told him, Major Jackson, you conniving little shit!”

Jackson looked quite indignant for the second or so before Chawleigh shot him.

“I have never been able to tolerate dishonesty, Mr Andrews – men such as he bring out the Old Adam in me, I fear.”

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They buried the bodies below the floor of the barn, the military saddles with them, then set to pulling dry timber out of the woods; with eighty men working busily it took very little time to half-fill the old building and then set it afire, hopefully concealing all traces of their activities for the immediate future. A dozen of the wagoners tied a riding horse behind them, a not uncommon practice, and they set off into New York, offloading before darkness fell.

“Jackson had a daughter, I believe, Tom?”

“Hell, yes! What do we do with her, Bob? Her father’s dead but I’ll be damned if I kill a young girl out of hand just for being inconvenient.”

“Move her into your place, Tom. Your Jenny can look after her, keep her safe, I don’t know how old she is, until you can put her on a ship back to England. You can’t leave a young girl on her own in this town.”

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Miss Amelia Jackson was sixteen years of age, sheltered, uncertain of herself, alone; told that her father had had to ‘go away’ and that she must stay temporarily at the home of one of his acquaintances until she could be sent back to England, she nodded and set about packing with the aid of the single female servant of the household, a combination of nurse, housekeeper and general factotum.

“Have you been long with the Jackson family? What is your name?”

“Bennet, sir.” She curtsied, nervously, having no wish to be cast off in New York after twenty years in service. “I did come as nursery maid to the mistress before Master George was born, sir, and stayed with Miss after they died, sir.”

There was room in the quarters for more staff and a maid would be useful, and would make life easier when it came to putting the young girl aboard ship.

“Pack your own traps, Bennet. I would wish you to stay with Miss Amelia until we can arrange for her to go to England. Do you know of any family the Major has in England? Could I send to them to take her?”

“Sir George would give her houseroom, sir, in Huntingdonshire.”

“Good. A letter will take six months, I exp